Unlocking Creativity with Les Jones

Les Jones is a designer, street photographer, writer, artist, speaker and publisher. He is the founder of one-man, creative magazine, Elsie, and the international art publication, Contemporary Collage Magazine. As one client once put it...'Les doesn't just think outside the box, he lives outside the box'. 

What if two days in a collage class could reshape a creative life? We sit with Les Jones to explore how a spark in lockdown became Contemporary Collage Magazine, a global artist network, and the first UK contemporary collage conference. Les contrasts the intimate, playful side of Elsie magazine which reached The Museum of Modern Art and the New York Library Journal with the rigor of building a commercial publication that now connects hundreds of artists across continents.

The stories are irresistible. A typed letter from Tom Hanks about lost gloves leads to a handwritten interview. An afternoon hunt for street posters ends with a single scrap of paper printed with “Les,” a wink from the universe to keep going. A lifelong admiration for Sir Peter Blake turns into an in-person interview and an original collage made just for Les. Threaded through it all is a simple rule with big consequences: when you do stuff, other stuff happens.

We go deep on the mindset that keeps the work alive. Les shares how to make for yourself first, why comparison drains joy, and how to find creative flow through tactile making. He offers practical tools for blocks and three street photography principles that scale to any craft: be receptive, be bold, and don’t be afraid to ask. If you’ve ever felt “not an artist,” this conversation hands you permission and a plan.

Please connect with Les using the links below:

Email: hello@contemporarycollagemagazine.com

https://www.contemporarycollagemagazine.com/

@lesjonescollage

@contemporarycollagemagazine

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Chapters

• 0:06 Meet Les Jones And His World
• 2:00 Family, Origins, And Creative Roots
• 5:15 Launching A Collage Conference Vision
• 8:38 Elsie vs Contemporary Collage: Two Paths
• 12:55 The Lockdown Spark And Daily COVID Collages
• 16:40 Building A Global Magazine From Scratch
• 20:30 Creativity In Crisis And Education’s Blind Spot
• 24:05 Proactive Making And The Power Of Practice
• 27:10 MoMA, NY Library Journal, And Tom Hanks
• 33:10 Say Yes First: Serendipity And Momentum
• 37:05 Mindfulness Through Making And Flow
• 41:10 Brain Hacks For Blocks And Random Prompts
• 45:12 The Stoke Serendipity: A Name On The Pavement
• 48:00 Sticker Stories: One Photo, 36,000 Miles
• 52:05 Street Photography: Receptive, Bold, Ask
• 56:00 Drop Comparison And Find Your Voice
• 1:00:00 Advice, Next Steps, And How To Connect

Transcript

Steph: 0:06

Hello, welcome back to Tranquil Topics. I'm your host, Steph, and today I'm joined by Les Jones. Les Jones is a designer, street photographer, writer, artist, speaker, and publisher of two standout magazines, Elsie Magazine and Contemporary Collage Magazine. He's also a creative director working with companies to bring bold ideas to life. Les is a proud Welshman and a passionate advocate for creativity in all of its forms. And he believes that everyone has creative potential and we just need to tap into it. I'm so excited to have him on the podcast today. Les welcome.

Les: 0:43

Thank you, Steph. It's lovely to be with you. Thank you.

Steph: 0:46

Honestly, I'm so excited for this conversation. I've been buzzing all morning. So just a little insight for the listeners. We met in Portugal on Practice Plan weekend, which I have spoken about previously on the podcast. It was a fantastic weekend. And I had the opportunity to speak to Les on the way back to the airport, mainly wasn't it? And I chewed his ear off, and I thought I'll have to get him on the podcast. So thank you so much for being here. Um, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do, Les?

Les: 1:29

Yeah, well, that could take the hour. So um, so I kind of I flip between a few things. Uh so I work uh as a creative director. Uh and uh as you mentioned, I do that predominantly with uh Practice Plan in the dental sector, and I help Practice Plan with its uh strategies, its marketing, branding, uh, all that kind of stuff. Work with a brilliant team uh uh at Practice Plan. Uh but outside of that, I uh I have another business and I publish uh a magazine called Contemporary Collage Magazine. And I'm sure we'll get into how that kind of came about uh as we go through the conversation. But so yeah, so I publish that magazine. I have a very small company uh and I employ two of my four children in that in that company. Molly, who's a designer, uh, works on the magazine with me, and Wilf, my son, uh does all the kind of the operational side of things. So I have this kind of dual life, if you like, of of working within a kind of a commercial environment uh as a creative director and then publishing the magazine and everything that that entails, it's not just the magazine, we do events and workshops and all other kind of stuff like that uh uh outside of Practice Plan. Um and yeah, that that's you know, I kind of do loads of stuff in my spare time. So I work as as you as you mentioned as an artist, I do my own art, do lots of street photography. I love to kind of get out with my camera, walk around some big cities and always fascinated to see what's around the next corner and what scene might kind of present itself to me. So uh I I kind of I kind of try to keep myself creative pretty much full time if I can.

Steph: 3:19

Yeah, I love the fact that you have a family business side to it as well. I think that's lovely.

Les: 3:25

It's it kind of it has its pros and its cons, you know. I mean it's great to kind of work with with two of my my children. Um but let's just say that kind of working for dad allows them to take a few more liberties than they might do with uh someone who wasn't their dad.

Steph: 3:42

I see, I see. So creativity runs in your family then, does it?

Les: 3:47

Well, it kind of does, uh it kind of does, I think. Well, certainly for for Molly, who's uh you know, kind of professional designer. Um actually my other children uh kind of don't work in the creative uh uh arena. Uh one of my other daughters is a an occupational therapist. One of my other sons is uh my other son is a hairdresser, uh a barber. Uh and uh and Wilf kind of yes, does the creative stuff but kind of uh uh also gets involved in the operational side of the business. But yeah, um I it kind of goes back to me and my wife met at art college.

Steph: 4:26

Did you?

Les: 4:26

Yeah, we did, yeah, kind of 45 years ago. Um we met in the first week of our college degree, and we were both doing art degrees, and uh and we celebrate our 40th anniversary in September.

Steph: 4:44

Oh my goodness, Les, congratulations, that's so nice. I love I love hearing stories of how people meet. I love it.

Les: 4:54

Yeah, it's it's uh I don't know where 45 years has gone to be honest, but um but interestingly, we we uh with the magazine we're running uh or hosting the very first UK uh contemporary collage conference uh in Stoke on Trent in September. An international conference got some amazing uh collage artists who are speaking, and it's being held at the film theatre in uh at the the University of Staffordshire, uh which is fantastic because that's where uh me and my wife had our very first date. So the event the event is kind of taking us back 45 years to when we had our first date sat in the film theatre in in the University of Staffordshire, and we're running our own event there uh in September, so full circle.

Steph: 5:45

Amazing! Is that a ticketed event then?

Les: 5:48

Yes, it is, yes, yeah. We I've with a magazine I've always had this kind of bigger vision, if you like, of using the magazine as a as a uh a foundation or a springboard to kind of do other things uh around collage art. And one of the things that's always been uh on my radar to do is to actually host a kind of a live event. Um so I finally got around to it, and we we've got this all-day conference all about collage art on the 19th of September and have uh an agenda of uh six or seven really interesting leading collage artists who are going to talk about their art but also their practice from different perspectives as well. And my kind of my bigger vision is to turn it into a a kind of a week-long festival every year in the city. Um my kind of inspiration, if you like, is uh the Hay-on-Wye literary festival. Um I don't know if you you've heard about that, but Hay-on-Wye, which is kind of a little uh a little town in Herefordshire, is uh renowned for its number of bookshops. It's always had the kind of like uh concentration of bookshops. And about 20, 25 years ago, they started to have this literary festival and have a week-long series of events and talks by authors and stuff like that. And they've had some amazing speakers, including you know, US presidents who've been there and spoken at the uh at the event. And from that little town and that kind of idea has grown this international festival that celebrates everything about literature. And I've kind of looked at that and I think, well, why can't I do that with collage art? I could do something similar within Stoke on Trent that would, you know, uh other than the what it's already on the map for in terms of the ceramic industry and stuff like that, help to, you know, bring more culture to the city uh and you know bring international artists into the city. So this year is the kind of the template, the it's the kind of the the experiment, uh we'll see how it goes, and I'm sure it will go well, and then next year we're gonna kind of get a little bit more ambitious about what we do with it. So, yeah. Never a dull one.

