What Building an Art Business With My Mum Taught Me About Breaking Boundaries

It’s often said that you shouldn’t work with family. But for me, working with my mum has been one of the most natural and rewarding collaborations of my life.

My mum, Natasha, is the founder of The Lemon Seed Project and Until Lemons R Sweet, an interior designer, diversity and inclusion consultant, and a woman who wears many, many hats (not just figuratively). Watching her build things from nothing was normal to me. The house people see today, the one that now hosts shoots, exhibitions and creative work didn’t just appear overnight. It’s the result of more than twenty years of work, creativity and persistence.

My mum has always been someone who quietly builds worlds.

Long before The Lemon Seed Project, she had already built her own diversity and inclusion consultancy. She had already transformed our home into a location house. She had already created a brand around the way she sees space, creativity and culture, all while being an incredible mother. Seeing that shaped my own sense of what was possible. It made me believe that creating something of your own life was not just a possibility but could become a reality.

That belief is the reason I started my first marketing business.

And years later, it’s also the reason I ended up working alongside her.

But the truth is, our story of building something together started long before the Lemon Seed Project existed.

For a long time I balanced working with her alongside other clients. Eventually I moved into the legal tech world and focused on marketing there. But after a difficult experience, when I was in a really uncertain place, she said something simple that changed everything.

“Why don’t you just work with me?”

That moment quietly shifted my entire career.

For most of my career before , I’ve built things behind the scenes. I’ve worked in startups. I’ve worked in marketing. I’ve worked with businesses from the ground up. Some of them did incredibly well. Some of them didn’t. But the one thing they all had in common was this: if I left tomorrow, the story would keep going without me.

And realistically, the founders probably wouldn’t speak to me again.

That’s the nature of building things for other people.

So when my mum said those words, there was finally something to strive for.

Not long after, the idea that would eventually become The Lemon Seed Project began to take shape, but it didn’t start as some grand business plan. It started with a very simple idea.

My mum had already been part of open house. During one of them, artist Stephen Anthony Davids mentioned that he needed to clear space in his studio and sell some work. My mum suggested something simple: why not use the open house to invite collectors and sell the pieces directly from the house?

Alongside fellow artist Donald Baugh, they did exactly that.

It worked.

Artwork sold, people connected with the concept immediately, and something clicked for both of us. When people heard about it, the reaction was almost always the same.

“That makes so much sense.”

That’s when we realised we might be onto something bigger.

Later that year, my mum and I started talking about the idea more seriously. What if this wasn’t just a one-off moment? What if there was actually a space for something like this, a space that allowed Black artists to show work in a more personal environment outside of traditional institutions? What if art could return to the home, a place where people can actually imagine living with it? We already knew how the art world can be incredibly gatekept, particularly for Black artists, so as the avid collector and art lover she is, what if she could do something about it?

By the following March, that conversation became real when we hosted our first official exhibition under The Lemon Seed Project, featuring artist Yvadney Davis.

And we haven’t looked back ever since. But beyond its mission, for me personally, the project has also given something deeper: purpose.

I’ve always been someone who experiences anxiety and who thinks a lot about meaning and direction. Working on something that genuinely matters, something that supports artists and challenges the way art is traditionally shown gives me a sense of grounding.

It’s something I feel proud of.

In many ways, my role is still the one I’ve always had. I work on the operations, the marketing, the strategy and the vision behind the scenes. My mum is naturally the person people connect with first.

And I’m completely comfortable with that. Because to me this isn’t just another company. This is something we are building together.

I also think the trust that exists between a mother and daughter creates a different kind of partnership. We understand each other instinctively. My mum even knows when something is wrong just by whether or not I send an “x” at the end of a text message.

That level of understanding is hard to replicate anywhere else.

Looking ahead, I don’t just want the Lemon Seed Project to succeed, I want it to grow into something transformative. I want us to be known for helping Black artists across the diaspora reach new audiences, build relationships with collectors, and step into larger platforms.

I want the concept of the home gallery to expand into new spaces, new houses and new exhibitions.

But more than anything, I want the artists we work with to go on and do incredible things.

This Mother’s Day, I’m not just celebrating my mum as a parent.

I’m celebrating her as a builder of worlds.

And I feel incredibly lucky that one of those worlds is something we’re creating together.