#0032 MR EDWARDS - ART IS SHIT! OR IS IT?

Welcome to the Creative Nowhere Land Podcast. 

Art is shit! Or is it?

On this episode, we are joined by Artist, Mr Edwards, who describes his work as a Pop Dada Party filled with a cast of characters, all of his own making. As long as it makes him laugh, anything is fair game when it comes to him creating.

Mr Edwards has had an interesting creative journey. From studying at St. Martin's and the Royal College of Art to a career spent as a designer working for ID magazine. Then running his own agency, Nice. Where he was working with high-profile clients like Converse and Levi's.

A collector of all things visual. We discuss all of that and more, like the big decision to immigrate to Australia and the shift that pushed Mr Edwards towards art and creating without worrying if people get offended or not. Because, well, sometimes they do get offended.  

You can check out the links to Mr Edwards' work while you're listening to the podcast, of course. 

But we go into so much in this one that it's probably best to leave it up to the self-confessed troublemaker and Justin Bieber lookalike, Mr Edwards, to tell the story. 

Hope you enjoy this episode of The Creative Nowhere Land Podcast.

MR EDWARDS INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/misteredwards/

MR EDWARDS SHOP: https://www.etsy.com/shop/misteredwards

Transcript

Meet Mr. Edwards

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello everyone and welcome to the Creative Nobeland Podcast. On this episode, we're joined by artist Mr. Edwards, who describes his work as a pop daydar party filled with a cast of characters all of his own making. And as long as it makes him laugh, anything is fair game when it comes to his creating. Mr. Edwards has had an interesting creative journey. From studying at St. Martin's and the Royal College of Art to a career spent as a designer working for ID magazine and then running his own agency NICE working with high-profile clients like Converse and Levi's. A collector of all things visual, we discuss all of that and more. Like the big decision to emigrate to Australia and the shift that pushed Mr. Edwards towards art and creating without worrying if people get offended or not. Because, well, sometimes they do get offended. You can check out the links to Mr. Edwards' work while you're listening to the podcast, of course. But we go into so much in this one that it's probably best to leave it up to the self-confessed troublemaker and Justin Bieber lookalike, Mr. Edwards, to tell the story. So, let's get into it. My pleasure. I'm so glad we've caught you because it's a bit of an impromptu one. You're jetting back off to Australia very soon. But before we start, can I just say, you're right, it's absolutely uncanny. Justin Bieber. I wasn't sure how you'd react to that one because in your bio, people would be like, what's he talking about? Justin Bieber lookalike.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, I don't even know why I put that on there. Do you think that's down to the comedy elements though? It is a comedy element. I'm trying to think where I got that reference from, and I can't I can't for the life of me think why I put Justin Bieber.

Pop Dada, Comedy, And “Art Is Shit”

SPEAKER_02 2:12

But I think it's relevant to where we're gonna go in this story. You describe your work as a a pop daydar party, and there's obviously lots of comedy based in that. So my first question before we get onto the full story, Mr. Edwards, art is shit. Do you believe art is shit?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

No, but that's a reference to Manzoni's artist's shit. And I it's almost like an anagram. So I quite like wordplay things. And as you know, he had a tin of shit, so I'll just uh slightly change the letters. So for the listener, what we're discussing is Mr.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Edwards is essentially a can of Is it your own shit?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Everybody likes a bit of mystery, don't they? So yeah, a play on the man's only piece Meader de Artista.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

That's right, yeah. Italian Italian guy, yeah? Yeah. And you've taken that and just tins labelled up as artists shit. I don't know why I did that. I it's one of those things. But do you believe art is shit? Because there is within Dada is um and pop art there is that comedy element that we speak about.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

It says I mean, look, there is some shit art, but there's great art. I don't believe art itself is shit. It's purely a play on that one piece of art, which is what he was doing. He was looking at what is art, why do people pay a lot of money for stuff? And so he was trying to take it to would you buy this as art. And is that why the is it dad artism? Is that why it's just a bit more um it's just bonkers, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah, it was essentially like you say, questioning what is art, what should be considered art, the farcical nature of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yes. And I think you'll find that there's comedy in it, especially now, so many comedians doing art. I think artists should do comedy. Goes hand in hand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

So where do we start, Mr. Edwards?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

What's with the moniker, Mr. Edwards? Uh well that's yeah, good point. I quite like that kind of very bland, nondescript naming convention, but it's also quite there's a lot of people that are Mr. something. I find it a bit amusing. And the reason I think I did it is I remember when I was working on ID magazine, we moved and we had these photographers' portfolios. They were put into black bin liners so that they didn't get lost during the move and they got thrown out. And one of the photographers got really annoyed, as they would. And I think when they rang up annoyed somebody just laughed at them about the loss, and so they sent someone round to get some compensation, and it was Mr. Smith. And I was thought that's quite sinister. Justice was one of those nights like you nobody's so generic, isn't it? Yeah. So it sort of almost takes your identity out of it and just gives it a mist remote. That could very well be what it's about. Should we talk about the work then? If we talk about the work, how would you describe the work that we well I I call it pop because it's based in stuff that's around, ephemera, collected stuff, stuff that uh amuses me, stuff that I like visually. I think I've got a very graphic eye. And where does that come from?

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Is this where we have to do the tell me about your child in this thing?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Well it is, that's why we just like why you're quite elusive on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I couldn't find a huge amount about you. Obviously, I've got the basics of your journey. You did your foundation East Ham College. Yeah, you then went on to St. Martin's School of Art, which then later turned into Central Surmines.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

And then the Royal College of Art.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

So there's quite an illustrious uh tutelage, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Partly I le I left the Royal College early. They kind of asked me not to come back. Okay, I feel like we'll get to that. Yeah. Shall we go the steps backwards to Well, oh yeah. Let's start right at the beginning, yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Um easiest place to start.

The “Mr.” Moniker And Identity

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah. How do you start on this path? I grew up in Ilford, which is out east. Very normal kind of childhood in the 1960s. But we didn't have any art in the house apart from when I was really young, I think there were two painting by numbers was a big thing that my I think my dad must have done, and they were on the wall. And then in the 70s I remember where there was one painting on it. It wasn't a painting, it was a constable, but it wasn't a painting, it was something in a plastic frame, and it was a kind of thing that came free with the biscuit tin or something like that. So it wasn't any art. And I remember we had one encyclopedia volume, I think it was I to J, something like that. And that was the only one we got, so I could only look up things. That's interesting. That's weird, isn't it? So that was So where was your stimulus coming from? Well, I didn't have this is what I'm gonna get, I didn't really have any stimulus. But then my dad was this is what it says on my birth certificate, he was a show card printer.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Well he worked for a a chain of supermarkets in the East End called the Cater Brothers, and all the signs that say baked beans, two pee off, and all the point of sale they would print in-house. And that's what he used to do. He was a screen printer, and very much a like original pop, the kind of stuff that people copied in pop art, let's just lettering and very simple just get fresh and stuff like that. And that was all presumably just screen printed posters at the time. So it was all screen printed and they used uh oil-based ink. You could smell it when he came in. So it was a smell that when you go into a print studio. Nostalgic. Yeah. Was he a very practical man or did he consider what he was doing creative? He's certainly not practical. He was a terrible bodger. He was a bit creative, he could draw a bit, I think. But he he never did anything at home. You know, he was never drawing or I think he he just saw it as a job. Yeah. And I remember going to work with him one day and it was under some railway arches, and they didn't have a toilet, so I think they'd have to go over the road to a pub. Or so I can't imagine you're allowed to have a workplace now where there's no facility. And I was a very small boy, and I wanted to go to the toilet, so he just got an ink tin, big ink tin, put some paper around it, and that was the so I remember the brand of the ink, Greyhound Inc., because uh that must have been a traumatic experience. That was your toilet. But these influences, obviously, your father being a screen printer, essentially. Yes, that's come into it more recently. But the thing about it was he used to bring home paper, lots of white paper, and it was shiny on one side, rough on the other, so obviously that's what they were using to print on. Now, in those days, nobody had paper really. Like your mum might have a couple of sheets of lilac, basiled and bond in the sideboard for writing letters. So I don't think people really had drawing paper. So I used to draw a lot, that's simply because you had the paper as well. Because I had the paper, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

What were you drawing? What sort of stuff were you making?

Early Influences And Paper Trails

SPEAKER_01 9:15

I can't remember. I remember we went on holiday to Pontin and I I won a drawing competition. I got prized, but I remember thinking, oh yeah, I'm good. Recognise your skill. Yeah, and I used to get a lot of teachers used to say, Oh, that that's better than the other kid. But what sort of stuff was it? I can remember I had to draw uh street vendors, so I would have been about six or seven. All street vendors had little cries, come and buy my oranges, stuff like that, and we had to draw all these different street vendors. But that kind of was the start. And also he would bring home calendars from obviously what were given to him by the ink company to show how good the ink is. They would always have famous paintings on them. And the only one I can remember is I don't know why it sticks in my mind, so but it's Scotland the Brave, and it's the charge of the Scots Graves by I think it's by Lady Elizabeth Butler. It's from Battle of Waterloo, a load of men on horseback charging out of the camp. So I started, I guess, getting exposed to art through that in a subconscious way. So from a house with no stimulus, these calendars that had all these reproductions of art. I was thinking back as to what it could be, and it's that, but you know, my brother and I used to get Marvel comics, lots of British comics and stuff. So it was that kind of pop art stuff like comic books. And were you imitating stuff you were seeing in comic books and recreating? Yeah, trying to draw things in the that were in comic books. But it's those colours and it's that, you know, roughly printed on newsprint, that's out of register. It's definitely had a shape looking at your work. Well, it's just one of those recurring themes. Um after that So yeah, how do we go from the child who didn't have any stimulus found paper and drawing to going, okay, I'm gonna do a foundation. Well, it's interesting because I hadn't thought about it at all. In fact, I didn't know that art schools existed. And the school I went to was uh was not great for me. And it was a rough school and I didn't think the teaching was particularly good. Um did you already have those sort of more, shall we say, creative sensibilities? No, but I was very I was very shy and very quiet, and I always felt a bit even I've got a brother and a sister, but my sister's four years younger, my brother's three years older, and I always felt a bit of an only child. Middle child's in there. Yeah. And I also had that thing where something's gone wrong here. I'm in the wrong family, obviously, and I was always expecting like a blimazine to turn up and go, Yeah, sorry, I don't know what happened there, but you got put in the wrong Really? Yeah, a lot of times. Why did you feel like you're in the wrong family? I don't know. I think it's one of those things kids just think, These aren't my parents. But then I was at school and I was I did French, I was okay at French. I like geography. I was terrible at math. You know, they have a problem if a ladder's leaning against a wall and there's a shadow at what's the angle. I used to spend a lot of time drawing the ladder. And the ladder and the shadow and the shadow. And all those. And he said if you spent as much time trying to work the mass out as he did drawing the things, you'd be good at it. And geography, I would be doing all cross-sections of glaciers and volcanoes.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Again, introducing that creative, the technical elements.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, I was drawing because I was good at doing the diagrams. And then suddenly I decided to go into the sixth form, and everything changed, but you could only do one language. So I used to learn I used to learn German at lunchtime. What made you want to spend your lunches learning German? Well, I just is in charge. I like languages. And I was quite good at French, and so is that again an obsession with words in the same respect? It doesn't even matter what language it's in. I don't know. I just wanted to learn another language. But I digressed, don't I? Geography and French. So I had this in the sixth form, there's only three people in my French group. A wonderful French teacher who used to take us, because there were so few of us, take us to the Courtoid Institute to look at French impressionists. So it started to get exposed to proper art. And what did you feel when you were being exposed to that art for the not the first time you've seen art through the calendars and the biggest thing?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Well it's you know fresh.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Impressionism is easy to get into, it's like chocolate box stuff, isn't it? So I can't really remember. I It must have had an influence though. It must have done, but I I think it's something that goes in and you don't realise it's in till a bit later. And I was looking at my mum saw a job in the paper for the ordnance survey people that do the map. Because I'd done some technical drawing as well, that was one of the things I could do at school. And I always thought there's some geography in there, I'd probably do illustration. Because I really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. And then one day, in the sixth form area, a girl, Elaine Malinsky, suddenly said, I'm going to art school. And I was like, Oh wow, they have art schools. She went, Yeah. I said, Oh, what what's it called? And she said, Oh, it's St. Martin School of Art. So I don't even remember how I got the application papers. I think maybe at the library. So I applied to the foundation course at St. Martin. And what did that involve? An interview? They wanted to see some drawings? They wanted to So I didn't really. Did you know this? I was gonna do that. No, so I I went along for an interview. I had a little like a plastic supermarket bag. I think I had a bit of boutique I'd done, some cartoons and got maybe some stuff. I think I I did art at school, but it was like a bit of steel life, and most of the time we just left to our own devices. The only thing I remember is there was a big stack of German magazines. Maybe that's why I wanted to learn German. There's a stack of German magazines called Stern. And it was not really suitable for kids. I I feel like I've heard of it. Yeah, it was like a colour supplement thing, but as it was all in Germany you'd flick through and there would be like a couple of pages of woman in laundry, and then you'd turn a page and there'd be a headless torso on a beach, and you'd try and connect what the story was, but you can't read it because it's in a different language. But that stuck in my mind for some reason.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