Steph: 8:14

Yeah. So can we talk about your magazines?

Les: 8:19

Yes, of course.

Steph: 8:20

Um I have some here actually. So Contemporary Collage magazine.

Les: 8:25

Yes.

Steph: 8:26

And your Elsie magazine.

Les: 8:28

Elsie magazine, yes.

Steph: 8:30

So the Elsie magazine, would you mind talking about how it's evolved since you published it in 2011?

Les: 8:38

Yes. So the the two magazines are very, very different, um, not just in terms of their content, but also in terms of their their kind of basis, if you like. So Elsie magazine is a uh kind of a labor of love. It's a personal project. So back in 2011, when uh when you mentioned I launched the first issue of it, I was doing lots and lots of personal work. I was you know doing street photography, I was doing bits of art and design, I was uh doing other little kind of slightly wacky projects. Um and I started thinking about well, what am I gonna do with this work? What you know, I've got all this stuff I'm I'm accumulating, what am I going to do with it? And then I had the idea of creating a magazine. The magazine seemed to me to be a perfect receptacle, if you like, that says I can put all in into this one magazine and create this slightly off-the-wall but creative magazine that is very much a personal project and kind of put it out there, you know. Uh if people liked it and and kind of got on board with it, great. If they didn't, I would have enjoyed the process anyway and just kind of got it out there. So Elsie magazine has been going since 2011, and it's produced very much on an ad hoc basis. I kind of, you know, when I've accumulated enough stuff, uh I kind of put an uh an issue of it together and I and I put it out. And it's been amazing. It's kind of uh it's given me a reason to do things, to be creative. It's been a passport. I always think that when you produce something like a magazine, it's a passport into places and into people that you would never normally meet.

Steph: 10:37

I love that.

Les: 10:39

And I I used to be a professional photographer, and I always used to say think the same with being a professional photographer, is that I would find myself booked to do photography for certain events or or whatever, and I'd stand in those events and think, you know what, I would never be here if I wasn't a photographer. That's the thing that's got me in to these places. When I was a photographer, I ended up at one point being the official photographer for Wembley Stadium. And you think, you know, and I used to stand on the side of the pitch taking pictures of the cup final and stuff like that, and you think, as a football fan, you know, this is utopia, you know, but I'm only here because I'm a photographer, you know, this kind of has got me in.

Steph: 11:18

Yeah.

Les: 11:18

And and I found that with the magazine, it's it's been a similar thing that if I'm interested in speaking to someone, you know, another artist or designer or whatever, a photographer, if I approach them as the founder of Elsie magazine, just the word magazine seems to kind of get their attention. And uh they seem far more amenable to either meeting up or doing an interview online or whatever it might be.

Steph: 11:47

Yeah.

Les: 11:48

So it's been a wonderful vehicle, if you like, to to take me into places and to allow me to do some some really interesting projects, and we might perhaps get onto one or two of those uh a bit later. Um, that when I think about them, I think they're just amazing things that have happened as a result of doing the magazine. So that's Elsie magazine. It's it's kind of photography, it's design, it's kind of things I find, it's little chance encounters, it's slightly wacky projects that I set for myself, and I put them all into Elsie magazine.

Les: 12:26

And then Contemporary Collage magazine is completely different because it's a business. It's you know far more commercial, it's been set up as a business, and it has to make money because I have you know two children to pay every month and uh overheads and uh you know a studio and everything like that. So it's very much a kind of a commercial business, but it is also a commercial business driven by creativity. Um and that magazine came about uh as a result of lockdown. So for my 60th birthday in 2019, my wife bought me a five-day contemporary collage course down at Central St. Martin's uh in London. And despite the fact that I reached the age of 60, always been within the kind of the creative sector, I'd never done any collage at all. I'd never done any, you know, I'd done bits of digital stuff, Photoshop stuff, but none of that kind of physical analogue cutting and gluing and you know physical collage. But, you know, it was great. My wife bought me this course for for my birthday, so off I went down to to London to do this five-day course. And two days in, unfortunately, they closed the whole university down because COVID had arrived. So I only got to do two of the five days. But just those two days was like lighting a flame. It just ignited something in me. Uh I couldn't believe I kind of got to the age I was and never actually experimented with or or you know used collage in any kind of way. And I could immediately see the possibilities of it and it being slightly different to some of the other creative avenues that I normally work in. So of course I go home and I'm straight into lockdown. You know, we're all kind of sat in our houses. So I thought, well, I've got time on my hands, so I'm gonna do some collage. Um so for the first three or four months of of the lockdown, I actually collaged the pandemic. I bought the newspapers every day and I created a collage of what was happening in the in the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 14:45

Oh wow.

Les: 14:46

So I now have this kind of pile of collages of the first three or four months of of the pandemic, um, which technically are not that good because I was only just getting into it, but nevertheless are really kind of interesting to look back on in terms of what was happening at that time. And so I got more into collage and I started doing other things and kind of experimented with different ways of using collage. And then after a while, I thought to myself, well, I'm gonna buy myself some magazines about contemporary collage and get some inspiration, find out what other artists are doing, and kind of soak it all up because I was that kind of into it. And when I looked, I couldn't find any magazines. Like I found one in America, um, a quarterly magazine in America, which is, you know, okay, but um perhaps not setting the world alight. Absolutely nothing in the whole of Europe, uh, any kind of magazines whatsoever, which I found astounding. You think there's a magazine for everything these days, isn't there?

Speaker 2: 15:52

Yeah, yeah.

Les: 15:53

And but there wasn't anything to do with with collage art. And so I sat and I thought, well, I kind of know how to put a magazine together because I've been doing this Elsie magazine thing. And I just thought, I'm gonna launch a magazine about contemporary collage magazine, because I uh about contemporary collage art, because I think there's there's a gap here that really needs to be filled. Um, so I made that decision. Um, Molly, who was working for Lush at the time as one of their designers down on the South Coast, had just had a baby, wanted to move back up to Staffordshire and be around family a bit more, and was looking for a kind of a change of direction. And I said to her, Well, I'm gonna set this magazine up, Moll. You know, why don't you come and join me and we'll see how it goes? And four years later, we're here, we're still going, the magazine is still buoyant and kind of keeping its head above water, and you know, we've now created this uh international network of subscribers. Um we we started as a digital magazine um monthly because we wanted it to be available to anyone in the world and at a really accessible price. So we started as a digital download magazine and we produced 38 of those monthly, a 200-page magazine every month for 38 months.

Speaker 2: 17:31

Wow.

Les: 17:32

Which was like uh that kind of eventually got to the point where it was literally it was literally killing us, you know, because we were working so hard. But we were also getting lots of requests from people saying we love this magazine, but can we have a printed version of it, please? So last year, uh towards the end of the year, we we kind of grasped the nettle and we decided to make it a quarterly magazine available in print or as a digital download, but the same magazine. Um, and so that's what we've been doing for the last year. So we're literally just about to send the sixth printed edition to Press, and uh and that's kind of where we are, yeah. And it's been, again, like Elsie magazine, an amazing journey. Um, because from a standing start, you know, we now we now have subscribers all over the world, but we've also got connections with artists all over the world as well. We've we you know I've met and I've interviewed either in person or online like this 200, 250 artists who have contributed to the magazine who are doing incredible creative stuff using collage as their medium. Um, you know, people tend tend to think the collage is is quite simple. Oh, that thing I used to do at primary school, you know. But collage, a bit like paint or ceramics or whatever, is just a medium and it's what you do with it that that matters. And people are doing incredible serious art using collage as their medium, and uh, and we are now I think I I think I'll you know the kind of the leading magazine in the world about contemporary collage uh art, which all came about by my wife buying me a course.

Steph: 19:30

But you didn't even get to finish.

Les: 19:32

I didn't even get to finish, no, no. So so there you go. And and and outside the magazine, I you know, I collage every week as well, and I create my own work, and uh and I'm still as passionate about that um as I was when I first started, yeah.

