#AAA (Ask an artist anything)

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Honestly, it’s comparison. I truly believe art is created from your soul – and that’s a language that is uniquely your own. That’s why art resonates with some and not others. If you waste your time comparing yourself to others, you’ll never be happy with anything you create. 

On that note, allow yourself to make mistakes – you’ll learn from them. If I create something I’m not happy with, I can use elements of it in other works or save it for later. Ironically, it’s one of life’s toughest lessons – you must go through a process to realise that failure is a key element of success. 

Ben Templesmith. He’s an incredible comic book artist who I have been fortunate enough to meet at a convention. Lovely, lovely dude and his art style redefined creativity for me – nothing about his work is traditionally ‘comic book’ and it’s beautiful. 

I’d love to sit down with author Chuck Palahniuk too. 

 Good question, I’m not sure if it annoys me but I think everything is about cycles – life, death, fashion, art. Everything comes back on itself and I see the recurring theme of death in my poetry, sometimes as a metaphor, sometimes the reality of death, decay and decomposition. I’m so inspired by abandoned places, old billboards, anything decaying from the pre-digital age. Junk Laboratory evolved from the second life of magazines, adverts, print. Everything comes back around. 

Again, mental health is a cycle – we’re not happy all the time, we’re (hopefully) not depressed all the time. Nothing is permanent. If I’m experiencing a depressive episode, I may not feel up to creating, however I try and record my thoughts in my phone to revisit later. (Rotting Bodies, 2022) came from the desire to just lie down on the grass and let the world continue around me. Depression can feel like you’re static and everything else is speeding on by. It’s not so much a desire to end as to just rot. Let time take its course. 

Anxiety can make me productive as find the creative process my mental safe space and a distraction – usually I just put on a podcast via YouTube and go.  

 When I just sit and go. Try not to overthink it, which is what I do best in life. I can just sit and focus on what is in front of me, not what has happened or the future (or the speculation of…) hopefully at the end, I’ve created something I’m satisfied with. 

 As cliché as it sounds – everywhere. Graffiti, advertising, movies, poetry – even something innocuous as paint water, abandoned places. I’ve always loved old billboards when they’d be peeling and you could see layers and layers of advertising underneath. 

Music allows my mind to create images, I am always making music videos in my head. MTV generation. 

Sometimes little sentences or titles will pop into my head and I’ll write it in my phone, add to it and create a poem, or use it as a starting place. I spend a lot of time trying to explain the complex – thoughts, emotions – art does that for me too. 

Home. Although the outside world gives me inspiration, the best place to create is where you’re comfortable. For me, that’s in a corner in my house, surrounded by chaos. 

 You can create with anything – I love to use adverts for collage because they’re everywhere trying to sell us something; a lifestyle, a dream. I think they need recycling the most. 

Acrylic ink is something I’ve very recently picked up, it’s a great and unpredictable medium – I don’t like to be too refined or specific about where it goes, it creates itself. Using something unpredictable means that it’s unrepeatable and less sanitised. Some people create some beautiful digital art, but I like to see flaws and mistakes in work. 

Ben Templesmith – he redefined everything I ever thought about art. I’m so lucky to have met him and own a commissioned piece – he drew a Deadpool for me at a convention. Ben’s technique was nothing like I’d ever seen before, I was educated to produce clean, photographic, traditional art. He blew that preconception out of the window. 

Alexander McQueen – he was something else. Fashion is entirely an artform in itself and there was something so raw and yet so fantastical about his collections, art isn’t just a static media. There hasn’t been anyone like McQueen in the fashion or art world. I think fashion, as a cyclical thing, is the industry that draws so many comparisons, but there’s never going to be a ‘new/next Alexander McQueen’ his death was an unspeakable tragedy and such a loss to the creative world. 

There are so many unrecognised artists in the world, although we have more and more methods to share art with the world, as always, privilege and money speak volumes. There are numerous artists out there I love and there’s no limit on who can create, or how much (or how little!)