So did you start to make work with these magazines, or was it just that piecing together stories?

Finding Art School And Foundation

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Uh well I'll that will come into the thing in a bit, I guess. Um but anyway, let's get back to St. Martin. Going for an interview. Just had this couple of still life things and cartoons in a bag. And they went, no, this won't do at all. You need to have a body of work that we can assess you on, decide whether you'd be right for the course. And I thought, oh. But what they did say was this is a lot of people trying to get on this course, it's very competitive. But if you go to your local authority, it'd be easier to get a play, do your foundation course there, and then reapply here for the degree course. So I went, okay, gotcha. So I must have gone back to the library and found East Ham was my local college. So I applied and I went along for the interview there. I hadn't learnt anything, by the way, until then. But I had a different carrier bag. I had a paper bag. It was from a shop called Johnson's that was in Kensington Market. So I remember when I walked into the interview, there was a wonderful guy there called Roger Jeff who interviewed me, and he went, Oh, that's a very trendy bag. And then he what he did is he interviewed me first. So he talked to me, and I just asked you things like, What books are you reading? What films do you like? And I was reading all these books about that I was quite into the Spanish Civil War, which again is gonna come back. Um he said, You you're just the kind of student that we're looking for. I was like, great. Before looking at the work. And then he said, Let's have a look at your work. So I got I emptied the contents of this paper bag on the desk and I can remember his words. He said, Jesus Christ, it's not a lot, is it? He goes, Well, I can't give you a place on the strength of this and makes a mockery of the whole interview process. But he said, if you go away and go and get yourself a an easel and a big piece of wood and some big sheets of paper. So I think everything I had was A4. Go and get some great big sheets of paper and some charcoal and do some views from your bedroom window and then bring them back in a couple of weeks. I'll have a rethink. He must have seen something in you then said. Yeah, I think he did, because he he inviewed me first, yeah. So I did that and I went back and he said, Alright, I'll take a punt. God bless him, I went on that course. Now, at the time I was working at McDonald's, that was my it's the only job I could get in Ilford. And I just happened to mention to another guy that was going to East Town. He said, I'm going to East. And I know I remembered that this guy had a car, and so on the first day, he had a mate he went to school with is also going to East Town. So on the first day he picked us up in the car, the first day we were like a little gang, we were in a little team, so everybody gravitated to us because we looked like You knew what you were doing. Exactly, yeah. But it was great. It was and it's an interesting building because it's mainly people doing welding and pipe fitting and the trade skills. Then you went right to the top floor and then it opened out and it was this art department. And this was the early eighties, so everybody was weird and wonderful, and they used to get in the lift and you get a lot of abuse from all the tradesmen that were in there because everybody had pink hair and God knows what. And then you go up to this sanctuary that was on the top floor, and I you know, I I loved it. I started keeping a lot of scrapbooks and sketchbooks and collage stuff I would stick in. And when the the year was up and it was time to start applying for colleges, we had this pool system where there's a lot of not your real not your personal stuff, but just like colour wheels and the technical stuff. We pooled all our resources, so we had one super portfolio that we'd borrowed to take round, and it was the best of three of us. Oh John's great at doing the colour wheels, we'll use John's colour wheel. Okay, your colour wheel, we'll use your whatever that is, and you're one of those, put them together and very resourceful. But we also did this project that was you had to bring in a document of some kind, like a birth certificate or a passport, and then you had to zoom in on a very small area and enlarge it. So it's a bit like in a banknote when you look at all the st stuff that goes in to stop people counterfeiting it. You're looking at that. But we got very good with coloured pencils, and in those days your bus pass was this cardboard thing, and everyone got very good at changing the date by using coloured pencils. So it essentially became mini forgers. We got became mini forgers, and my mate got he came unstuck. he did one for his brother and he got caught and he dubbed his brother in and the police came and raided they had a search warrant for his offices.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Where he was working and the thing is he had got this offer to go and work in Hollywood doing film posters. And he got a criminal record 'cause of this thing and he couldn't go. Yeah. Oh God David. The thing is he was in the local paper and they called him the head of this forgery ring. Really? A forgery ring. He was called and I think it named him as Mr. Big.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Mr. Big Yeah. Where's the Mr. connotation again? But there you go. It's gonna come up a bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, so anyway, where am I now?

SPEAKER_02 20:43

So you exit this so you've count yourself lucky that you haven't been caught up too much in the forgery ring.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

I only found out this recently I didn't realise that this had happened. I just remember doing my bus pass. We'd all put names of artists on because you knew that the guy behind the ticket box wouldn't know who uh who was your chosen artist? I can't remember. I don't know if it was me or somebody else had Rodchenko which he was a Russian constructor as as their name. Probably would have been a Hockney or something, I don't know. Duchamp or someone like that because French yeah because they had nothing more English than a foreign name really is it? So then that's right, then it came time to do a degree course and I I went to look at the degree course at St Martin's was a different building about 300 yards from Covent Garden station. And it was this fantastic old fruit and vegetable warehouse and it was really nicely done up in 80s style. Lots of like primary colours and but it had this fantastic boardroom that was like lined in just walnut. So when I had looked around I fell in love it was like such a great building I thought that's it I wanna I want to go there and I I But presumably at this point you had the body of work from your foundation.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

I had the body of work now yes. Cha ching was it the same person that interviewed you?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

No because it was a different team so the foundation was in a different building and this was the greed team. But before I got to that bit I you have to put a second choice so if you don't get in I just thought I don't know who to put as my second choice because I haven't seen anywhere I like and you had your heart set on I really had my heart set on going to St Martin's and it's got a brilliant piece of advice which I don't know if I would do now but my personal tutor guy called Nikos and he said where was the worst place that you saw put that as your second choice and then that'll make sure that you get into St. Martin's because if you don't you're gonna end up going to that shithole.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Oh so you use that almost as a driver?

St Martin’s: Style Vs. Finishing Work

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah so it's like burning your boats. It's like you you no other option you've got no other option you've got to get in otherwise you're gonna go Did that make you work harder on your portfolio or your interview or it must have done because otherwise I don't know why I would have done it. But I think it was more mindset really. Because you've got no idea what they're looking for that's the problem. And the thing about St Martin's is that they tend to pick different types of people so that when they put them together it creates something. So they don't want all the melting pot of people from all different walks of life. So it's almost like they'll take one punk, one posh person, one working class So what sort of subculture bracket do you think that you fitted into at that point? I don't know I don't think I was particularly in any category but I think I was maybe like 'cause I had a lot of scrapbooks and sketchbooks, maybe I'm a collector of something like that. They saw that winning. By bringing something in that other people didn't have necessarily. But again I went for the interview I had a really nice Johnson suit. It was like a oh not turquoise but powder blue suit and I remember I went for the interview and there was about three or four others were all sitting there waiting to go and you got called upstairs to this fantastic boardroom that I was telling you about. While I was sitting there the door of the college opened and who pokes their head in? My mum and she'd come along to wish me luck. So she came and then it looked like I'd come to the interview with my mum. You can laugh about that now but presumably when you saw her I was so embarrassed. But God bless her she knew it meant a lot to me I guess and she wanted to support you.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah that's very sweet I think yeah hindsight that is at the time as a teenager or whatever you were a young man trying to get into art college and look cool and in your powder blue suit.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

My fantastic suit mum rocks in but oh yeah that's I guess that's just funny. So in this interview in the boardroom was it similar to when you went before were they asking you similar questions about your influences they asked me what kind of books I was reading and I have to mention I'm very interested in the Spanish Civil War and they that seems to be the magic charm because I think I also mentioned that at the Royal College interview. That was obviously the key. The Spanish Civil War was the key at different times. It was the early 80s and I think it was quite fashionable. So it was the same kind of it was very much a very informal interview you know it's very much nobody's really interested in what qualifications you've got it's all looking at your work and what kind of person you are it's just what films have you seen what do you like doing? It's a bit like this really on the channel What were the sort of film influences of that time? Well I liked Eraserhead was I hadn't been out that long but I really like I really like odd art house films. I like gosh what else was around it was like the man who fell to earth Burry almost a bit dreamlike surreal elements to do and I also through the French connection not the I like the film the French connection but not that there was a a Cocteau film which Morrissey used to steal from that on the one of his single covers. Orpheus I think it's called Orfe. And that was really weird and it's all black and white very surreal. So I'd say art house kind of films. Yeah I don't know I'm really I'm not really a much of a I don't go to the cinema much. Don't really enjoy going to the cinema particularly by the time I was thirty I'd probably only been to the cinema like a dozen times. Interesting bearing in mind that's quite a visual reference for a lot of people growing up TV, film cinema.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah. And were there any other students from East Ham attempting to get onto the course?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

There was one other I think they really made they really tried to put me off. The people at East Ham Yeah so Nikos and Roger Jeff's were great but there are a couple of cunts there that really not very nice. Well tell me how it's feeding when you prove them wrong. Yeah it is yeah that's but it that helps I guess you need a bit of you need a bit of encouragement but you also sometimes need the toxic fuel.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Yeah it sounds bad doesn't it but yeah that chip on your shoulder to go fuck that person I will do that. I'll show them I'll show them and you did so you got onto your degree course at St Martin's the one that you wanted to do. Yep. What does that look like for you? What sort of work are you creating? What are you learning?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

What are you a lot because I just loved I absolutely loved just being there and I'm a bit of a slow learner and I I'm one of those people that tend to fall through the cracks because I missed something I was too shy to say I didn't quite get that and so I would just bluff along. So there's a few things that I wasn't very good at and I missed the technical side of it and that used to hold me up a bit I would procrastinate and not finish things for some reason. They were always saying that you're doing all these scrapbooks and sketchbooks and you need to get that out of there and on to some sort of finished piece. Finished piece and I couldn't collect I just couldn't seem to do that. Was that some sort of paradox of choice you've always had too much in the sketchbooks that have to be a bit of a I think it's just I'm just there's like a fear of committing to the final thing whereas in the book it's safe and just incomplete so you haven't got to worry about saying that's the finished thing. And is that something to do with your own perception of the work or is that how it's viewed by others?