Steph: 19:48

Ah I love it, Les. Do you know what I find quite striking about you is how proactive you are in like you have an idea and then you do something with it. So when you were talking about, I mean, first off, can I just take it back to your COVID collages? Because that's that's like um like a screenshot of history, isn't it?

Les: 20:10

It is, it it's a historical record for sure. Yeah.

Steph: 20:13

Yeah.

Les: 20:14

Um yeah, I would kind of go up to the local shop in our village, you know, with my mask on and uh buy the by the the local uh the new the daily paper and I would then just create something, you know, quite spontaneously about what was happening uh in the pandemic at that particular moment. And what was interesting about about the pandemic um when we think about we're talking about creativity today, it's really interesting as to how many people, and I'm talking millions and millions of people here, when they went into lockdown, turned to creativity, suddenly found the time to do something creative as opposed to that creative potential just getting lost in their day-to-day week and never finding the time to actually sit down. If you went on a if you went on a uh an art supply website a month into lockdown, good luck, because there was nothing there you could buy. Like literally everything was sold out, you know, uh the paper, the paints, the crib, the the crayons, the pencils, the the the everything, the canvases, they were all sold out. Yeah, and that's because people turned to creativity, which I thought was really interesting, you know, um, because creativity, I think, you know, from an early age is way down the list of prior of priority in the education system. You know, we're talking talked about you know English and maths and the sciences and all that kind of stuff, and art and design and drama and music seem to be the kind of poor relation to those other, you know, inadverted commas, more worthy subjects. Yet I'm not sure how many people turn to, you know, now I've got some spare time on my hand, I might do a bit more maths uh during during lockdown. I think I'll just do a few more sums, you know, just to kind of keep me occupied. No, they turned to they turned to creativity, they turned to painting and drawing and music and stuff like that, and you know, online choirs and singing and all those ways of expressing themselves kind of came to the fore during the pandemic, and you know, which just shows how much suppressed latent potential people have from a creative perspective. I'm sorry, I'm not going off piste a little bit now, but I think it's really interesting in terms of what happened during during the pandemic. But yeah, those those collages, um, you know, I haven't looked at them probably for a year or two now, um, but they are a really interesting record, something different. As I say, they're not technically that good in terms of collage because I was I'd literally just started, but they have something of a naivety about them and a freshness about them because I was literally doing them every day that are probably worth revisiting and re-looking at.

Steph: 23:26

Don't you think that's a wonderful thing though, the fact that like when you start something that you do get better as you go along, and you have all these different other ideas that come in. So, again, not only is it like a screenshot of history, it's a screenshot of your journey as well, with your experience with collaging.

Les: 23:46

Yeah. And I I think it's I think once you kind of find something that you feel quite passionate about, you want to soak it all up, don't you? I remember, you know, when I first discovered photography on my degree course, my degree course was a multidisciplinary course, so you tried different things in the first year, you know, be it graphic design or ceramics or illustration, whatever. And I tried photography for a term, and that had the same effect as me as as the collage course. I suddenly thought, wow, I'm really interested in this, but also I seem to be quite good at it quite quickly. It feels as though it's a fit for me for what I'm doing. And as soon as I got into it, you then want to see other people's work and and soak up other photographers and hear about how they approach their subject. And I was the same with Collage. And the magazine has been a wonderful vehicle for me to meet all these amazing artists and get insights into their process, their thinking, their subject matters, all those kind of things. But at the same time, you know, trying to maintain my own individuality. I don't want to, I don't want to copy people, I don't want to just, you know, take what they do and think, well, can I can I replicate that in some way? But I do want to take inspiration from what they do in terms of some of their approaches. And, you know, I can I can look back, I can look at some of the work that I'm doing now and look back to four years ago, and I can 100% see a significant journey of improvement, if you like, that that uh I've been on, but in my head, I'm probably still only 25% down the line to where I'd like to be. Um which you know, far from depressing me, kind of excites me because that that kind of that just shows there's so much more to go, you know. Um so so yeah, it's been really interesting in that respect.

Steph: 25:56

It's like when you read a book, I really like the idea of that you are in somebody else's mind. Yeah, like obviously the author's mind, like you're reading somebody else's life, their thoughts, and everything, and it like you said, with your magazine, it it's the same with art, you can see like what people are thinking, like maybe even what mood they were in. I don't know. Um I'm not an artist. Disclaimer. But um with your magazine with Elsie, how did that feel when Elsie was recognised by the New York Library Journal and featured at the Museum of Modern Art Les?

Les: 26:38

Well, that was that was a bit mad, wasn't it? Um so before I get onto that, your your statement, I didn't just need to kind of pick you up on your statement there.

Steph: 26:50

Okay.

Les: 26:50

You just said, I'm not an artist. And which is really interesting. Um I could turn the interview on you, but I won't. But I don't know if you hear here heard me when you were kind of just asked me that question, but my response to that was yet. You know?

Steph: 27:10

Oh no, sorry, I didn't hear that.

Les: 27:12

No, I'm not an artist yet, because there's nothing stopping you being an artist. If you wanted to be an artist, if you wanted to do that kind of stuff, you just have to find the you know, the medium, the outlet, whatever it might be that kind of suits you and get stuck into it. And most people, you know, that's I think that that without picking on you individually, that's it, that's something I hear a lot when I'm doing, you know, workshops or talks and whatever, that you know, I'm not an artist, I can't draw, you know. You know, I've never done creativity and that kind of stuff. And I think that does go back to an education system that suppresses all that kind of things. Because when people tell you that you can't draw, that that reinforces the fact that actually I can't draw. When, you know, if you can pick up a pencil and make marks on a piece of paper, well you can draw, can't you? Um and most people suppress that. They kind of they they don't go down those routes primarily because they're afraid of what other people might think of what they've done. You know, in other words, they have a they have a an image in their mind of what it what it feels like to be good at art or good at drawing or good at you know cre you know uh some particular creative outlet. And because they don't think that they can get to that level, they then don't do it at all. Which is crazy. Because what they're doing is they're cutting off a huge amount of uh potential to express themselves, to find uh kind of mindfulness, to tap into different parts of their brain, and simply because of a fear that you know if I show it to someone they might not like it and they might say it's not very good. Well, actually, if you're doing any kind of uh creative activity, art, music, whatever it might be, it should be just for you. It's and if you enjoy doing it, then it's worth doing. You know, uh and you don't even have to show it to anyone else if you don't want to. There's a there's a there's a a very, very uh uh famous photographer, street photographer, um called uh Vivian Maier, an American photographer. She took photographs in the kind of 40s, 50s in in America. She was a children's nanny, and uh photography was her kind of hobby. And she used to go out with her um medium format camera, the ones you can't. kind of look down into and walk around the streets of uh New York and other cities and take portraits of people, take scenes of the streets, take things that she would um she would see. And she never showed them to anyone. She just did them because that's what she wanted to do. And they were all all her films and her negatives and stuff like that were found in a garage sale in America. You sometimes see these that these programs on America I can't remember what they're called, but when they they bid on what whatever's in this lockup they bid the money to kind of open it and whatever. Well it was like that. Someone bid the money to buy this lockup and when they opened it it was all Vivian Maier's photography films negatives whatever she is now seen as one of the leading photographers in the world particularly in street photography and has exhibitions now all over the the world in you know major galleries she never got to see that because she didn't show anyone her work. But she was producing this incredible photography for herself if that's not a if that's not a kind of an example of why you should not cut off that kind of creative thing I don't know what is and if you ever get to see her work you know have a look at it because it's incredible and that that is very much a kind of documentary of a period in time in America. So what was your question?

