INTERVIEW: SIOUX BRADSHAW

I fell in love with illustrator Sioux Bradshaw's little books about art (a bargain at £3 each) and cartoon strips while browsing in the bookartbookshop in Hoxton, as they made me laugh out loud. Sioux started producing these tiny books on artists and life 5 years ago, while she was studying for her degree in Illustration and was so aggrieved that art students had to write a dissertation, she decided to illustrate it with cartoon strips about fine art appropriation. These were later published by Private Eye and she has since gone on to become Private Eye's literary psychologist (although I'm not quite sure what that is). She says about her work: 'I do whatever pops into my head – mostly it’s been art, sex and cats'... Sounds like a winning combination to me.


What are you working on? 
I’m getting work ready for an exhibition at the bookartbookshop, on February 18, it’s a series of monoprints called ‘Postcards from the M25’. It’s thoughts I’ve had on the motorway (I can’t actually drive).

What attracted you to self-publishing?
I’ve always wanted to write a novel but am by nature lazy, so was really happy when I was shown how to make a 8 page fold book, even I can do 8 pages.

What was your proudest moment? 
After I graduated I made a book called ‘Where’s My Dictator’ to send to art directors. I got a two page review in the New Statesman by the editor David Gibbons, and Noam Cholmsky said it was ‘sadly relevant’ – I was just trying to get illustration work.

What or who has been your biggest influence?
I think walking into the bookartbookshop; for me it was like walking into my ideal living room. Both Tanya and Kelly (who run the bookartbookshop) have been enormously supportive, have never found me strange and often give me cake.

What inspires you?
Fecundity, I like people who can’t help creating, I’m not actually very concerned about quality, I like the abundant overspill of creativity.

What was the last thing you saw that made you go wow?          
‘Fela’ at the National, was extraordinary, heart racing, provoking and distressing.

What makes you happy?  
People often don’t like squirrels or pigeons but I like seeing urban animals succeed –  I like to watch them act cocky and pull girls.

What’s the best advice someone’s ever given you?
The cartoonist Martin Rowson told me ‘It’s s’posed to be fun’ so if I’m ever complaining I remember that.

What advice would you give to someone who is starting out?
Begin!

What’s next?
I’ve written a teen novel and am illustrating it at the moment.

INTERVIEW: SARA BERMAN

British fashion designer Sara Berman founded her label in 1998, while she was still studying at Central St Martins Art College! Since then her business has grown rapidly, and is now stocked in leading stores around the world – including Urban Outfitters in London, where I fell in love with an amazing red coat that she had designed. Fashion is definitely in her blood, as both her mother (who advises) and sister Amiee (who joined the brand in 2003) are fashion designers – so the label is a real family affair.

Famed for taking traditional British tailoring and giving it a contemporary punky twist, Sara has recently collaborated with the artist Dan Baldwin to create a range of vivid printed fabrics, which feature themes of life, death and childhood innocence. She uses these fabrics as hidden linings on Harris Tweed coats or on classic cocktail dresses – the idea being that if the clothes we wear tell a story, it might as well be an interesting and surprising one. Sara is also committed to supporting British craft and industry and as much as possible her clothes are manufactured in the UK using British yarns and materials. Hooray!


What are you currently working on?
Currently we are putting the finishing touches to AW11 and I am also working on a Japanese consultancy project.

What attracted you to fashion designing?
Actually my mother is a fashion designer so I grew up with it very much as a part of my life and swore I would have nothing to do with it myself! I sort of fell into it through sheer bloody mindedness when choosing my degree out of my foundation course.... The fashion course at Central St Martins just seemed so much fun that I couldn't resist the ride!

What’s your current favorite item of clothing? 
A stunning silk scarf I bought on a recent trip to India. The colours are so rich and the silk is surprisingly warm and it brings me joy to wear it in chilly London-evoking memories of India.

What has been your career path? 
Pretty dogmatic. I worked exceptionally hard at school and college and dived straight in before even graduating. I always and just pursued my ambitions with little room for deviation. Possibly not the best approach as blinkers block the view. That said I have much luck and opportunity offered to me and having a mother in the business most certainly made things possible which otherwise would not have been. Partly my appreciation of that luck has driven me not to waste the opportunity.

What has been your proudest moment? 
For my work I have a moment frozen in my mind – I am standing in the bar at the top of a terribly smart hotel in Tokyo looking out at the view. All the red lights twinkling below me and the feeling of immense satisfaction and pride that my own hard work had taken me to that place – a million miles from home and in all its strangeness, familiarity and magnificence. I felt so grateful for that feeling that I consciously locked it in my mind.
But overall my proudest moments would be the births of my children.