SPEAKER_02 28:01

When it's in your sketchbook it's safe. It's just an idea but when you present it Oh I don't mind showing people when it's in the sketchbook but that's what I mean in the final idea people go, oh well actually I don't like that colour. I don't like that. You get the judgment.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah and it was a real problem. I don't know why. How did that work in terms of things like the critiques at college and things like that when they say you need to finish it and I'd get put on probation because would not commit to it and finish. And I don't know I don't know I think it's just a kind of because I was so shy as a kid I don't I can't quite put my finger on it and it seems strange now but at the time looking back I just couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

It's an experienced thing um you say you're a young art student finding your way to put yourself out there in a final piece is hard for any artist, any creative. Is that something that's come with experience, with confidence?

SPEAKER_01 28:50

With I just didn't have any confidence. I still don't have I still don't have any confidence we talk a lot about the universal imposter syndrome. Yeah very much but just confidence in anything I can remember when I was working at ID in my mid to late twenties the editor took me to a dinner party once right everybody at the table was like brilliant and I don't think I said a word I just thought wow I'm so out of my league and they were all talking about really cool stuff that I just didn't know about.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Not in the same intellectual league as these people then is that how you felt at college as well at university St Martin's No I didn't I thought I was I thought I was I was brilliant but I just couldn't finish anything.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

So you had your own limitations that perhaps you didn't realise you were putting on this I just it you've got to remember that so there was no computers and stuff everything was hand done so if you had to work out how you were going to make this look finished. And there were like a few techniques like we photocopy things and put use acetate and but it was the mock-ups you couldn't actually like you can now just quickly was it the same appropriating images, collection of stuff? What was the work? I really got into kind of mid-century images, very graphic. I think because the only tool that I had was a photocopier and so St Martin's had this amazing cupboard in the library that was just full of Life magazine from about 1930 to about 1960 and I used to spend all my time in the library just flicking through looking at all these ads and they're all like black and white and very graphic use of line and half tones and and so I would just enlarge these things and get all the dots up big and did you notice the correlation between what your father did and you doing this at the time?

SPEAKER_02 30:45

There's definitely that crossover, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:47

I remember going to his workplace a bit later but I noticed they had this room with about eight screen print beds in it and they were only using two and then before I went to art school he got made redundant and he went into a completely different job. So I did a bit of screen printing and I thought you know what if he was still there I bet half of those tables are not I could just go in the summer and just print. But unfortunately he was no longer there. And funny enough we had to do a a screen print project and they gave you two words that you had to put together and then make an image and print it. And the words I got was macabre and banana. And so what I did is I'm I had a peeled banana and the top bit I turned into like a shark's head and in Sydney they have a a big sculpture event called Sculpture by the sea every year at Bondi and it's all along the clifftops. And last year someone had a peeled banana with a shark's head coming out of it that looked exactly the same as that print from 30 years ago and someone made it and it looked great. I just thought wow that's the same idea. That's coincident I mean that guy would not see my first year print project. But interesting I guess yeah it's uh so you're struggling to finish pieces it's collecting it's screen printing it's screen printing to it Life magazine creating your visual library in your brain right I guess what it was also I couldn't quite work out what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to look like but for some reason I couldn't quite get it on paper. Didn't come it didn't look like how I I saw it in my brain Yeah we've discussed that before if you've got an image in your brain and you know how you want it to look and you're not sure you can get it there maybe it's better to stay in the brain.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Maybe that's what you're doing.

ID Magazine: Paste-Up And Printcraft

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Well that's it was that's why you didn't finish it was weird. But obviously by the third year I'd got some stuff together that I was quite pleased with. And um You're starting to develop some sort of style at this point. Yeah I had a style I had quite a style um can you say more about that? What sort of style was that well it well it was a bit I guess it was a bit pop art ish. If I looked at it now I go it's terrible but at the time I thought it was quite of its time it's very eighties of its time. But I I really felt like I wasn't ready to go out into the workforce. But I did a placement at a a place called Red Ranch and that really opened my eyes because What was Red Ranch? It was a little studio that was doing really cool record sleeves and film posters and I remember one of the jobs they were doing Nightmare on Elm Street that had just come out and they were doing the posters for that and they was just two young guys running the studio and just watching them like they had music playing really loud and then when when someone would ring up they would turn it all off and then they would pick the phone up and be very professional. Exactly and I'd watch them there'd be clients ringing up saying where's that where's that work and they'd go it left ten minutes ago so with a courier and then they'd still frantically working on it and the courier's standing over there in all his leathers getting really hot. That was the other thing everything got sent everywhere by courier and I just it was just great watching them getting to do real projects. On the job stuff yeah and so that's when I started to learn things and then we also got Karen Franklin from ID magazine came in and set up project and nobody did it I don't think except for me. It was like a magazine layout and so she offered me a placement at ID. How old was ID at this point? Been going about five years. So still in the it was still very exciting there. And so again then I started to learn it was doing all the paste up that you used to have to do layouts and all those unbelievable how labour intensive I mean there used to be a lot of money in design because it was you just forget how so easy. Like you said before computers and publishing software and all that sort of stuff it had to be mocked up and layered out by you would be given a typewritten sheet with all the words for the article you'd have to count that and then you would get a book that had different typefaces at different sizes so you knew what size the type had to be in the layout so you would photocopy all this body copy in that size and stick it on a board and work out how many words are in that and how many words are in the article and then you'd get the layout. Then you would send that copy off to come back as galleys of the real type stick that in and that would be just on paper and then when you got the layout right you would send it off and it would come back as a bromide. You're on about your third time of sticking all this down and then photographs they were either transparencies in which case you had to project them against the wall trace them on a bit of paper and then photocopy those up to the size you wanted them on the page or if they were prints you would just photocopy them to the side and then they would be all stuck on the board all in black and white and then you put tracing paper overlays with instructions to the print of what colour you wanted stuff and it was in intense.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Yeah very in-depth process then.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah. And is this what you were doing as an intern when you were placed I was just giving like some the regular pages but it was you're just learning all your paste up techniques because it's like being a surgeon. You'd have a surgical scalpel a set square and parallel motion and because everything had to be square and you had these rotary pens. Some correlation between your technical drawing and stuff yes very technically and any dirt would get picked up on the camera when it was photographed. So it had to be very precise and clean and there were all these little tricks that you used. And some places would have people who just were called paste up artists and they would just do that bit. You know art director would do a rough layout and they would because it was so intense. Anyway, I feel I'm rambling off where we were sorry I'm still at college aren't I so doing these placements and getting a bit better but I wanted to that's why I went to the Royal College I thought I I'd want to just polish up a bit. But when I went to the Royal College it was just like going back to the first year at St Martin's it would seem to be an identical thing. They give you all these kind of crazy projects and they were the same kind of thing that they do in the first year. That's very fun. But once you presumably have developed a bit of a style you're I wanted to go on to progress. And the thing is what I really need I needed some mentoring really and I didn't get it and I'm always missing what's going on and the thing about the Royal College was you go there you do your own thing and you develop that and you're very much self which I wasn't you know you you just got a desk not even any drawing boards or anything it's just like a table and so there's a room with a load of tables in it you just go and sit in that and then you get a set project like uh design a motorway signage system and I'd go into this room and there'd be nobody there and I'd think am I missing a lecture or something? And everyone would just be off doing their own thing. So I just I used to go over to the Natural History Museum which was literally the other side of the road I'd go in there and look at dinosaurs and that's how I'd spend my day. And so by the end of the year I hadn't really produced anything. So they said look we'll give you a certificate for a year just don't come back. So what did you do at that point? Where did you feel you were going to take your creativity, your art? I don't know I was just it's like that was a bit of a disappointment. I was a bit lost I thought I don't know what to do now. I've I ran out of college. Yeah you'd give you a lot of I was trying to extend college because I didn't really know where I wanted to keep going where I wanted to go to a student. And so like in so many things in my life I just keep going for too long until somebody stops it and that's the next thing. So I I I went to a party and I bumped into Karen Franklin again. I said I've been asked to leave the Royal College and she said oh no he said we had a job going as a designer on the magazine we've just taken someone on but if you want to just come in and help out or just or even just hang out there'd be much better if you were applying for jobs to say I'm at ID than just sitting at home in your bedroom. So I started I guess you call it a placement kind of thing or internship or whatever they call it now. For free were they paying you? No I was doing it for free but just so that I could say I was there and it was enjoyable and then What was the atmosphere like around ID at that point? It was like a lot of people coming in. They had offices in Covent Garden so I walked to work and it was in an I think it was an old school of things that was upstairs. It was just like one big room with a kitchen photographers were always coming in designers were always coming in lots of really interesting creative hub. Yeah because it's it was all new as well and seeing our magazine works it was really exciting. What's the biggest takeaway you think you took from interning and seeing all of this I think it's more like expos you're just exposed to what's going on and who's doing what and seeing creative people and your inputs have suddenly increased. Because I'm not really a fashion kind of person So it was it was there was a lot of really interesting fashion. I was into the design and the thing about ID magazine was it's started by a designer, an art director started by Terry Jones. He used to work on Vogue as the art director but he was a bit held back. He couldn't do what he I think Punk had just started and he wanted to do some really exciting stuff and they wouldn't let him do what he wanted to. So he started his own magazine ID and the great thing about it was is because it's run by a art director designer that held the most sway. So if the editor said I want to do this and the designers wanted it always tended to go the designer's way and just interesting stuff. I've never worked anywhere like that where the owner of the edit you know is on your side as a designer. Famously, Terry would someone would write an article, and if it was too long, he'd just slice the bottom off and it would end mid-sentence because all he's interested in is how the How it looked, how it framed, how it was sitting on the page. Get rid of that, toss that bit away. Did that give you some sort of freedom? Yeah, and it started to give you a bit more confidence because you could experiment. It was all about experimenting and feeling like you were having some input and there's encouragement. So how does that internship turn into Oh because I was only there about four weeks and the designer went to work at Vogue. So there was a lot of, you know, there was the face and ID, and a lot of people started on those, and then they would work their way up to higher positions in bigger magazines where there's better salary. So they didn't pay very well, and so uh that was the other thing. I had a part-time job. A friend of mine worked in a underground car park in Covent Garden, and he got me a job there, and it was working at weekend, just sitting in a box collecting money. But it was two 12-hour shifts, 12 hours on Saturday, 12 hours on Sunday. And then I used to work two nights a week at McDonald's, so it's like a 71-hour week. On top of that, I'm 20 or something, I'm going out on Thursday, Friday, Saturday at night. So I'm probably exhausted all the time, which didn't help. I stopped doing the McDonald's thing, but the salary was so poor, I kept that up for a couple of years where I was working at ID five days a week and still doing these two days at the cup. So I was working seven days a week and I lived in Grazing Road, and on one corner was the car park I worked at, and the other corner was the ID offices. And St. Martin's was just a little bit further. It was all in this just even though I was still not living there, I felt like Covent Garden was my village kind of thing. That's possibly caused some of those problems at college, and I I'm just burn out, not looking. Yeah. It was a very interesting place, this car park. I feel like there's some stories. There there are, yeah. So during the week, this car park, it was these three geezers, like cockney geezers that worked down there, and they showed us lots of tricks, really. Which I probably won't go into. But yeah, we could boost our earnings a bit. But I was in a bubble of innocence. I was and and they took a shine to me, partly because sometimes girls from college would come down to see me and they were impressed by that. But they were quite serious. I didn't realise how serious they were. And one of them went to prison for six months for assorting a police officer. And he was a small man, but he could be quite aggressive. And he was lovely, he was a lovely so good. If he was on your side, it was great. Oh, he was so good to us, so good to us. But there were some serious things going on.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