Les: 31:43

So I launched I launched Elsie magazine and you know like you do I kind of put the word out and I did some PR and I sent some people some free issues from free copies of it to try and get some coverage of it and whatever. And some people requested um copies that they could review and one of which was the New York Library Journal which is a very prestigious publication in New York obviously but covers library stuff you know across America and a few months after I'd launched Elsie Magazine I got two phone calls in a week like totally bizarre. So the first one I got uh I answered the phone this uh gentleman said to me is that Les Jones from Elsie Magazine I said yes uh he said well I'm calling from the New York Library Journal you might remember you know a few months ago you sent us a copy of your your magazine I said yeah I remember that he said well I'm just calling you because every year at the New York Library Journal amongst all our staff across America um we have a kind of an internal poll as to what we think are the top ten new magazines of that particular year and he said I'm just calling you to let you know that we voted Elsie magazine as one of the top ten magazines in the world for this year. Wow right okay like bonkers I mean who could have predicted that like absolute bonkers stuff that is amazing but then literally three days later I got another phone call and then this woman said to me is that Les from Elsie Magazine yes uh she said I'm ringing from the Museum of Modern Art in New York I said right she said we're doing this major exhibition about independent magazine publishing and we were just wondering if you would give us permission to feature Elsie magazine in this exhibition I thought let me have a think about that for a minute you know um I mean so literally so Elsie magazine ends up in in this exhibition the Museum of Modern Art in New York crazy but the key point from that I think and something I talk about a lot when I when I when I speak at events is I've come up with this phrase very simple phrase that when I talk to people about it and I tell people like about those stories about the New York um library journal and MoMA are perfect examples of it and that is when you do stuff other stuff happens that is the biggest lesson that I have learned from publishing magazines that you can have ideas you know I had the idea for Elsie magazine probably a year before I published it and it was just and I tell my mates about it I've got this idea for this magazine and they go oh that's a great great idea Les and I'd almost kind of go home and just think well that's it you know obviously I'll just go and bask in the glory of having had a good idea you know I don't need to do it I'll just like I'll just wallow in my you know self-satisfaction that I've had a good idea and one of my mates said to me at the party once he said how's that magazine of yours coming on I said yeah you know I'm still kind of working he said well can you shut up about it then you know either either do it or you've been talking about it for a year like either do it or forget about it and that kind of kick up the backside was like what made me do it you know I went right yeah okay I'll do it but up until that point I'd had all the ideas I could visualize it in my head whatever but absolutely nothing had happened I hadn't produced it and because I hadn't produced it nothing else had happened and as soon as I put it out there into the market into the public space things started to happen that I could never ever have predicted and the New York Library Journal is one the Museum of Modern Art is another and then the most crazy thing that happened was uh a friend of mine had a m had a copy of the magazine and in it was an article it's gonna sound slightly wacky about discarded industrial gloves right so so I'm tuned into these gloves when I walk along the street or go out on my bike or whatever I see these industrial workmen's gloves on the side of the road and I get fascinated by how they always end up on the side of the road they're there all the time and so I stop and I photograph them and I kind of I did this article about found industrial gloves that I'd found on the side of the road anyway friend of mine had the had the magazine and recognized that there was another person that they'd seen online who also photographed lost gloves and put them on his Instagram page and decided to send this person the magazine and say to him you might want to have a look at this guy's magazine because he photographs discarded gloves and he's as bonkers as you are you know so the next thing I get is I get a letter a hand type letter um and it says I received the magazine I love the magazine uh I will take a subscription um uh uh in exchange for the enclosed and enclosed was a Polaroid picture of this person reading Elsie magazine and you know that how how he was now all in favor of one man or one woman magazines because they make the world a better place and it was signed by Tom Hanks and so I had this letter from Tom Hanks and a picture of him reading the magazine and and him saying to me I'll take a subscription to your magazine.

Steph: 38:00

Can I just ask how did that feel like it was like Tom Hanks Tom Hanks

Les: 38:06

Yeah they're like bonkers absolutely bonkers and it was hand typed because I'm not sure if you're aware he collects typewriters he collects old typewriters so it was hand typed by one of his old typewriters so I then got a little bit cheeky right so of course because he'd subscribed I sent him the next issue of the magazine and I put a little note in it and I said hey Tom here's the next magazine thanks for subscribing um if you ever feel like doing an interview not about you know your stellar film career but about your fascination with lost gloves and if you check out his Instagram page you'll see the pictures of lost clubs that would be ace so a few weeks later I get another letter from Tom Hanks this time it's a handwritten letter saying got your latest magazine Les love the magazine uh yes I'll do your interview send me your questions I then sent him the questions and then I then get another letter hand typed with all the answers to the questions about his his opinion and and why he photographs lost gloves and all that kind of stuff which then went in the next Elsie magazine as the exclusive interview with Tom Hanks about lost gloves. And you think well how bonkers is that you know but the the the kind of the key theme for me there is is that that can only happen if I put the magazine out. If I if I say you know whether people like it or don't like it and I was very very nervous putting it out into the marketplace because it was just me. It wasn't a magazine about a subject it was this is just me my stuff in a magazine and you put it out there and you think well it could get absolutely slated you know uh luckily for me it didn't it went kind of slightly the other way but it was a nerve-wracking moment to put it out there into into the public space yeah but that lesson of when you do stuff other stuff happens has stuck with me all the way through and it's like the the the the Contemporary Collage Magazine it it continu that thing continues to happen um so for example one of my all-time art heroes is Sir Peter Blake and Peter Blake if you if if you're not aware of Peter Blake Peter Blake is the guy who did the the Beatles Sgt Pepper album cover and did all the artwork for Live aid and Band-aid and whatever but is a kind of right up there artist you know he's 93 now probably along with David Hockney the UK's greatest living artist uh alongside David Hockney and I've been to countless of his exhibitions over the years love his work inspired by his work um in April I went to his house and spent two or three hours with him interviewing him for the magazine which was like incredible so in the next magazine which goes to press um our lead article is an exclusive interview with Sir Peter Blake which was just an honour and a thrill to to sit with him and talk to him about his art and his career but not only that three weeks after I'd done the interview he sent me an original collage he made me a collage and he sent it to me and on the back it said it it said collage for Les and so having followed him and his art for all these years I now have in my possession which is already framed and on the wall an original collage that that not only he sent to me but he made specifically for me and and sent it to me. Incredible

Steph: 42:01

That is so kind yeah like how heartwarming is is that that he's done that for you it's amazing.

Les: 42:08

And because we've had to kind of talk about the article and I've had to send him kind of stuff and he's not he's not online um so um we we converse by telephone so over the last few weeks my telephone ring and it comes up Sir Peter Blake is calling you which I think is just the most bizarre thing you know and he's and he talks he's a most lovely down to earth uh person but who is just an incredible artist and has been for 80 years an incredible artist you know and an influence you know a massive influence in fact you could argue he was the catalyst for pop art you know that ended up with Andy Warhol and all those pop artists was very much at the forefront of all that kind of art and yeah so and we've got an article um and an interview with him in our next magazine so amazing stuff.

Steph: 43:08

Amazing amazing I feel like I'm just trying to process all of that like do you find that art I know there's a common interest there but do you find that art shows you a side of people that like it brings out really really positive side of people.

Les: 43:30

Well I mean art is an outlet isn't it um you know it's a way of expressing yourself uh and one of the things that that many many artists that we've interviewed for the magazine have said and I get this totally myself is that for them the process of doing the art is often more important than the finished piece in terms of what they come up with and lots and lots of artists talk about the mindful side of making art of how they can you know phrases like get in the zone, lose themselves in the moment yeah and I and I totally buy into that so if you were to kind of talk to my family or or my friends they would probably tell you that my head is full of stuff all the time you know I I can't sometimes turn off the ideas or the thoughts of of of what I want to do to the point where it can sometimes be kind of debilitating. You've got so many things in your head that you're trying to think about doing that you actually can't do any of them because you need to cut through it. But when I when I get myself in my studio and I find three or four hours to kind of do some collage I can guarantee you it's the only time where everything else in my head just disappears. And I just get into that moment and it's just me and the paper and the glue and the scissors and the the tactile nature of making art and sometimes I can kind of do four five six pieces really really quickly and by the time I got to the end of the fifth or sixth one I can't actually remember what the first one looks like because they've just come out do you know what I mean? Yeah but in that three or four hours I have just been with myself and lost myself in the moment and three or four hours can disappear in in the blink of an eye and I think that side of art is what everyone should tap into because it doesn't matter what the output is if you are enjoying yourself while you're in that moment creating and that can be anything from from art to singing to playing an instrument to doing drama to writing to doing poetry whatever it is that you feel allows you to express that kind of right side of your brain that creative side of your brain it is worth doing you will never ever regret doing creative stuff I don't think because it feeds into your your soul it you know it it's it is food for the soul.