What or who has been your biggest influence?
My mother. For better and worse.

What or who inspires you?
Travelling.

What makes you happy?
My children and painting.

What's the best advice someone has ever given you? 
Life is a game of inches.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting out as a designer?
Be in it for the right reasons. Don't view your life through other peoples eyes.

What's next?
Who knows. Man plans God laughs.

All the clothes featured here are currently on sale at www.saraberman.com

INTERVIEW: CAITLIN JENKINS

  I first met Caitlin Jenkins over 15 years ago in Cardiff where we were both studying for our Ceramics degrees. It was immediately clear that she was a cut above the rest of us. Throwing pots is not easy, and while most of us on the course struggled to make an ashtray, Caitlin was gracefully turning out the most beautiful pots, making it look effortless, and we were all in awe of her talent. We weren't surprised, then, to find out that Caitlin was an eighth generation potter and her family had been running Ewenny Pottery, famous for it's distinctive blue and brown mottled glaze, since the 17th century.

She is one of the most creative people I know, and since our days in Cardiff Art College she has gone on to get an MA from the Royal College of Art, with her work now in many public collections around the country. Having taken over running the pottery full-time from her father, not only does she continue to throw the traditional tableware Ewenny is famous for, she also finds time to make the most amazing (and huge) sculptural pots, decorated with delicately coloured slips (liquid clay) which she draws or mono-prints onto and are inspired by the stunning countryside she lives in.


What are you currently working on?

At the moment I am working on a couple of commissions both very different in look and feel. A newly married couple have commissioned me to make a dinner service inspired by Ewenny’s traditional slip ware decoration ‘sgraffitto’. And I am making some custom-made creamy-white cawl bowls and jugs for an internet company which sells contemporary Welsh crafts.

What attracted you to ceramics?
My family have been making pottery for hundreds of years; I loved art and making things whilst growing up so it just seemed natural for me to become a potter.

What has been your career path?
I was taught to throw by my father and spent most of my childhood practising the craft in the pottery along-side him. I studied Ceramics at Cardiff College of Art 1995–8 and the Royal College of Art 2001–3. I continue to work at Ewenny Pottery making our traditional ware we sell in our shop and my contemporary work I exhibit across Wales. 


What has been your proudest moment? 

I feel a sense of privilege and pride being the eighth generation potter of the Jenkins family of Ewenny. The Jenkins’s married into a pottery family called the Morgan’s and folklore tells us they had been making pots in our pottery since 1610. This means our family have been potting in the same pottery for 400 years in 2010. I am honoured to be continuing the family craft.
I had lots of things planned to celebrate the 400th anniversary, which included the making of some commemorative pots, but family history got in the way and I gave birth to twin boys in early July!

What or who has been your biggest influence?
My biggest influence has to be my father he has taught me my craft, how to run our business and how not to run our business!

What is the last thing you saw that made you go wow? 

I saw Ai Weiwei vast sculpture ‘Sunflower Seeds’ featured on the Culture Show a few months back and I was awestruck.

What makes you happy?
Creativity.

What's the best advice someone has ever given you?

'Keep two legs in one stocking' said my Grandmother.  I didn’t listen and have ended up with twins!

What advice would you give someone who is just starting out as a designer or maker?

Work hard, listen to your heart but make sure you can make a few things that are affordable.

What's next?
I would like to throw some large and voluminous pans; I am often inspired by old utilitarian objects.  The plan is to enter them into this year’s National Eisteddfod Art and Craft Competition but the closing date is 14th February so I better get my wheel into gear!

INTERVIEW: SPENCER MURPHY

Spencer Murphy is one of those talented photographers equally adept at shooting landscapes as portraiture. Having moved from deepest darkest Kent to London, he now combines working on his personal projects - photographing people on the fringes of society or epic landscapes - with commissions from magazines including The Guardian Weekend, Monocle, Wired, Rolling Stone Magazine, GQ and Dazed & Confused. Whether he is shooting people or places, his beautifully lit photographs always seem to capture a sense of stillness and melancholy.

Spencer has exhibited throughout Europe and North America, and was named as one of the Hyeres Festival’s emerging photographers of 2008. He has been included in the National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Prize (now Taylor Wessing) exhibitions in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 and five of his photos (including the above picture of Peter Crouch) have been acquired by the NPG for their permanent collection.