What lessons are you what life lessons are you learning at this point in this?

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Well, you're just gett becoming more aware of the real world, because literally was in like this little bubble. And I think that's saved me a lot of things. You're not taken as a threat or anything, or I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

What were these shall we say, hard men's attitude towards you being an artist?

Starting NICE: Youth Culture Design

SPEAKER_01 43:29

They weren't they weren't hard men, they were just they were just doing things which would have fall into some grey areas, shall we say. Yes. And he did offer me a firearm when I started there, but I thought he was joking.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

So you so you were in this this bubble, but you were seeing some stuff that I guess every people were.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Yeah, but I just took it all in my stride then because I was just a young guy, didn't know anything. Did you use any of that time when you were in the car park to do creating?

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Are you drawing, sketching?

SPEAKER_01 43:57

But I read a lot, but because you're just sitting in a box and uh I used to use they had these big illuminated ads in there, and I used to use it as a light box to trace on. But it was quite hard, there wasn't the space to really do much down there. And to be honest with you, I used to really look forward to Monday because I'd be at college and I I think I was so exhausted from going out and then I'd often go clubbing or something, go straight to the car park in the morning, just sleep in a chair for two hours, and I'd just be tired all the time. And it was a place to sleep and catch up on not doing anything. So you're hanging out at ID? Yes. And Terry Jones offered me a job there. Yeah, he he And what was the job? It was like a designer doing the layout. And I showed you my portfolio and I said, Oh, I don't really know much about all the technical aspect. And that was the bit he liked. His maverick. So that it what he liked was the energy and not the fact that it was technically competent, because he wasn't really interested in in that side of his whole thing was that it should be a which is something that I've taken with me, is he likes things to be an element of discovery to it, so that the reader has to work h hard. Like you look at a lot of magazines now and it's very and I think it's partly an effect of the digital age, it's like it's white pages, very easy to read, just a square picture, they're not very visually interesting. Whereas the idea was to put the type over the top of the picture, you gotta can't see it in a certain light, there's red, blue, and clashing, lots of visually eye-hurting kind of stuff. And that's was its charm. But that idea of letting the reader discover something for themselves makes them more amenable to what you're doing because they feel like they they're the only one who's found it. They've had to work a bit harder and it's their discovery. That's what kind of you get a bit of loyalty from that. And so I'm very much into that kind of I'm not gonna say mystery, it's not really but it's just a bit more of a you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

So how long were you working at ID for?

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Alright, so then we I worked there for about three years, I think. And then, you know, there there was a uh guy there I was working with, Stephen Mayor, and we got on really well, and after we'd been there for a while, we thought, well, let's let's do our own thing. But what was the catalyst to go we're gonna do our own thing? Because we I think we had the same we had the same tastes, we had the same kind of sense of humour because we were working on layouts together, it's just the two of us. I think we just worked well together. We just wanted to do our own stuff. Because it w you know the the money was not great. Apart from that, I can't really remember. I just think that it was a natural thing to do. You work there and then you go off and do it. And what does your own thing look like with you? Well, so we what we did is we weaned ourselves off it. So I I D now had moved to Shoreditch. This is about nineteen eighty-nine, and there was nothing at Shoreditch then. It was bleak, really bleak. You know, no one was really happy about going there because it pre-gentrification. Yeah. There was one sandwich shop. There were still bomb sites and the the pubs all had blacked out windows, dance poles. There was two pubs that you could go in, I think. And that was it. There was just nothing, no shops, no cafes, no restaurants, just a lot of boarded up. A very different shortage to we know now. We were in this big old building, and it was me and an sorry, another friend of mine, so there's three of us, and we took a an office upstairs above ID, and then we were still actually doing the design on ID, so it was but As your own entity. As outsiders kind of thing, yeah. So it was really handy because we were just the floor above, but we could also then do our own stuff. Then, you know, we just went to the bank and got an overdraft for£10,000, I think. And that's what we used as capital to get going. But we couldn't think of a name. So we called ourselves Ideal. That was our first name. And then we thought, oh, that's a bit too close to ID. So we thought, let's call ourselves Smart. I think we call ourselves get Smart. I don't know why we went with that, I c I can't remember. We thought, oh let's make it a bit more professional, Sam and call it Smart Associate. Then this guy came round and he said, Oh, my name's Ricky Smart and I've got a design business four doors down and and I've I'm called Smart Associates. And we went, Oh, okay. That's your name, so you have that. The other guy I worked with, Richard, he'd been doing these certificates and he'd been playing with first, second and third, which were what was going on the certificate. And while he was because it was all paste up still, while he was playing about, he put the three from third next to the ST of first and got Thirst. I thought, oh that's a great name. So we called ourselves Three ST Thirst. Then we got a call from this guy in America who said, I've got a design company called 3ST Thirst. So it's a bit like that spinal tap thing, you know, we called ourselves the originals. There was already a a band called the Originals. And then somebody else came up with an idea and said, Why don't you call yourself Nice? It's so bland, no one will have it. And they were right. It's because you couldn't have it because it's so bland you can't register it. So we had to register Nice of London Limited, but we just called ourselves Nice.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

What elements of the three of you working for ID did you take into your own agency?

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Well, because we would get some of the people that advertised in ID. I guess we we're doing the same style of graphics and appealing to kind of youth things, fashion, music, street culture. Yeah, and go we did a lot of magazines as well. So we did magazines for British Airways, young flyers, and and they just wanted something a bit more youth focused. So that's what we did. That was our thing. And we had this very cool office. And I think people in these corporate companies, they've just liked turning up and hanging out in the office with us, and that was part of the charm. So the works varied, but of that same pop culture use. Yeah, we're very we were very influenced by a lot of like sixties and seventies graphics.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

And the work that you're producing through Nice, that was all of your own making, wasn't it? It's like they were coming to you because they wanted this nice studio style, this youth culture.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Yeah, I mean you if you're going out getting work, but what I'm saying is your people aren't getting you to do something that you don't do. It's like the the way it was then is you brand yourself by your style of work and you would get jobs based on your style. That's why they would come to you. They wouldn't come to you and then say, Can you make it look like this? Or like that. It would be you'd be there specifically because they like what you'd already done for somebody else. And you're working for clients like Levi's, Wranglers, News Convert, yeah. And then different record companies. But who's got um MC Eric? I like Eric. We did something for a band called Candy Flip who they had a number one hit with a Beatles cover.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

But was that quite good for your creative egos to go, we can do what we want to do, not where as opposed to now it's oh we need X image for this format that is for this and shows the product at three-quarter angle?

Collecting As A Visual Engine

SPEAKER_01 51:57

I guess I just think there were just simpler times. People didn't overthink it so much. Do you think that's a problem now? I think see, I think now a lot of design is is dry, boring, and what was it about that time that you felt made the design much more interesting? Well there was a lot going on and lots of people doing experimental stuff and it was just quite an explosion of it. So that was the norm, really. It was you could really see the difference between something that looked a bit old and stodgy and because they weren't doing something new. And and so a lot of things were getting revamped, I think. That's what it felt like. Did you feel like you were innovators of that time? I don't yeah, I don't know if we were, but I feel like 'cause a lot of people everybody was doing there's lots of similar little groups around, all doing their own thing with a certain style. Was there a competitive nature? Were you all trying to outdesign each other in a sense? I don't think that no, I think it was quite a good I used to meet socially and compare notes, and it was quite quite a good what's the word? Nobody was like hostile, you know, everybody would Yeah. Yeah, but you you'd say, Oh, you should use this guy or someone came in to see us and you should see that person. There's a lot of that going on. What were some of the adverts you were doing for say Levi's, Wrangler, Converse, some of these big brands? Well, for them we'd do a lot of brochures and and catalogue, you know, all their quite big, big projects, because it was like every product that they sell. But you know, you could do stuff with the covers and section things. And then we started doing all their store windows, and so they'd have a theme and they got a match. So that's fun. You're out collecting because it's like getting props and stuff to put in the the windows. And then there'd be lots of posters and point of sale, which is more interesting kind of stuff. How long were you guys creating at nice? So we went for I think just under five years, and then uh Stephen May didn't want to do it anymore. It was a partnership, so we just disbanded. I suppose within this, I should ask.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Are you creating any work personally at this point, or is it all just about the design agency, the work that you're creating for the job?