Steph: 46:29

Yeah and the mindfulness aspect of it as well where you can like you said just like release things that are in inside your mind inside your body and get them out there.

Les: 46:39

Yeah yeah I mean I I quite often do a collage and then you know I'll go back and look at it the next day and think what a pile of rubbish that is but it didn't matter to me while I was doing it because I was just in the process of doing it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah so um you know luckily some turn out okay and you think well that's all right I'll kind of keep that one and but the great thing about collage is if you don't like it you can stick something else over the top of it.

Steph: 47:07

Well just going back to Tom Hanks for a second so Alan Alan and I um Alan's really into films. He's a film guy I um struggle to sit still for two to three hours if it's a three hour film yeah I I'm not sure I can do it. But we actually spoke about um actors and actresses and we'd like we'd pick one and we actually picked Tom Hanks and we thought well we'll watch all of Tom Hanks films and we do it like that rather than doom scrolling trying to think you know.

Steph: 47:44

And we um we also watched a film called Yes Man and when you've been talking it's it's reminded me of this film and I've got the book which I haven't read yet but you you really bring that out for me like the importance of saying yes to opportunities that come up in your life yeah absolutely and I think when you were saying about um you sat on your idea for was it a year? Yeah yeah but eventually it came to reality and you did it and for me I think well I believe in like the right timing for things yes and that must have been for you like yes it was a kick up the the butt that you needed but equally maybe that was the perfect time that it had to happen.

Les: 48:36

Quite possibly you know um it it I mean you can't predict those things can you it's it's but you you're right I I do try to I do try to have an an approach where the the default answer is yes and then you know I'd have to I'd have to kind of like there'd have to be a big reason for it to then change to a no or you know or a maybe or whatever. You know because I think I think if you have the attitude of you know what's the worst that can happen then and if the worst that can happen is actually it it it doesn't work out but hey ho then why not give it a go? I had no idea when I when I set up the magazine you know publishing a an independent magazine is a is a notoriously um risky business you know independent magazines come and go with great regularity and they'll last four or five issues and then they're gone because you know the the founders can't make it stack up and and and can't make it work financially and I went into that magazine thinking well we'll just give it a go you know what's the worst that can happen the worst that can happen is we do so many issues and then we fold it that's the worst that can happen. But along the way we'll meet some interesting people we'll do some interesting design um we'll find out about new artists we'll make some new connections so actually even the worst that can happen has got positives to it because it it it it takes you in different directions. So why not have that attitude I think uh I think when you do those things it it it opens up opportunities that you can't predict you know when you when you actually decide to grasp the nettle there are things around that central thing that you're going to do that you can then can't predict you know opportunities arise meetings happen that that you you you couldn't uh predict the telephone rings or an email drops into I've got an email this morning asking me to judge an international col uh collage competition in America you know um and I'm thinking you do know I only started five years ago do you you know it's like but uh but that's just dropped in this morning you know out of the blue would you would you be one of our you know jurors on this on this kind of panel for for an international a national collage competition in America well without that magazine that I don't get that request so you know I I think even if things don't work out there are generally positives that you can take you know it's like when you listen to people talking about a football match and they've just lost 2-0 and the manager will say well there's lots of positives we can take you know it's kind of uh I I saw an improvement on last week and I think we you know we're getting better defensively and blah blah blah blah in other words even though they've lost something has come of it that allows them to kind of build to go forward you know so uh you know you learn from your mistakes don't you and you learn from experience uh and if you don't put yourself out there you don't get those experiences

Steph: 52:00

Absolutely so you mentioned that you felt nervous for the first issue yeah can you speak about pushing people out of their comfort zones because when I first started this podcast I was incredibly nervous not only about um like we mentioned about a lot a lot before about worrying about people's judgment I found that um not only was it that but the judgment from people I know as well um over strangers I found was more like it sort of like it it was bizarre I didn't see any of it any of the feelings coming which was a shock but then we are like a year on and it's like you say I've met people that would not have come into my life had I not been doing the podcast and I've found a a a joy of speaking with people and getting to know their background and their story and then by putting it out there we can help and inspire so many other people that have come across it so would you speak a little bit about pushing people out of their creative comfort zones and like with your workshops and that how does that look like in practice for you.

Les: 53:20

Well I think I mean first of all congratulations on on you know but there there's that book isn't there feel the fear and do it anyway I can't quite remember the author's name uh a a female author um and you know that for me is is a great kind of mantra you know that that you you were nervous and trepidatious about about getting into this thing but you did it and you should be congratulated for that because you you did feel the fear and you did do it.

Steph: 53:53

Thank you yeah the fear was definitely felt yeah.

Les: 53:58

Yeah but but I'm sure now you know a year down the line you're probably feeling more confident you feel a little bit more in control but but also you might feel as though there's more there's more to come or there's more to uh you know further to go on that particular journey which is great and I think you know it it it pushing yourself out of the comfort zone is is really a mind shift isn't it it's it's a it's a mindset you can either say I don't do that and these are the reasons I don't do that and therefore you limit your your potential or you you say that I am actually prepared to give stuff a go.

Les: 54:36

We we run some workshops um sometimes we run workshops for people who've not done collage before and just want to come and have a go you know and we'll get people around the table and you'll hear all those comments about well I've come I've come with my friend she asked me to come you know but I'm useless at art and I you know I haven't done art since you know uh since I was at school and you know I can't draw and I can't do this and and I'm gonna be rubbish and whatever and then by the end of the session they're kind of like excited and they're they can't believe what they produced and you know they want to go home and kind of do some more stuff. And for me you know I I I I'm not sure about what the psychology is I'm not a psychologist but it's trying to talk to yourself to say why don't I just go a little bit further than I would normally go and if you ask that question of like what's the worst that can happen generally you can kind of lower your your anxiety because if you're prepared to accept what the worst that can happen is then you've got nothing to lose have you um you know I and all the all of the most creative people that you will meet even the ones who are right at the top of their tree will tell you that they still get nervous that they still feel that um they're slightly out of their depth there was I I saw an interview with David Bowie on YouTube a few weeks back and he was being asked about creativity and he was saying he he said two things one never do anything creative to satisfy someone else never never do anything that you think I'm doing this because I think this person will like it or whatever because invariably you limit your creativity and you do it for the wrong reasons. So that was his first in other words if you're going to be creative be creative for yourself you know even even if it never sees the light of day do stuff for yourself and the other thing he said was to use the analogy about walking in to to water into the sea of whatever he says always get to that point where your toes can't quite touch the floor can't quite touch the sand once you know you once you're at that point and then you feel slightly out of your depth then you know you're in the right place. Then you know that's when the creativity's going to start and if ever there was a person who kept pushing himself creatively for the whole of his career is David Bowie. Every time he got to a point where he probably could have stayed and made a whole career you know he probably could still be touring Ziggy starters now you know if he was alive uh you know and trotting himself out with orange hair because people were paid to go and see it. But every time he got to a point where he felt oh well I've done that and it's now starting to feel a little c comfortable I'm gonna change direction I'm gonna walk further out and make myself uh slightly out of depth again and right up to his death he was creating I mean his last album was an incredible piece of music from a creativity perspective that you wouldn't expect for someone 40 something years into their career. So I think it's for me it's a mind shift you know have a have a chat with yourself and ask yourself why you're saying no to things and what's the worst could that could happen if you actually said yes and gave something a go because you'll be pleasantly surprised I think.

Steph: 58:18

I love that visualization of the the toes not quite being able to touch the sand as well um what's your view on comparison then because I know I know a few people in my life that think well I'm not as good even when they start off when you wouldn't expect to be because you're just starting I think like they say comparison is the thief of joy and it can stop people from pursuing because they just don't feel like they're good enough in comparison to someone what would you say to that?

Les: 58:50

Stop comparing yourself.

Steph: 58:53

Simple. Stop it.

Les: 58:55

You know I I I I mean I I interview some incredible artists some of which I think my god like how have you done that and that's just incredible now I could I could look at that and think well do you know what Les don't even go into your studio over the weekend because it's pointless because you're never going to get to that level you know but where does that leave me you know it kind of leaves leaves me joyless in terms of what I'm doing and just because you know if you want to play the piano you don't have to be Beethoven do you if you get enjoyment from playing the piano and and making music then if it's good enough for you it's good enough and uh so stop comparing yourself to everyone else you know that that comparison is is ultimately what will limit you um but it's not a competition creativity is not a competition it's about self expression and what works for you and if what once you understand that creativity is creativity is not a competition, then you can allow yourself to do whatever you want to do.