What are you currently working on?
I’ve got a couple of projects on the go at the moment. The main and longest running one is The Outsider about people and groups that live on the peripheries of British society (but not restricted to the UK). I’m not aiming to say 'look at these freaks' but to try and show an empathy with the subjects and show how similar we all are.
The other long running project is The Abyss Stares Back. This is more landscape based project about man’s relationship with nature. The pictures often show a human figure lost within a vast landscape looking out in contemplation. It is rooted largely in Romanticism and the idea of nature as a church and man’s fragility within it yet his need to dominate and be the ruling force.

What attracted you to photography?
I’d struggle to pin that on one defining moment or influence. I grew up in a very remote part of the English countryside with my imagination and the surrounding woodland and farmland for company. My Mother was a keen amateur photographer and she gave me my first hand-me-down SLR when she recognized my enthusiasm for image making at the age of eleven. I remember vividly the discovery of her old back issues of Life magazine with pictures of Woodstock and old Malboro advertisements, and the window it allowed me into this other world and time.
I think I would have always done something creative but photography seemed to resonate the most with me.

What has been your career path?
I firstly studied Design for 2 years then I went on to do a degree in photography at Falmouth College of Arts in Cornwall. I graduated in 2002, after which I moved to London and assisted Advertising and Fine Art Photographers for about 4 years, all the while pursuing my own projects. After that I went out on my own and I’ve just been slowly trying to build on my own projects and commercial work ever since.

What has been your proudest moment?
It’s hard to say really, I think I probably felt more excited and proud earlier on in my career when something went my way, so perhaps getting my degree and being awarded a bursary at the same time. I think my greatest achievement to date however is being included in the National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Prize (now Taylor Wessing) 4 times in total and 3 years concurrently, that and being accepted into their permanent collection.

What or who has been your biggest influence?
Again it’s difficult to pin that on just one single thing. Family and friends, going to the National Gallery as a child with my Mum, and film is a huge influence on the way I think about picture making.
There’s no one person or event that influenced me so greatly that I can say 'yes, that’s definitely why I make the pictures I do'. I’m inspired daily by people, things and events and it all feeds me creatively.

What or who inspires you? 
Most recently:
Film: Animal Kingdom
Music: Hiatus
Book: The Road

What is the last thing you saw that made you go wow?
Today about 20 buzzards picking at a dead armadillo in the road.

What makes you happy?
Being out in nature.

What's the best advice someone has ever given you?
I don’t really respond well to advice. Probably a bad thing to admit but I think if someone tells me I can’t do something then I’d be more likely to go out of my way to try and do it.
There is a poster by Anthony Burrill that really resonates with me though, it just says 'Work hard and be Nice To People'

What advice would you give someone who is just starting out as a photographer?
'Work Hard And Be Nice To People'

What's next?
Who knows, hopefully lots more pictures.

You can currently see one of Spencer's portraits in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, until 20 February.

INTERVIEW: JENNIE SAVAGE

Top: Jennie at work! (photo: Bryony Dawkes); above: installation shot of the sound piece A Walk from A–Z, which you can listen to here.


Jennie Savage is a conceptual artist who creates site-specific installations, public events, interventions and audio or video pieces that explore the place between public spaces, town planning, constructed landscapes and the personal narratives connected to those sites. Often employing a process that uses archiving and intervention. she seeks to map the other life of a place or community in order to reveal a complex situation, a micro- structure or simply an unheard voice. She has published two books: Depending on Time in 2009 and STAR: A Psycho topography of Place in 2006, and has had major exhibitions in the UK, Mexico, Australia, Morroco and Canada.


What are you currently working on?
I have just finished making an animated film in collaboration with James Tyson and am now preparing for an exhibition which opens in February 2011. The show is called 'Fables From A New World' and through it I am trying to explore the narratives that we have inherited from the birth of modernism and deconstruct how these narratives frame our world. I am particularly interested in the way that science over wrote religion but in many ways we imbue it with the same power.... this is what is says in the press release: 'to explore the undercurrents and issues beneath the surface of Victorian Britain during a time when we were becoming modern: science as a belief system, the museum as an institution, the decline of oral culture, the industrial revolution, the beginnings of rationalisation, the birth of consumerism - all in the shadow of Darwin, uncertainty and anxiety. Through object, text, audio and moving image we are invited to question our perception and understanding of the world and the stories we have inherited.'

I am making this project as part of the Art Share scheme at the National Museum Wales and Oriel Davis, a lovely gallery in Newtown Powys. The premise of the collaboration is to use the museums collection and so the exhibition is based on the work of artist and collector TH Thomas.
 
What attracted you to becoming an artist? 
I don't know really. I have always been quite a passionate person and care deeply about certain issues. I think I found being an artist the most freeing way to persue my interests and work across disciplines, collaborating with other people and making things happen that I care about and feel that I can maybe shed a different light on. Many of my projects are socially proactive and I am primarily working site-specifically. I am exploring the root causes of who we are today and how we have become who we are in relation to the actual realities of our day-to-day lives.