Australia, Macs, And The Scan Era

SPEAKER_01 54:09

That's a good point. So at this point, I am now in super collecting mode, I guess. So this is What does that look like? Is that a channel or hoarding documentary? Um we like so we've got a huge library of books and magazines, but a lot of old magazines, and then we've got a huge collection of really shit vinyl that is purely for the covers. But they've got terrific covers, but and the music is awful. And it's a you can pretty much bet the better the cover the shitter the music. Yes. And so this is before there's any of those books that came out with vinyl junkyard and all those places. So y if you didn't have a collection of stuff, there's nowhere to go because there's no internet. So most design studios would have this kind of their own reference. So we'd have all these old books and magazines you can flick through and get ideas. So that's why you start collecting, because it's all referent. That literally see something laying on the street and you'd think, oh that's quite interesting. And so I'd pick that up and keep it, put it in a scrapbook. And I remember as a studio we went on holiday to Amsterdam for New Year, and big firework things there. It's a bit crazy, they just let them off when you're along the street and you gotta duck out of the way. But then New Year's Day with a screaming hangover, I just spent the day going round all the streets of Amsterdam fishing out damp fireworks out of the gutter, taking them all back to the hotel and soaking all the labels off these fireworks, just keeping the labels for visual reference, because they were badly printed, great colours, you know. And that's why am I interested in all these things that are out of register? I don't know. But it's that is That's the constant to the whole story. So one of the things about working at ID, no computers, all done as I told you, like black and white. So we would get a colour proof for the cover, but for the rest of the magazine we couldn't afford any proofs. So bearing in mind you've just written stuff on tracing paper saying, Can I have that headline in this colour? Can you make the copy this colour on this colour background? You didn't see it till it started coming off the press. So it's actually being printed now, and if it came out wrong, it's too late, it's already there. So the boards with all the types stuck on it and the actual transparencies and the prints would all get sent to the reproduction house and they would scan all those things in and put the layout together and then make f four separations, which would be cyanagenta, yellow and black, and I'd get sent those four films and I'd just have to look at them on a light box and try and work out Imagine them. Yeah, imagine them in colour. So then I would have to go to the printers once a month, and because we didn't have any money, it was always overnight, and I would literally just sit in a bucket seat in a printer's from like ten o'clock at night till six o'clock the next morning. And I then I would watch it coming off the press, and it'd be the first time I've ever seen it in colour. Once you're in that position, you can't do anything presumably. I I'm not allowed, I've been told not to stop the press because it's incredibly expensive. All you can do is look at the colour balance and try and boost some colours or place some down and make sure it's even. So it really there's not a lot you can do. But it's so exciting seeing this stuff come off. So the first ones that come off are just printed in yellow. And then it comes out yellow and magenta, and then yellow, magenta, and blue, and then all four colours. But the first ones that come off they print on something they've already printed, and they overprint it, because they don't want to waste paper. And you get these amazing things of overlays and stuck over photos, which is not you this is completely random design now, because you haven't designed it. Yeah, it's the mistakes. It's just your graphics are printed over something they've already got. But you get these amazing things happening. I would just take all those how and then all these bits where they've only printed two of the layers, not all of them. And we'd use those as reference. Look how good those two colours look just together without the type all over it or without black in it, or that photograph with only So is this the start of you to create Yeah. So all this interesting stuff, that's where I'm starting to build up a a palette of ideas of things that I really like and want to experiment with. And that out of register stuff is partly this stuff coming off the press, because it's they're just building up to getting it all in register. So a lot of that's out of register, and it it's quite I can't think of the word. So it's not static. The fact that it's out of register and that gives it a lot of action, vitality, and that's what I quite like about it, I think. Plus something about mistakes that slightly out of your control, and it this could be because I haven't actually done it. I've done it, but it's not quite how I thought it was going to be, because there's a mistake element. Somehow that's taken the responsibility off me, and so I like it better. Is there something in that lack of responsibility that goes back to you not finishing pieces? That's what I'm getting at, yeah. I think that's what it is like. You've created the idea, but someone's actualising it, and actually it's come out not how you imagined it. And so because it's like someone else has done it, then I'm okay with it. It's just me doing it that's the problem. And so that little bit of chance and that little mistake is like a somebody else's hand. It's like the hand of God just changing it, and then I'm okay with that because I can't punish myself. Oh, that's weird, isn't it? I don't know. That's the wrong word. It's not it's just that bit being a little bit random. Is there something if you're not fully responsible for it, you can't be fully judged for it? That's that's what I meant, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

So how do we go from that where it is attention to detail, design studio, but you're finding these imperfections and the responsibility is almost gone, that's for client work.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Then you're taking these things that are in the collections. I don't know if these are all for client work. This is more me thinking about my own stuff down the track.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

But where does that come from? Because presumably, when you're in it as a design studio, it's day to day, we're running the design studio, it's all about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Going back to my original question, were you creating up this palette of things to do and I'm collecting stuff and it's just building up. So you're Visual library, you're just topping up those visual influences. I had a big filing cabinet which was just all little drawers and it's just all like crap in it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

But were you aware that you were doing that with the future focus on creating, or was it just that is just your habit by the sounds of it? From day one of jobs.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Well, it was I I guess I always wanted to do something with it. That was the thing. Like this will come in handy. That's I like the look of that. And so it was to use in jobs, but there was so much of it it was not. And you can't always use what you've got for But that collection, that almost hoarding of ideas, hoarding of visual resources, is evident throughout your whole story.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:15

The scrapbooks are all of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

And we'll come to that probably now. So when NICE is finishing. What triggered the end of Nice Studios and you guys all working in that sense together? Because it was like it's like a marriage thing, and then one partner doesn't want to do it anymore. So that's so the whole thing disbands. It ran its course. I was still enjoying it. But but but by this stage I discovered Australia. So before I couldn't entertain ever going to Australia really, because what we were doing here. But then when we disbanded the thing, it was like now I've got freedom. What year was that when you disbanded? So that was ninety-four. Yeah, ninety-four, ninety five. And it What do you mean you say you discovered Australia? I'd never thought about Australia in my life before. What happened that made Australia come into the forefront of your mind? I'd met someone and she was Australian. And so she went back to Australia. I went to see her a couple of times and gas coincided, I think, with all my peer group. Uh because when you're in London, there's people from all over the country, and then gradually they all start going people going overseas, people going back to where they came from. And because there was just three of us working in the studio, it's not like you got friends at work, it's just the three of you. And I just realized I didn't have much of a social world. People I used to hang out with are all gone places. I I felt like I knew more people in Sydney than I did in London. It was a weird kind of thing. And it wasn't like I thought that's it, I'm just going there. I just it was like a weird glitch in the matrix, and I suddenly found myself in Australia. So when did you move to Australia? 96.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

And what does that look like? Do you go to Australia going, yeah, I'm gonna start a design studio over here, I'm gonna stop the design, I'm gonna deal with my art, I'm gonna use all these collections of images and visual resources that I've got in my arsenal.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Well, this is quite interesting because this is coinciding with the internet, computers coming in, mobile phones. So when I went there, I didn't have a mobile phone, I didn't have an email address, and then when I got there, I I did some magazines, I did some teaching and stuff. But then I got studio and I bought a uh a scanner and a Mac, and then I just started scanning in all this stuff I'd been collecting, because it all went with me. And it was a quite exciting period because I was putting all this stuff into a play where I could start playing with it, and then it was so much easier than like collage stuff. You can play with a scan and you can start to do all kinds of things. And were you noticing a style coming to the forefront?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

Were you noticing, oh, I'm not picking that sort of thing, I'm more picking, oh, this half-tone.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

Yeah, so I'm using these these kind of uh mainly um what I'm draw I'm drawn to slightly un unusual things are things that make me smile. If I flick through a magazine and there's a photo of someone and it just cracks me up, I think that's a great image. Or that's definitely an undertone of comedy about all of this. But there's there's just this quite quirky, unusual, ambiguous stuff is what I'm looking for usually. And that's what I say, like I take things out of context, you find an interesting headline or something, and then you put it with a photo from somewhere else, see whether that gels or gives it a new a new meaning, really.

Street Paste-Ups And Public Experiment

SPEAKER_02 1:04:47

And as you're doing these scans, this almost compiling this huge amount of visual research that you've done over years and years, presumably of scrapbooks and sketchbooks. Are you doing that to go, right? I'm gonna make art to sell, to pay my way, or are you just thinking I just want to create? Because you said you did some teaching, some layouts, and magazine stuff when you're on Australia. What does that look like? A brit move into Australia going, I'm taking my skill set and how am I earning money?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

How am I so it was a different world then? Because as I say, we're just on the cusp of all the internet thing. So they're very interested in anybody I don't know if they still have actually, but they used to have a thing where everything from outside is brilliant and everything here is not so good. Is that human nature? Grass is a little bit more. Well it is, but it's particularly an Australian thing where they always think and I think it goes right back to everything came on boats, so everything's coming in. So it's yeah, the stuff coming in is gonna be the newest and the best and that kind of thing. Until you get to the new technology thing when suddenly it doesn't matter where you are, and that that's what's changed the outlook, I think. So are you some sort of a novelty in social media? Yeah, so you you get if you like you people very want to see what you've been doing in your portfolio because you're also you're out of their small place, everybody knows each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Did your pedigree with design and working for magazines like ID did that give you a gravitas when you went over there? Yeah, a sort of social proof. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because obviously that shows that you understand the commercial aspects of design, print, layout, all those things. So you're easy crossover to do that again in Australia. But what's the moment that you go, okay, let's make some art?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Right. Well, that so that is, as I said, accessibility to technology and better Macs. So the the Mac we had at NICE was the first one, that little box for the thing. It's Australian sort of grey bandage colour. It was one of those. And you could only do black and white if you put a picture in, that's it would take forever. And just storage discs that didn't have much. And then it got it got better every year, it's getting better and better. And then it got to the point where you could start scanning images in and playing around with them on screen. And that just happened to coincide with me being in Australia in a studio full of all my stuff. So I'm literally just everything I taking it down and seeing what it looked like scanned in and played with. And so that was not for anything except me to see what it looked like, you know. Or the capabilities. Yeah, what what I've got, what have I got here? What am I doing with it? And then I started thinking, oh, these might make good greetings cards or things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

So I started doing cards and and what sort of were was there that underlying comedy element again, like putting headlines and images together.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:39

It was all funny stuff. There wasn't the kind of explosion of stuff there is now. Greetings cards were a bit crappy then. What else was I doing? Do you remember like a first piece of art? I did these kind of again, this is going back to the ID thing. I was I started about overprinting, that was my thing. So taking one image in yellow and and putting a transparent red over the top of that with another image and then another blue image, and so they all were see-through. Just doing loads of that, just all these different images, putting them all over the top of each other and seeing what that was.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

Did you say you're in very much an experimentation by it? Just finding a flow, finding a way of working.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

And I found it quite exciting because it was I I hadn't really seen all these images together. They were all like black and white, mainly black and white things that I was now doing in colour. So I started making little little zines, little booklet, and they were they're a bit like scrapbooks. I'm just quite random playing around, and then if I get something I quite liked, that would be the page layer. And it a bit like when you get writer's block, you just see what happens, and then think maybe later I I'll be able to use that for something. There's always this sketchbook mentality, this research. I'll put that together because I might be able to use that later. Sketchbook is a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:55