Les: 1:00:08

You know, there's a one of my favorite artists is a guy called David Shrigley. Have you ever heard of David Strigley?

Steph: 1:00:14

I haven't no.

Les: 1:00:15

Check him out after after our chat. Uh he is probably in the top two, three um British artists at the moment. Uh major shows all over the world. Uh if you looked at his artwork, you would probably say, My God, the guy can't even draw, right? Because his drawings are absolutely basic, naive, crude. Uh and you would look at him and you think, well, anyone can do that. But then if you try and do it, you can't do it. Because he just does it in his own style. And through just perseverance and just putting his stuff out there, has now, you know, he started out doing kind of little cartoons, then got a book deal, and then kind of started to do more art, and then got his first show, and then got a bigger show, and then got, you know, a massive gallery in London, and etc. etc. etc. And his work sell for, you know, tens and tens of thousands of pounds.

Speaker 2: 1:01:26

Wow.

Les: 1:01:26

But he has absolutely ploughed his own furrow and not deviated for one moment in response to what anyone else thinks. He just does his thing. And if he was totally unrecognized as an artist and just sat at home in his bedroom doing his stuff, he would probably still be doing exactly the same stuff. Because it's what he is and who he is, and this is how he can, this is how it comes out from him. Check him out, and anyone listening, you know, check him out and see. But he is like, you know, like top, top artists. And if you said to me, you know, choose two or three artists whose work you know you'd like to have in your own home, Peter Blake would be one, thank you. Um, but David Shrigley, absolutely. I would I would have a piece of his art on my wall wall every day of the week. Um, but you know, if you looked at it with a kind of perhaps inadverted commas uneducated eye, you would say, what a pile of rubbish.

Steph: 1:02:33

Right. Um when you were speaking then, I was I was actually thinking, have you um have you ever had a creative block? So we're coming at it from the other side now. Um and if for like people listening, whether that's writing or art or something else, what would you what was your experience and what would you say to them?

Les: 1:02:59

So I think if you if you work in any creative environment, getting a creative block is almost kind of a given, you know, but you because you can't just turn it on like a tap and you know your best work come out. So I have a number of ways in which I kind of deal with that. So one of the bits of collage that I used to do before I got into analog paper collage was I used to do these um Photoshop illustrations. And if I was kind of working and I was either kind of getting nowhere or felt as though I couldn't get the ideas or whatever, I would effectively just kind of say, right, stop doing it, do something else. Yeah. And what I I started getting into this little exercise of I would get a get a book, open it up, close my eyes, point to a word, and whatever that random word was that I that I got to, I would then Google it for images. And I would take a selection of those images that came up for that random word into Photoshop in layers, and then I would use those as a palette to create a new piece of digital art, right? That had absolutely no meaning, other than I'm just going to mess around with this until I come up with an image that I think I'm happy with, right? Based on a random word and a random set of images that I've downloaded from the internet. And they would take me 20 minutes, half an hour. And I always felt then that when I went back to what I was doing, I'd refresh my mind. I'd kind of come at things from a slightly different perspective. So that process of stopping, you know, it's if if you if you're feeling not getting anywhere, don't keep persevering, just go somewhere else. Go and do something else. And then when you come back to it, invariably you come back to it with with you know a little bit of fresh pair of eyes.

Steph: 1:04:58

Yeah.

Les: 1:04:59

And the other thing that I I do, which you might which might sound wacky to you, is I ask my brain to think about stuff.

Steph: 1:05:11

Okay.

Les: 1:05:12

So if I'm trying to think of an idea, particularly of a concept, so a lot of the work that I do uh as a commercial as a creative director is about advertising campaigns, concepts for for those kind of things. And I might be, I you know, I might do some scribbles and think, well, I haven't got very much on whatever. I will then say to my brain, Would you mind having to think about that for me while I'm not thinking about it? Right?

Steph: 1:05:42

I have never heard this before.

Les: 1:05:44

And and I do that, and then invariably I will be walking the dog, and all of a sudden, I'll it's almost like my brain says to me, you know that thing you asked me to think about? Ping. There it is. And I'll go, oh, thanks for that. Uh I can work with that. That's a great idea. I'll go back and I'll kind of make some stuff for that. And it sounds bonkers, I know. It sounds bonkers to me saying it, but I actually do that and it actually works.

Steph: 1:06:22

Wow, life hack from Les. Thank you.

Les: 1:06:27

So um so yeah, it's it's it's almost, I think it's it do you know sometimes when you when you're trying to think of someone's name? Or or a or another or a tune that you can't remember, or something like that, and no matter what you do, you can't think of it. And then you'll be doing the dishes, and then oh, there it is. It's that kind of thing. You must have had that happen to you.

Steph: 1:06:51

For sure. For sure, yeah, yeah.

Les: 1:06:53

It's that kind of thing, it's almost like consciously saying to your unconscious mind, I can't think of what the answer to this is, so I'm just gonna crack on and do something else, but I'm just gonna leave it with you. And and the amount of times that um, in fact, um, people at Practice Plan, when we're trying to kind of come up with sub some stuff, will often say to me, Can you just go take the dog for a walk tonight? Uh-oh. And see what happens. And more often than not, I'll go in the next morning and go, Well, I took the dog for a walk, and here's what I came up with.

Steph: 1:07:34

I can't wait to use that. I've never heard that before. And I don't how how have I never heard this before? It makes sense.

Les: 1:07:44

It makes sense, yeah. I mean, it's not something I've ever read about or whatever, it's just something that I kind of kind of got into, you know, of like, okay, I'm bashing myself over the head because I can't think of a concept or an idea or whatever. Just stop thinking about it and just let it rest in the back of your head somewhere. And when when your brain's ready, it'll kind of just come to the forefront and tell you that, you know, here's an idea. And it happens time and time again.

Steph: 1:08:12

Amazing. Thank you so much for telling everybody that's listening about that because that's gonna be some serious change in my life. Um, you mentioned about picking a random word out of a book.

Les: 1:08:25

Yes.

Steph: 1:08:26

Would you mind telling the story that you told me in Portugal about your day out in Stoke on Trent and the random word?

Les: 1:08:36

I will I I can do that. Do you mind if I just grab my phone? Because I might be able to just show you the.

Steph: 1:08:41

Of course, yes. Yeah. It's because for the listeners, I am planning on opening a YouTube channel. So very soon you will see us on YouTube.