What has been your career path? 
After I finished my MA I had various part-time jobs and carried on making work. Gradually the projects built up until I was able to go full-time as an artist – although I still teach at a few art colleges, which I really enjoy.

What has been your proudest moment? 
The whole STAR Radio project was absolutely amazing from a personal point of view and I still look back and wonder how it all happened. I was really proud of the energy that the project created and the number of people who took ownership over it and got involved – I think be the end we had had about 500 people through the doors doing something.

What or who has been your biggest influence? What or who inspires you? 
I am most inspired by litrature, novels, books and always have something on the go. Although I enjoy seeing art it almost feels to close to be inspiring. Whereas a good book, whether it is a novel, theory or more specific interest I always feel excited to feel that I am learning more.

What's the best advice someone has ever given you? 
If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well. (my mum)

What advice would you give someone who is just starting out as an artist?
Be ambitious and proactive and don't wait to be chosen. I think being an artist can be really dis-empowering in some respects as you are always waiting for somebody to notice what you are doing. Don't. Do your own thing, work with friends and make your own thing happen.....If you have a huge idea, try to realise it...it might take years but at least you will feel empowered. Do stuff for free to a point... but also when you have a bit of experience, expect to be paid. If you are contributing something to the 'cultural economy' why should you work for free? Value what you do!

The exhibition Fables from a New World: The Life and Times of TH Thomas as Imagined by Jennie Savage will run from 5 February to 6 April 2011 at Oriel Davies, Newton Powys.

INTERVIEW: RUTH TOMLINSON

Ruth Tomlinson is a talented London-based designer, who creates beautiful and intricate pieces, by combining antique beads and pearls with diamonds, gold and silver. Although Ruth uses precious metals and gems, each piece is playful and inventive and her work always feels fresh and current. 2011 looks like a busy year, with upcoming partnerships with Astley Clarke and Anthropologie, as well as the launch of a high end diamond collection – no wonder Scarlett Johansson and Maggie Gyllenhall are among her many fans!

What are you currently working on?

At the moment I am working on expanding my diamond collection which uses natural, unearthed forms with old and new cut diamonds. It began as a collection of rings but is now growing to include a range of necklaces and earrings. 

What attracted you to making jewellery? 

I was attracted to the ideas of the sentiment, history and narratives we attach to objects. I am interested in the preciousness of materials and their implied desirability. I like to explore the tiny intricacies in the world around me and explore these minute details within my jewellery.

What has been your career path? 

I began selling jewellery when I was 14, at local stores (including my dad’s pharmacy) in Morecombe, Lancashire.  After school I went on to do an art foundation course, followed by my BA in Manchester and then my MA at the Royal College of Art.  I started my business while I was studying and it has been growing steadily ever since.

What has been your proudest moment? 

Having Dorothy Hogg (MBE) describe my work as ‘an influence on this generation of jewellers’.

What or who has been your biggest influence? 

My upbringing by the sea, and the magic of the nature in the Lake District had a huge influence on me. I am influenced by the places I travel to and the discoveries I make exploring the world and all its wonders. I am also greatly influenced by the creativity and support of my family.

What or who inspires you? 

I draw inspiration from a variety of sources, from Rococo prints and ceramics, to the Tudor portraits in the National Portrait Gallery. I also find inspiration in lifecycles and changes in nature, in transience from birth to decay. I am interested in archaeological finds, whether contemporary or historical, natural or industrial. I tend to respond to my immediate environment and am open to spontaneous finds and observations. 

What is the last thing you saw that made you go wow? 

The pure driven snow covering the park with the amazing light you get when the snow is surrounding you, and the icy chill you get on your cheeks.

What makes you happy? 

The wide open ocean and the peace of nature make me happy. I also get a lot of enjoyment out of museums, in particular the jewellery room at the V&A, the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford which is full of curiosities from all over the world. 

What's the best advice someone has ever given you? 

‘Make jewellery if you want to make a living, not ceramics.’ From a ceramic artist I was working for when I was 20.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting out as a designer or maker? 

Follow your heart and your passion and not the design world. Be a trend setter, not a follower.

What's next?

I’ll be making a new collection of work for Collect, at the Saatchi Gallery next May. One of the pieces will be an encrusted vessel using a beautiful antique engraved shell I found at a flea market in Paris. I will also be creating a set of new work for Electrum Gallery.

You can see more of Ruth's work at the Dazzle exhibition at the National Theatre and the Electrum Gallery on South Molten Street, W1 – both until 8 January.