Do you still make sketchbooks and collect?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Yes. Well, I've have to sit on my hands now and not because I've got so much stuff. But sketchbooks and scrapbooks, not so much. I do it all on screen. But I've got so much stuff I've I'm now starting to go back to doing collages. There is something about actual real things stuck together as opposed to just on screen. And it's a lot harder because you only get one go at it. You can only do what it is. You can't change the scale like you can on screen.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

And at this point, are you considering yourself an artist or a designer? Are you making a living from your art or are you still coinciding up with the design work that you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:34

So I'm still doing design work and the art thing is not quite there yet, but I'd started from these zines and things, I made a set of stickers and then the same image, it was it's like an Australian guy in a slouch hat, and I started pasting them up. I couldn't I don't know what I'm gonna do with these. And pasting them up where on the streets? Yeah. How early is this? Is this is street art a thing? Wait, it's a thing. Yeah. It's already a thing. We're in the 2000s now. Um And what was why did you start to paste these things? Well, because I think the the internet is still uh there's I don't know if they I don't think there's Instagram yet. Oh god, no. Well it was a bit late. It's not 2000. Oh 2008, I think they were in. Oh really? Yeah. I I think there was Flickr or something like that. It was on Flickr. Uh just visual sharing, but not to the same level that we've got now. I I made this I made this book. That's right. I did this big book of all these things I'd scan. I didn't quite know what to do with them. So I'd done that. Was that just a natural progression from all your layouts and magazines? Yeah, I just wanted to do a book of all this stuff, and I took it round and nobody would it would be too expensive or too hard and or you need a theme or something. It was just like too random. Yeah, it's just stuff. I just was a bit frustrated and like I there were no galleries I could put stuff in. So I just thought I'd stick it up just so people could see it really.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Is that just the artist mentality? You just want to share the work.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:05

It's not a designer's mentality.

Screen Printing, Chance, And Control

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

This is where the crossover's starting to come in. It's a different thing because it's if you're not doing it for any reason, it's not like for a a client. And you're absolutely bombarded with shitty advertising everywhere. And yet if you put a bit of art up, it gets taken down. Or it's vandalism. And it's like that there's so much terrible advertising everywhere. That's not nobody worries about that because it that someone's paying. That's all it is. Did you find that harder or easier not having a brief or not having a paying client? It's hard because it's you just you decision's yours. Yeah, but by this stage now, obviously I'm just getting on with it now. I might I must have overcome that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:48

But I just think back to how you not being able to finish a piece, not being able to go, this is where I'm gonna take all of this collection of images and put it into X.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:58

Yeah. I think so partly the pressure was off. So you're just putting stuff up, and then it's almost like experiment you don't care. So you just any idea that I would have, I'd go and paste it up and see if it got any attention. And was that important having the pressure taken off? I don't know if it was important, it's just that's what it is. It's so you just it's gonna last five minutes, you paste it up, it's gone, doesn't matter. It's not like it's there forever for you to keep being reminded that. I mean, there's a thing where you look back on old stuff and you go, Oh, that should have been that type should have been slightly bigger, or I did it so quickly the spacing's a bit off, and I every time I can't look at it without seeing that thing in it, which But yet you were drawn a lot to the imperfections in the work. Yeah, because it but they're these are like not the imperfections I wanted. These are these aren't cool imperfections, these are just mistakes. So we'll get to that because that's so when it comes to printing, I build in imperfections, I I deliberately add a register, but then something will happen on the background and I'll get annoyed because that isn't the mistake that I wanted there to be even. It wasn't the intentional mistake that you're implying, yeah. No one else can see it because the whole thing is a mistake, but it I know it, and I and it's taken me a while to just go with that because screen printing is there's so many opportunities for things to go wrong. And the thing is you get annoyed with something because it's yeah, I couldn't get it quite right, and then you forget about it and look at it months later, and you've forgotten about it, and you just think, oh, that looks and then you can't replicate it when you think, Oh, I'll do that again. And you can't because you can't remember partly because it was out of your control, how you actually did that, or how you got that colour, or so that and that's the thing I like about it's like you do it once, you can't revisit. It's that's the nature of it. It's a moment in time done, that's the addition, and that's that's what I guess makes it a unique kind of medium. So you've put together this book of stuff that no one wants to print for you or make.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:50

Yeah. Is that when you go maybe screen printing would be an easier route rather than trying to put a magazine?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:57

No, screen to I'm trying to think how this all panned out. I guess remember I I don't know why I wanted to m make stickers and paste ups, but I think just when I started doing it, there was a big street art exhibition in on an island in Sydney Harbour. It's like this great old industrial shipbuilding complex. But it's just really interesting buildings and it's half derelict. Anyway, they had a big huge street art exhibition there, and they had a paste-up room which was like a big old turbine hall, and they just smothered it in paste-ups. And the the guy organizing that had seen my stuff up and invited me to be involved in that. And then that's when I got really interested in pasting up. And what was it that you were pasting up? What was the work that you were creating? It was just this like little character I'd done. I can't remember why I did it. I just it was just something I can't I thought I I found this image of this Australian guy and put some type on it. And I think I was thinking like Shepherd Fairy's obey thing, it's just like repet repetition. So I had all these different colours and very. What was the text you put on it? I think you said good day, just says good day, Australian guy. But in this big hall, it's like hundreds of people's paste ups are all over the top of each other, so it becomes a walk-in scrapbook, you know. And right up your street. Yeah, exactly. And everything's a bit obscured and not a bit of paint peeling off here, the glue hasn't stuck. Yeah, someone stuck something a bit over your and you're a bit over. It's all in this big thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:28

Does that go back to you taking those details of zooming in on those tiny elements and stuff?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Partly that, yeah, but partly just it looks like you're walking into a page of a scrapbook. And also my working environment looks like you're in a scrapbook. And that goes so right back to my flat and grazing road, I covered the walls in toys which I bought for the packaging. It's all about the packaging. So all those cheap toys from Hong Kong, which were all out of register and badly printed. I had all those pinned to the wall. The whole place was smothered. And that was very much like a walk-in scrapbook. So that's a recurring theme, this voracious hoarding of images. Hoarding of images, but be it surrounding yourself in them. When you're surrounding yourself with so much and so much varied stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:20

Do you then sometimes have trouble recollecting where the reference comes from? Because you've got so much stuff, or are you like an encyclopedia of everything that you've clicked? I don't want to say just this I to J section. Good comeback.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:33

When we had a wall of books at the Night Studio, I could remember which book that image was.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

And that's almost like the extreme of when you were growing up with no books, no stimulus. The scrapbook is almost replaced that the I want books, I want visual stimulus, I want to collect everything, I want to hoard all those visual ideas that perhaps you didn't have as a child.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:55

Could be, could be that, yeah. I don't know. I don't know why I want to surround myself with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:00

I know some people So going back to my original question, you've done this street art festival on the island in Sydney. Yeah. In your mind, are you an artist or a designer?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

No, I'm still a graphic designer doing a bit of paste up. And then I did, as everyone seems to do, I did a I did one of those courses, a one-day printmaking course. Printmaking course. And did that refresh the buzz of screen printing for you? No, it's absolutely and it's like it all was coming back, and that's where the thing about my dad being a screen printer started to go. I hadn't really thought about it much before then. Connected the dots. And I connected it all made sense and connected together. The mixing of the pa I got felt quite a connection to my dad then. And I bought a coat for basimators for a bit longer. Because I found this photo of him in his print studio in the 1950s. And I thought, oh yeah, that's a great because A, I get smothered in it. I'm a terrible printer. But I it looked pretty cool and I thought, oh, that's quite useful as well. And I couldn't find one 'cause I think it's called a shop coat or a I know exactly the one you talk about. A warehouse coat. And when I looked online, everything's high viz, especially in Australia, and I had to find somewhere here that still did those coat. A dying thing. Which it adds to the appeal, because I'm not really about. Yeah, and so then I started to really get into screen printing, but it's quite limited in Sydney. I can't find a vacuum table anywhere. It's all very much geared up towards fabric printing and not paper. So how do you get around that? Well Do you have your own screen printing? No, I it's very much low-tech, but and I used to moan about it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:41

But does that in some way add to some of the possibilities of future mistakes?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:45

It does, but also I think it's just stop whining and learn how to use all the equipment properly on just a tabletop. And then when you master that, then you can go on to Well, it's like anything. Once you've got the mastery, you're allowed to make the mistakes. Yeah, but it's like I've moaning 'cause I haven't got the proper equipment. It's so stop blaming the tools and just uh Use the gear that's in front of you. Use what I've got. And it's as good as it's just not very good for bigger pieces. And because my my stuff's quite deliberately out of register, it's not that big a deal. But annoyingly, occasionally I I want to get a nice for something I'm doing, just a really nice flat background and by hand it it's all about the pressure and it you know. Anyway, I've got to stop moaning about it and just No, it seems to be working. Doing to be I'm just at a point where I'm really enjoying it that.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

Is there a point in this journey where the change comes? You're no longer a designer, you consider yourself an artist. Or has that never happened? Are you totally?

From Designer To Artist

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

Yeah, well now I just working as a designer for me, I've found it getting more and more depressing. Just like everything just seems to be so controlled now and corporate. And completely away from what you had at ID where it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

Let's just rip the bottom of that arc close.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

We need to look at the bollocks. You know, just a process. Yeah, it's just like you're just laying, you're just lay arranging stuff. There's no input. Here's our font, here's our colour. These are the type of pictures we can use. And that is the industry, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:19

I mean, when I first got into the photography industry, I got in because of the epic Guinness adverts where you make one beautiful image, one beautiful advert. You have to make 17 different frames of this format, that content for social media. There was still an art to it, and I've seen that. Whereas And hence maybe a little bit of myself diversifying.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

Because I think because of all these formats now and phone, tablets.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:43

But my argument will be surely in a saturated market, now is the time to do the thing that stands out, that puts you aside from everyone else. Who's brave enough to do that now?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:55

Of everything is so accessible and easy that what's coming back is experience. People want an actual physical magazine because it's about the experience of having a coffee and flicking through a magazine, whereas just skimming through it on your phone that is not the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:14

And I think that's the same with everything, isn't it? I think m myself and Carl spoke about this. How you see an image of Liechtenstein's wham on a screen, you go, wow, that's so perfect. You actually go and see it in the tape and you go, Oh, there's imperfection there, there's a pencil line there, there's this. Yeah, exactly. That human nature, that human error that human error, yeah, and also the fact that it uniqueness.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