Les: 1:08:51

Okay, I've got it. Uh okay. So the story that I told you in the back of the of the of the taxi. And this, I'm not a religious person, but um I do I do believe in kind of serendipity and kind of the the universe, if you like, kind of working in certain ways. I've just been reading Rick Rubin's book on creativity, which is highly recommended to anyone. Um, Rick Rubin, the the music producer, uh, and he talks about the different ways in which he stimulates creativity and how things work, and it's fascinating. And each chapter is literally about four to five pages long, so you can just kind of take it in bite-sized chunks. So, and he talks about this kind of stuff happening. So, when I when I first got into collaging, I was doing I did the the um the pandemic collages, then I started working quite small on like A5 or A4 and doing lots of stuff, but then I got this kind of desire to do some bigger collages. I wanted to buy some bigger canvases or pieces of wood and do some big collages just to kind of push myself to do something different. And and I thought, well, and because I I work quite graphically and use typography and stuff like that in my collages. I thought, right, so where am I gonna find big typography pieces? And I thought about the adverts you see in the streets, you know, those big 16-sheet advertising hoardings that you that you see everywhere in cities. And now and again they've had so many posters put on top of them, they all start to kind of peel off a little bit. And I thought, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna drive around, I'm gonna see if I can find any of those big posters peeling off, and I'm literally gonna take them, put them in the back of my car, and take them back and create some collage with them. So, a bit like the magazine, I sat on this idea for a while. I was very busy at the time, and I kept thinking about, you know, why don't you get out in your car and do this kind of thing? And then one Friday afternoon, sun was shining, about three o'clock. I thought, right, today's the day. I've thought about this for weeks. Today's the day, close your computer, get out, go and see if you can find these big pieces of advertising um paper and ephemera that you can collage with. So where I live, I have a choice of towns. You know, I've got Stoke on Trent, which is actually made up of six towns, so there's six different towns in Stoke on Trent. But then there's Crewe, there's Nantwich, there's uh Shrewsbury. Uh I could even go into Manchester and do it around there. So I thought, right, okay, I'll go to Stoke and I'll go to the actual town of Stoke. And off I went, and I parked my car, and I got my got my bag on my shoulder, and I walked around Stoke on Trent, and I walked around for an hour and absolutely nothing. Couldn't find any advertising hoardings that almost hadn't been kind of freshly put up and they were all stuck, and there was nothing peeling off, and there was nothing there for me to have. So I thought, right, okay, have another walk around, forget the big posters, see if you can find some fly posters for concerts or for the circus or something like that, on you know, hoardings or whatever. Had another walk around the town, absolutely nothing. Been there about an hour, literally didn't have one piece of paper in my bag. And I thought, right, we'll give it up as a bad job, it's not happening. So I started to walk back to my car, and I got out onto the high street in Stoke, and as I was waiting to cross the road, I looked down and there's a piece of paper on the floor face down, and it was about kind of this big, like an A4, but not a full A4. And I looked at it and I thought, shall I pick it up? I thought I've got nothing in my bag, and in the end, and the cars were going back and forth, whatever. Anyway, so I thought I sort of pick it up. And I picked it up, and it was the only piece of paper I picked up that day. And bearing in mind, I thought about doing this for three or four weeks. I chose Stoke at random. I'd walk around for an hour and picked up nothing, and then I picked up this one piece of paper, and if I hold it up to the camera, this is what it said.

Steph: 1:13:14

Les

Les: 1:13:14

How bizarre is that!

Steph: 1:13:20

It's really bizarre.

Les: 1:13:22

The one piece of paper I picked up had my name on it. I was literally stood there, my chin was on my chest. It was like incredible. And even now, that was kind of a couple of years ago, even now, I think about it, just literally blows my mind.

Steph: 1:13:40

Well, what are the chances? I know.

Les: 1:13:42

I mean, you've got to be talking millions to one, haven't you? Yeah. Millions to one. Yeah.

Steph: 1:13:47

And was that your push to carry on then after a day of like what you were thinking was what's the point?

Les: 1:13:54

Well, yeah, yeah, I kind of went out a few days later and I did find some uh I think I went to crew and I found some posters and I pulled them all off, and I've been doing some, I mean you can see some big pieces in the background there that that um that I've I've done uh using some of those kind of pieces of paper. Yeah, so I I've I've done quite a few pieces like that. Um but yeah, it was just one of those moments that that where does that come from? I don't know where that comes from.

Steph: 1:14:21

I love it.

Les: 1:14:22

The universe works in mysterious ways.

Steph: 1:14:26

I can't get enough of these sort of like happenings. I just love them. So in terms of your artwork, um, we said we were gonna get on to um the sticker stories earlier.

Speaker 2: 1:14:40

Oh, yes, right.

Steph: 1:14:41

So they led you to traveling around the world, right?

Les: 1:14:46

Yeah, that was that that's a little project I put it in Elsie magazine, and that's one of those things where you you think of a concept and you either do nothing about it or you do something about it. And I was down in London doing some street photography, and I took a photograph of a of a metal sign. It was actually for an art gallery called Bankside Art Gallery, and it was just over on the south side of the river, leading to some steps that went down to the gallery. And it was just like a metal sign, you know, with engraved letters saying Bankside Gallery, kind of down here. Uh, but it had been covered in stickers, um, those kind of like slightly arty stickers that you see in any big city, um just covered. Uh and I kind of walked past it and I stopped and I literally took a quick snap of it. I just thought that's quite textural, you know. Uh I'll take to take a quick picture. Didn't think anything of it. I probably took two or three hundred pictures that that afternoon, and that was one of them.

Les: 1:15:52

But then when I got back to my studio and I started flicking through these pictures, like this this shot came up of this sign covered in stickers. And I kind of sat there looking at it, and an idea kind of came into my head that behind every one of those stickers was a person or persons. Someone had stuck the stickers on and they'd stuck it on there, probably because they were the artist or the band or the musician or the tattoo artist or whatever. And they just stuck it and kind of walked on.

Les: 1:16:28

So I had this idea of like, I wonder if I can create a whole magazine based on this one photograph by tracking each of those people down and meeting them and interviewing them and then putting all their stories into one magazine. And effectively that's what I did. Um, even though some of the stickers were literally just a picture, no website, no Instagram handle, no name, just a picture. But don't ask me how, somehow I tracked them down and I found them, and I wrote to each of these people and said, you know, you're gonna find this a bit wacky, but I'm trying to create a whole magazine from this one photograph, and one of these stickers is yours, uh, or or sometimes is one of your stickers, uh, one of these stickers yours? Because I wasn't actually sure. And if so, can I meet you and interview you? And everyone came back and said yes. And it kind of took me all over Europe. I went to a fashion company uh in Switzerland, I went to a uh tattoo and graffiti artist in Porto, I went to meet a rap artist in Madrid, uh, I went to a street artist in London, uh, I went to a tattoo artist in New York. All these people have put their stickers on this one piece of metal. And I kind of met them all and interviewed them about their, you know, their craft and their creativity and stuff like that, and then I put them all together into one magazine. And those, those, if I remember rightly, those stickers, because I did the research of, oh, there's a band from a feminist band from Chile, there was a band from Argentina who I met because they were on tour in the UK, and I ended up on stage with them in Bristol, photographing them on stage at a festival in Bristol, and um and all the articles went in this magazine, and I worked out that those stickers on this one little piece of metal in London had travelled a combined distance of 36,000 miles to just be stuck on a piece of metal at the moment that I kind of walked past it. And uh I met some amazing people and and you know featured them and their work in the magazine. And then a few months later, I went back to London. I thought, you know, I'm gonna go back to that uh that sign and see what else has been stuck on there, perhaps as a phase two. And when I went back there, uh there was nothing on it, it had all been cleaned, it was just it'd all been taken off and cleaned, and it was just back to the metal sign, which was initially quite disappointing. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was like the perfect end to the project. It was like the full stop. You know, that I'd taken the photograph when all the stickers were on it and had this amazing project and journey to meet all these creative people, and then they were gone. You know, had I gone three months later, the project would never have happened because there would have been no stickers there. Yeah, so I just thought it was a lovely kind of line at the at the end of the project that said, Well, that was it, and now it's gone. Uh so yeah, that was a that was an amazing project.

Steph: 1:19:44

It sounds it.

Les: 1:19:45

And an example of just having an idea and saying, Do you know what? What the hell? You know, what's the worst can happen?

Steph: 1:19:52

Yeah, run with it.

Les: 1:19:54

Yeah.

Steph: 1:19:56

So Les. In your Elsie magazine, and I'm gonna read these word for word if you don't mind.

Speaker 2: 1:20:02

Oh yeah, yeah.

Steph: 1:20:04

Um we got annual number two, and you speak about a number of lessons in it. So the first one, let people come to you, the second is be bold, and the third, don't be afraid to ask. Would you mind speaking of the importance of these not only in your own work but also in life?

Les: 1:20:26

I think you're you're reading an article about my street photography, aren't you? So that's that that's those the I did an article in that magazine about my street photography. And I I suppose you could apply some of those lessons uh to other forms of um to other forms of creativity, but they they're particularly related to to street photography. The first what was the first one?

Steph: 1:20:54

Let people come to you.

Les: 1:20:56

Yeah, so sometimes when I'm out doing street photography, um people have a it street photography is an interesting thing because we live in an in an environment and a society and a world where there are more photographs taken every single day than at any other point in history. Yeah, you know, you've only got to watch kind of Glastonbury and the band comes on, and literally, you know, 20,000 phones go up in the air to kind of take some video and whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:21:24

Yeah.

Les: 1:21:26

Yeah, when you walk around a town with an actual SLR camera, like I've got a big Nikon camera, people are suspicious. People go, like, what's it what's he doing over there with that camera? Even though thousands of people are taking pictures on their phone, when you have an actual camera, people are suspicious, which is I think quite an another another perhaps another day. But so some people will kind of go, what you're doing, whatever, but then other people are slightly more friendly and they'll come up and they'll start chatting to me and going, like, oh, that's a nice camera. What what camera is that, and whatever. And my feeling is then that as a street photographer, I have to be receptive. So if someone's someone is a potential subject for me to photograph and they're approaching me, then I'm being receptive. I'm going to engage in that conversation, and I'm going to kind of understand a bit about them, and I talk to them about it, and I talk to them, ask them questions about themselves, and I don't even mention the camera, and it's only somewhere down the line that I'll say, Well, I'm a street photographer and I do portraits in the street. Can I take a portrait of you? And by that point, generally people go, Yeah, of course. And so I get a picture of you know someone that I've met in the street. But I think that I think that the wider lesson there is when things are coming at you, be receptive. Don't bat them away. Um, because actually you might be batting away opportunities or things that that would take you in different directions. So be receptive to some of those things coming to you and then work with them as to where they might lead you. So that's the first one. What was the second one?

Steph: 1:23:01

Second one was be bold.

Les: 1:23:04

So that so that was that's almost like the reverse. So there are times when I'm doing street photography when I'll see someone and I can immediately see the photograph. So they might be stood in the doorway, they might be kind of leaning against something, they might be sat somewhere, and you and the light is right and the background is right, and they look like an interesting person. And I want to go up to them and photograph them. Not sneakily, but I want to engage with them and kind of say, Can I take your portrait? And that requires some boldness, you know, or you know, some balls to put it another way, you know, because you've got a good you've got to say, right, I'm now gonna take it upon myself to walk up to this total stranger and try and engage them in a conversation and get to the point where they will agree to me taking their photograph. And sometimes the more interest in the person, the slightly more terrifying they are to go and talk to. And some people will actually but you also very much then have to be accepting of rejection because some people go, I'm not interested. Thanks, go away. You know, and you have to go, that's fine, it's not a problem, I'll walk away. And you have to be able to be comfortable with that response and not be bothered by it. Uh and I think that's kind of that's again another life lesson that sometimes you see an opportunity but you feel slightly apprehensive about going towards it. And I think you've got to grasp the nettle and you've got to go towards it. So when I'm when I see an opportunity, and I don't and I have to I'm being very honest here, there are times when I don't. There are times when I feel like I could go and talk to anyone, and there are other times and I think, not today. Yeah, just haven't quite got it in me today. So I'm not saying I do it all the time, but whenever I do do it, I would say eight out of ten times I come away with a shot, and I come away with something, and I feel rewarded for my bravery, if you like, in terms of going and crossing that line and engaging with that person.

Steph: 1:25:28

Yeah.

Les: 1:25:29

So, but it, you know, there are times when you just think, you know what? I'm just gonna have a cup of coffee down the road because I just I just can't quite get my head in that space today, you know. Yeah, and fine, that doesn't matter, the next day you will. Uh and then the last one I think was don't be afraid to ask, was it?

Steph: 1:25:45

That's the one, yeah.

Les: 1:25:47

Yeah, uh, and I and I and that I think in street photography is is a little bit like that that last point I made, as in don't be afraid to ask and don't be afraid to cross that that that boundary. But I think there's a much wider thing in terms of don't be afraid to ask, because my experience with the magazine, uh with both magazines, has been if I ask someone, say for an interview, more often than not the answer's yes. And if I don't ask, the answer's always no, because I haven't asked.

Speaker 2: 1:26:29

Yeah.

Les: 1:26:30

So you asked me for an interview today, you know, you you took it upon yourself, based on a five, ten-minute conversation in the back of a taxi, to say, do you know what? I think you might be an interesting guest to come on on my uh on my podcast, and you took the you you you asked. Yeah, and my answer was yes. Had you thought, oh, we'll never come on, you know, what then you don't ask, then nothing happens. Um, and there are there are artists, not that I'm not suggesting that that I'm so you know that I wouldn't come on, but there are artists that that we've asked to be interviewed, like big, serious, up there artists, and we're thinking to ourselves, the answer's probably gonna be no, but we'll ask anyway, and then the answer comes back as yes. And you think, well, how pleased are we that we actually asked? Yeah, and you never know. You never know.

Les: 1:27:26

And you know, I was I was I did a uh an online talk to students at Falmouth University uh a few weeks back who were all doing illustration. And I asked them before I did my talk, I said, could you all in the chat chat me who your favorite living illustrators are? And they all started typing away who their favourite illustrators are. And at the end of my talk, I said, I'm gonna give you all a task now, and that is to contact your favourite living illustrator and ask them if they will meet you either online or for a coffee or whatever or in their studio to give you some advice. Because I guarantee you, out of the 40 or 50 people who are on this call, 25 or 30 of you will get a yes. And then you can go and chat to your favorite illustrator who will talk to you about how they got into you know doing commercial work or doing books for children or whatever it might be, and might just pass on some nuggets that will be value valuable to you. But if you don't ask them, it'll never happen. And they all went away quite excited to kind of approach their favourite illustrator and and ask the question. But why not?

Steph: 1:28:42

Yeah, why not indeed? That's how you get pen pals with Tom Hanks, right?

Speaker 2: 1:28:47

Well, exactly.

Steph: 1:28:50

Uh Les, it's been an absolute joy to speak to you. Just to wrap up, would you mind sharing one piece of advice with the listeners that you hope they take away from today's conversation?

Les: 1:29:04

Uh I think my advice to anyone tuning in today would be to tune into your creativity. Um you know, this kind of this kind of attitude, or or it's not even an attitude, I don't think. I think it's a belief system that's been hammered into people over many years that I'm not creative, I don't do that kind of stuff, I leave that to you know other people to do the creative stuff, uh, is absolute baloney. Everyone has got the potential to be creative. Uh, and whatever your creative outlet is, go and find it. Try different things, yeah? Just try different things, just go on different courses, book on and just give it a go. Because you just might just drop on the thing that is your thing, and you never even knew it was your thing because you'd never tried it. It's a bit like me with collage. You know, it took me to the age of 60 to discover collage art because my wife bought me a course, and when I I went on that course, it literally changed my life. Uh and even if we hadn't done the magazine, it still changed my life because it took me in a completely different direction creatively. So I would say experiment, try different stuff, you know, go on different art courses, join a choir, uh, you know, create a band with with some of your friends, even if you're you know absolute rubbish when you start, it doesn't matter if you haven't a laugh doing it, do it. And you just might find that there's that moment when you just drop on the thing that a bit like that, Les, me finding that piece of paper was you finding your thing that will light up your life.

Steph: 1:30:45

Amazing. And how can the listeners find you? How can they work with you, Les?

Les: 1:30:50

Uh well, we you can write to us at Contemporary College Magazine, hello at contemporarycollege magazine.com. Um, we're also on Instagram at Contemporary College Magazine, uh, and I also have my own page for my own collage art, uh, which is at Les Jones Collage. You can, through any of those mediums or platforms, drop me a line.

Steph: 1:31:11

Amazing, and I'll link all of those in the show notes. Massive thank you, Les. I'm so pleased that I asked you to come on.

Les: 1:31:21

Thank you for asking me.

Steph: 1:31:23

I genuinely feel that I could speak to you for days and days. I kind of want like a monthly coffee catch up.

Les: 1:31:31

Well, you know, we're not that far apart. Next time I'm at Manchester, I'll let you know. Yeah.

Steph: 1:31:35

Thank you. Thank you so much, Les. Honestly.

Les: 1:31:38

It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Thanks, Stephanie.

Steph: 1:31:41

You're so welcome.

Steph: 1:31:42

So I hope you've enjoyed. If you have, please do share it with a friend or family member or anyone you think it might inspire or help. And you can follow us at Tranquil Topics. So thank you again, Les, and I'll be back in another two weeks' time. Bye.

Les: 1:31:58

Bye.

Steph: 1:32:00

Thank you so much for listening. You can follow me on Instagram at Tranquil Topics, and if you have enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or review as it will help me to reach more people. And I'll be back in two weeks' time with another episode. Bye.