So um uniqueness perfect. Each print, even though they look pretty much the same, will have a slightly different and and you know that, you know that when you get a number off an addition that it's that pink spread slightly more on that. Well even just the number being written different on there is uh is a difference. But it's about actually holding it, and and I think with the way things are going with AI, you know, you're gonna get just photograph Brad Pitt from every different angle, record him saying every different word, and then he'll die, and they'll just keep making films with him in it, using all this AI footage, and you won't need any real actors anymore. They'll just do everything. But so the thing will be going to the theatre and having the experience. That will be but the same with music.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:22

Hearing a live band and hearing a live band and king is guitar string or the drummer loses a drumstick.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:29

Yeah. And it's it's unpredictable and it's unique and you don't know what they're gonna play and they And that's the experience, right? And also you actually seeing them and the vibe from the room. Because think about all this, it's very solitary, isn't it? It's all people just like playing games online on their own, playing against people, but everybody's solitary. Because it's it's just no value, there's no value in it. It's no story either.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:52

No look at this piece of art, it was made by AI rather than look at this piece of art, it was made by Mr. Edwards.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:57

But even look at this work of art by Mr.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:59

Edwards on screen is not the same as I say, I'm sat looking at a tin that says art is shit, and I'm now wondering to myself, I wonder whether is shit actually in it. I there's the story.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

I wonder. But there's the story, isn't it? What you wondering what's in it? Yeah, essentially. Well, there is that there's a yes, there's uh I don't know what I'm trying to say. I think I know what you're saying. I I get what you're saying to say, yes. There is a is important. Yes. No, that's real, that's sitting there, and you can touch it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:28

Give it a shake and uh It's an idea that's come to fruition from your brain, yes, based on Manzoni's stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

But the story's there. Yeah, we I still don't know why I did that. We didn't clear that up, did we?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:45

Comedic, play on words. It's got all those design, commercial, layout, text, type. I do like a play on words, yeah. But did we uh did we answer the question? Do you consider yourself an artist or a designer?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:58

So now as I say, I got di disillusioned with doing design work and when I went to college I didn't know what I wanted to do at art school. I just Yeah. The graphic thing I I liked, but I don't think I wanted to be a graphic designer. I I was kind of graphic artist was what I was always thinking, and probably I would have been happier as a more of a kind of illustrator in a very graphic style. So I don't really think artist or I don't really put a n a name on it. I just think what I'm doing now is not graphic design particularly because it's not really solving any problems. But is that it not what creativity is? Well creativity is, but but graphic design is a lot of it's to do with communication. Yeah, delivering the message. Which I suppose I I am still trying to do, yeah. But so I I I don't know. There's not I don't really think about it as um that says art is shit on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:50

I think there's a message in that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:51

Well there is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:52

Can you talk us through some of I mean you've got your Bowie baby, bat smoker, these are some of the ones that seem to be Yeah, they guess things make me chuckle.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:01

So uh that the baby And it goes back, it's there's all comedy.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:04

There's a real comedy element.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

I just found this picture of a baby that looked with its lip out looked funny. And I don't know why I thought, oh let's make it a cyclops, but that made me chuckle even more. But I I find some people find it disturbing, especially women with children. Yeah. Really? Have you had that? Yeah, because it's a t-shirt and I uh did some markets and yeah, women with prams really went out of their way to say they didn't like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:33

How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:34

Well, it doesn't bother me.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:35

I you know, well, it's easy to get in that reaction.

Meaning, Language, And Offence

SPEAKER_01 1:25:41

Well, I I do I like the feedback that you think, oh wow, if some people because it it just amuses me. It doesn't uh scare me or worry me or anything like that. So I'm interested that some people actually have a strong reaction to it. But they they're just they're experiments, aren't they? I guess put things together and I'm kinda looking for like icons. That's the pop art though, right? That's that familiar mixed with something. So it is a bit familiar, but it's a bit disturbing and a bit So the bat smoker one, I get a lot of people asking me who it is. I don't know who it is, just found image of a guy smoking. But they often ask me, is it? and then list who they think it is. I and I quite like I like that because it means different things to different people, obviously. Yeah. And I used to do I used to start I started using a lot of Arabic script, which was from found so I had a lot of packaging and I'd Why Arabic? Because I really liked what it looks like. So graphically, it's really lovely like calligraphy. And then we're getting back to that thing where you're a child and you can't read. So I'd say the Stern magazines we're talking about with the German. So when I was a kid I had this Bible in colour and I I couldn't read. So I used to think that the images were all connected, telling a story, where they were illustrating lots of different So I'd be going, How has it how has it gone from four men on horseback to somebody standing in a field? And I try and work out what the story was through that. And one of the things that that I like to do on a plane, so if I'm getting a Japan Airlines or something, when you get on they they've got all the newspapers, but they're Japanese newspapers. And I can't read the kanji on there, so I just go through it trying to make up what the story is. And there's a picture of someone, what's he done? Let's and I in my mind I invent all the stories as I go, and that passes a lot of time on a plane. But I like that thing where now you've got to question yourself, you know, you see a thing, and graphically it looks great, but what does it mean? And there is no answer. I'm just interested. For me, I'm just doing a visual thing. So you're making it what it means in your head. For some of it, I'm just going, that looks that bit of type with that image, great poster, right? And I've seen lots of foreign posters. I don't know what they mean, but I just they guess look great. And so that's partly it for me. But other people have got to know what that means. And with the Arabic script, I used to sell s some of these prints I'd sell to the States, and they would say, Oh, I want to buy that print, but I need to know what that Arabic lettering says. And I'd say, I don't know. I got it's a packet of henna, and on the back it's got all the there's a whole page of what's in it. I don't know, it's a bit of that, or it's from a cereal box from Egypt. I don't know what it actually says. And they wouldn't buy it because there might be something offensive. For them, Arabic lettering is terrifying because it's the language of terrorism, and it's like just a different letter form, yeah. But they in their mind, that's terrorism, and they're scared that I suppose, yeah, it could be more provocative simply for the language that it's in. Yeah. And also it's like, you know, all those flags with Arabic lettering on. People freak out, don't they?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:50

Like you say, it just could be here's the water park or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:52

Oh yeah, it's just a logo, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:54

This way to the zoo.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

Yeah, it's just a logo, but it's that they connected it with either offending Arabic people or or being an aggressive kind of thing. But all that kind of fascinates me, you know. Do you have any problem now with finishing an image or deciding what? I do, but not it's not I mean, that used to be a real kind of Well, we spoke about how it was a bit like people are gonna judge you for the final images.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:20

Does that come with age and experience that you have?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:23

So now I don't care. I I might have a problem finishing it because I think, ah, it needs a bit more, that needs just needs something else, and then I don't quite know what it is yet. But there's a different thing for before I had a real issue there, and that's gone now. If I'm really enjoying it, I'll finish it. But I think if it's oh um and then as a it will get shelved. So you've been in Australia since the mid late nineties.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:50

How has that shaped what you've done, bearing in mind you've grown up in and around that almost a triangle car park and that's been because being on my own kind of thing, or being away from everything, has boosted my confidence and helped me solidify things in my mind, I think. And it's a bit weird now because I can't, as you know, I'm a bit of a international man of mystery. So I I'm backwards and forward. Nobody knows if I'm here or there. It's hard to follow. Master Edwards again, the moniker a little bit vague. So I don't tend to think about where I am particularly. It's hard to s say which one I belong I belong everywhere. I'm trying to think of more in a global sense. Yeah. And it's just geography, really, rather than state of mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:40

Because as I say, you you do sell uh galleries in London, you've had solo shows.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

It'd sell all over the world. And uh at the moment I started selling a lot in South America, and I don't know why that suddenly So America's dropped off a bit since all those tariffs came in. So South America's quite big and quite big on paste-ups as well. I send a lot of stuff to people when they have paste-up festivals and things. So it's quite a big thing happening in South America.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:06

And is it a sustainable thing for you to be an artist now? You built up a name, a following enough to No. But I don't care anymore. So but I just think that's interesting for listeners because everyone's got that idea of oh, I want to be a full-time artist earning money from my art and Yeah, that of course, but it's economics, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:25

So uh some people are not in a position where they can't not have money coming in. And that's that's always the problem. It's like oh I'd love to be an artist, but I've got to keep paying the rent. And I guess to be an artist you have to be removed from that, otherwise you you just can't do it. Do you think those financial pressures limit creativity? No, they don't limit creativity, but what they mean is you can't devote the time you want to to it. So that you get a lot of people, and as we've been talking about, you have your day job and then you do your art job. Uh balance too. And lots of people do that. And I used to try and get jobs where they weren't too labour intensive, so I had time to do my other stuff. And then I got to a point where I was it was taking all my time, so I didn't have any time, and I realised the place I was printing at moved, and I went to the opening of the new place, and then I realised I hadn't been there for a year. I hadn't printed anything in that place for a year there because they'd moved, and I thought I haven't been there since they were in the old place. And I thought, that's it, then I'm just gonna There's a lot of other things going on. There's a lot been a lot of people I know passing away and I'm getting older and you've got to start thinking, don't know how much time I've got left. Does that mean you want to create more or does that mean That means I'm just gonna not worry about things and I'm just gonna do it? I'm just gonna do what I want and I I can't afford to be a full-time artist, but I'm just gonna do it because that's what I want to do right now. And I've just got to that stage where it feels like there's no time like the present and you can keep putting stuff off and then who knows what's down the track. So it's but do you make a conscious effort?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:06

I mean, as I say, you've had solo shows and things like that, but do you make a conscious effort to market yourself as an artist? Because I think deep down I think that's what a lot of people go, Well, you've got a good following on social media, I'm not quite sure, you know, where did that come from? Just built naturally or was that some epiphany of events that someone shared some work and Well no, it's weird because it's it's Instagram, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:29

So uh who knows? You plod along with not many I mean I haven't got many followers really, but you plod along with nothing and then literally one post will double your I don't know how it works, just suddenly goes a bit bonkers for a bit and then it drops off again. And is that your major outlet for selling? Because I know you're linked in London with Atom Gallery and other stock is Yeah, so online is and then through lots of little galleries.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:55

And is that the best place if people want to go and check you out, go and look at your website and buy some work directly from you?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:00

Yeah, probably better than um Well, you've got to remember I'll be posting it from Australia. So depending on which country you're in, then um go to a gallery. When was the solo show?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:12

Is that 2023?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:13

2023.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:14

Um that's the artist shit, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:16

Well, that was just that was a piece within it. That was a piece within it, yeah. I think maybe it was a paste-up. There was a show at Atom where they got artists to just decorate pizza boxes. It was square, so I fitted a pizza box and I put it on there. And then I think after that, because it got a bit of interest, and then I did a print. And then after the print, I think I made the tin. The question most asked is what's in the tin. So that's the classic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:41

Was Pierre Manzoni's actually full of artists shit? Who knows?

The Market, AI, And The Human Touch

SPEAKER_01 1:34:45

Yeah, well I've seen pictures of them open. Oh, you have? There's a tin inside the tin. Oh, is there? Yeah, you open up the tin and inside that is an is another tin, yeah. Which I quite like the idea of that. Yeah. It could be a Russian doll of tins of shit. Yeah. Because I think he worked it out so it was the same price as gold or yeah, there was something along those lines, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:05

It was cans were priced by weight in gold, mocking both the art market's obsession with authenticity and the preciousness of the artist.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:12

Yeah. Well, that's see, that's something I was going to touch on about in my youth, is that art was ridiculed, fine art. So I remember my mum going on about so this is like '73, I think. The Tate Gallery bought this pile of bricks, as it was called, bought the pile of bricks. My mum used to go on about it. She said, Oh, they bought a pile of bricks for a million pounds or something. So that's a piece by Carl Andre called Equivalent Eight, I think it's called, and it's two stacks of fire bricks. I think they only paid two grand for those bricks, not a million, but the the whole point was there was an economic climate. I think it was the three-day week and the fuel crisis, and and it's not a particularly exciting piece of art. But she always says so she's going about a pile of bricks, and she used to go on about Andy Warhol's baked bean tin. Which soup tin was another thing. I don't know if he did a baked bean tin, but she's just her getting it slightly wrong, but it all being ridiculous. Did you find that funny then? Didn't find it funny, but it's just background noise, you know, as they're going on about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:13

But at the root of a lot of your work is that comedy element and that farcical nature, as we say, the Dada-esque art. Your mum had a bit of a it's just a tin of soup, it's just a load of fire bricks. And there is that kind of farcical element to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:28

Yeah, I should have been a stand-up comedian, think, but I'm gonna be a sit-down comedian. That's what I think I do. You're down the ambitions of doing some stand-up or sit-down comedy as you Yeah, I think I don't know how to think about it, but it's I guess it's hard work, isn't it? Everything's hard and slog. Do you find being an artist hard now? No, I don't I don't find it hard. What advice would you give to artists coming up?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:52

Because I mean I guess you've you use your creative talents, myself as a photographer, you as a designer. Yeah. And you find the art later because you want to start visually communicating, expressing more.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:02

I think I think what it is, you get older and then stuff becomes clearer what you want to do, what you like, and things, but also you you worry less about that that's it my thing. I just stop worrying about stuff and just get on with it. And that seems to come a bit later. Um and maybe some people are more financially secure, so they've got a bit more time. Things just come together and they think, Oh, I gotta do this, or they'll an opportunity comes up and they they go.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:28

The universe just puts something in the right place at the right time.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:31

I mean a lot, you know, a lot of people just go down or you set up on a route and you just keep going down and you don't really think about what you're doing or where you're you guys because one thing leads to another, and then you just wake up one day and thought Did you think you were gonna be an artist? No, because I didn't even think about it. As I'm saying it, I like it. It wasn't until I I guess a lot of people you get to leaving school and then you've got to decide what you're gonna do. And some people always have known what they want to do, and other people just suddenly go, oh, and they end up in either they can get pressured by their parents to go into something, uh Society, parents, the starving artist narrative obviously is one thing. Well, you know, like like I You can't make any money being artist, go and be a It breaks my heart when I see people and they go, Oh, I'm gonna become a dentist or an accountant, or and you think, oh, and it's because there's money there, stability, but you just think But does the world need another bang average accountant or a Well it's just that's your life. So you're gonna spend your life just looking at figures and doing that. Did you have ambitions to have a creative life when you were younger? No. I was saying I I didn't think about I didn't think anything, but I think as I got older I mean I really believe in that thing where, you know, do what you love and and you never do a day's work in your life. You spend so long doing it, you should be enjoying it. Yeah. And that's the the perfect thing is you're just doing what you want to do anyway, and then you get paid for it. That's the pinnacle, right? I was gonna say pinnacle and I thought, is that the word I'm looking for? It's the kind of acme, maybe. Do you love what you do now? Yeah, I do. I mean I it's not working, it's just what I want to do. It's all, you know, what we were talking about, the selling yourself bit, that's the bit nobody likes to do, you know. And that's half the problem, Mr. Edwards. If you had to give me your elevator pitch, what would it be? I haven't got an elevator pitch, I'm just trying to get people to buy more stuff, and that would keep me going longer. It's not there's no pitch. It's just buy my stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:25

Then how do you do that? Do you have to just find the community like you're trying to do that would be a good thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:28

Well, you have to do you have to do shows, you have to do a lot of online promotion. It's just, you know, you just you're in a studio somewhere just cranking out all this stuff you like, and if you never left that room no one would know about it, it just sits there building up and you think no one likes my stuff, do they? And it's like, well, you haven't shown it to anyone. You haven't shown it to anybody. And so all you're doing is just trying to get it in front of people who are gonna like what you're doing. Um that's quite hard work because how are they gonna know about you? It's just getting it in front of people.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:57

Do you think your design background and that sort of marketing advertising background has helped in that sense? Do you think your work's more accessible potentially than the cavalry charging over the bring on horses?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:10

I thought it's a different thing, because when you're doing something for a client, they're the one who's you go and promote it. I'm not doing the advertising side of it, I'm just creating it. Unfortunately, now I'm creating it and then I'm also got to be the person who's putting it out there. And that's not something I'm good at. How do you think you could be better at that? I think possibly you've got to be less worried about what people will think. You've got to not be slow in coming forward. And not worry about getting knocked back. I guess you've got to be a bit thick skinned. How do you develop that thick skin? I don't know. It's just it's personalities, isn't it? Some people are don't like to ask and other people are quite comfortable doing it. It's just Have you noticed a change in that from being in Australia?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:53

Because obviously the British are very oh, we're very humble, we don't like to boast, we don't like to do this. And I know we all think of Americans, don't we? We think of extravagance and boasting. What is Australian culture like for selling yourself or promoting yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:05

Well they they have this thing in Australia which is the tall poppy syndrome. Nobody likes anybody bragging and so they're very much more on the British side of things. Does that make promoting and trying to shout out about your work a bit harder?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:19

Look at this guy shouting about his batsmoker or his art his shit. I guess that goes down again to not caring what other people think.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:26

It's hard for us, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:28

Yeah. But it's just logistics. Like how do you get people to look at your just to see it?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:34

In a saturated world of images, like we say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:37

And just every now and again when you think, oh, this one's no good. No one's interested in this particular image. Out of the blue, someone will buy one. And you think, how did they where did they see that? How did they find out about that? I know this is a strange question and one you probably can't answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:51

But do you have a favourite piece of your own work?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:54

No, I get they go in cycles. So I'll say, Oh, I don't like that one. I'll stop going down that route. And then a bit later that w I'll I'll go, oh yeah, that that wasn't too bad that and I'll come back to it. So they they're kind of on a rotation, but I I do feel like I have it's like a cast of characters. There's a Cyclops baby and the Bat Smoker. Bat Smoker, and there's a uh I kind of think they're there's a couple I'm quite like these kind of wrestling mask things.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:22

I've been playing with a few Oh those uh what are they called luchadors or Mexicans wrestling?

Making A Living, Time, And Resolve

SPEAKER_01 1:42:27

But I you know, I find these photos just like the ones that look odd rather than cool. So there's a couple of those guys I use because they're just bizarre. And it's from that golden age of I don't know, fifties and sixties wrestling and that they're they're out there. Great images. Yeah. But I I do like to think of having this little cast of characters out there. Is Mr. Edwards in that cast of characters? He's the main one, isn't it? The ringmaster. Yeah, so I do use there's a these kids with like really bad teeth that I use as Mr. Edwards as the kind of brand. So yeah, he is one, but he's a kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:04

What do you think we haven't spoken about that probably we maybe should have done that tells your story a little bit, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:10

Um I know, that's why I should have had notes, isn't it? Okay, so what's next for you? Freedom, I think, is next for m well, freedom is now. Um Can you say more? What does that mean? So all the things we've mentioned, not worrying about judgment or what people think, uh just doing it, just do it. Not worrying about not having the right equipment or where you are or just do it. Make the art. Don't worry about don't worry about anything, really. Sounds like a good place to bring this to a close. Yeah, it's really just not worrying about worrying about things. Life is short. And don't do things that you're not enjoying unless you have to. Sometimes you have to. Yeah. But yeah, it's trying to free yourself from doing stuff that you don't want to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:58

That's the whole point of the podcast, trying to inspire people to do the stuff that inspires them.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:02

Yeah, just do the stuff you want to do if you can.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:05

We do have a closing tradition on the Creative No Allen podcast where we ask you to leave us with some sort of quote that resonates with you, but also someone from your network who you think could be an interesting future guest on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:18

Right, so quote it popped into my head actually, and I don't know who said it, but I can't quite remember how it goes. Why do you have to be happy instead of just being normal? And it was I think it was a girl who came out to her parents and they said to her, Why do you have to be happy in instead of just being normal? What does that mean to you? That means that people think that being normal is just towing the line and doing this not making any not making any ripples and how dare you you're trying to be happy makes you like a troublemaker. An outlier. And I'm into that. Stay in your lane, being troublemaking is a great pastime, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:59

Troublemaking is a great pastime.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:01

That shows again in your work there, doesn't it? Yeah, I I I like troublemakers, I think. Um If you could pick a troublemaker off the top of your head, who would you choose? Ah, well, I think like all street artists are like troublemakers. Comedians are troublemakers, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:15

Um Do you think they become comedians, artists, creatives become the barometer of society? They're the people that can push comedian, especially. You can be the court gesture. You're the only one that can tell the king.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:26

Yeah, well they are because they react to what's happening. That's the whole comedians take the sting out or can highlight something or criticize something in a less abrasive way. People don't like politicians that don't like comedians for that very reason. Because once you get people laughing, then it it's much more effective than just lobbying or whatever. And that's why they're troublemakers, it has real power. And would you like to be remembered as a troublemaker? Um Yeah, why not? Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:54

And what about someone in your network who you think could be an interesting guest?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:58

Well, uh there's a few, but um we'll take multiple suggestions. So Terry Jones would be a good guy to talk to. There's an Australian artist who lives here, Heath Kane. He's had quite an interesting creative journey. And it he's I'd say he was very kind of corporate and has gone completely to being an artist. They're the two that stand out that haven't introduced themselves to you already. Uh and Terry Jones. Terry Jones, yeah. Heath Kane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:28

But yeah, great. If we could assess either one of those, I think they'd have great stories to share on the Creative Noeland podcast. But for now, Mr. Edwards, thank you very much. Have a safe trip back to Australia and thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us. Thanks for the therapy. Thanks for listening to the Creative Noeland Podcast. If you found anything in this episode useful or inspiring, please consider subscribing or sharing it with a friend. You can also help the podcast by clicking the support the show link in the show notes or by grabbing yourself something from the Creative Noeland shop. And here's the bonus. When you join the community through our website, you'll get a special discount code that gives you free shipping on all orders. So, before you buy anything, be sure to join the community. Every bit of support helps us keep sharing these inspiring stories. So, thanks again for listening and until next time, explore, inspire, and create.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:32

Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And so, therefore, it's so important to consider this question what do I desire?