Getting A Clue, With Little Success.

Things have a tendency to be born out of necessity, and artistic collectives are no exception. Specifically, Peepshow and Big Orange, both being illustration/ design based collectives, are most relevant to one’s own illustrative practice. Therefore, their reasons for being founded need to be considered when deliberating the possibility of creating a modern collective, so that one can decide if their benefits are the ones desired by the prospective members.

When students graduate, it’s not uncommon for the feeling of being left stranded, of not knowing how to make their way in the world, to make itself known. Therefore, it’s not surprising that many collectives, including Big Orange and Peepshow, were the constructs of newly graduated college students. Or, as Jenny Bowers puts it, “the thing that people latch onto is that we somehow manage to keep a spirit of ‘college’,” (Nencini, P, 2012) – something that feels safe and familiar to people freshly thrust into a monolithic and often daunting world of work. But, of course, collectives aren’t only preferred in many instances as a result of anxiety. Being formed by graduates also has the benefit of all of the members being in relatively the same situation at the time – so they all learn the same skills at about the same time. What seems to come out of this is a kind of support network within the studio, wherein all the members are empathetic to each other’s situation and therefore willing to give and receive advice and help from one another. (Morison, 2017)  This can transform a graduate’s circumstances from uncertain to far more stable, enabling the members to experience a “more seamless and pain free introduction to the world of work” (Morison, 2017) from which they can build off a more successful career.

One of the most infamous setbacks in the work of creatives is the temptation to idle and procrastinate, as well as a tendency to ‘burn out’ and hit a brick wall creatively. And this is one of the most prominent reasons people choose to form collectives, as a collaborative studio environment goes some distance to resolving these issues, simply through them being a social work space. Procrastination, it seems, is made more difficult within a collective as “because there’s a group, you’ve got a gun to your head. You don’t want to let anyone else down,” (Nencini, P, 2012) individuals naturally don’t want to be seen as lazy, especially when the quality of their work has bearings on those around them, and are therefore motivated to use their time more productively. Furthermore, people who procrastinate extensively are often very aware of such and go to lengths to prevent themselves from doing so, making a studio a very attractive environment for them. At the same time, the immediate presence of others provides what can be described as a “sounding board” (Morison, 2017) for ideas as well as inspiration for each individual to experiment outside of their own comfort zone. It appears that this experimentation has value even on the occasion that it results in failure, as Luke Best, founder of Peepshow says – “You can appreciate what someone else is doing but actually it helps reaffirm your own philosophy behind the work.” (Nencini, P, 2012) Meaning that working in the immediate presence of others can help an individual to more clearly see that their process is their own, confirm their own sense of creative identity and validating their practice.

Another element that comes into the decision to form or join a collective is the issue of financing one’s own practice, as being a part of a collective allows a group of people to pool their resources together, enabling them to afford spaces and equipment that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. (Morison, 2017)  This includes spaces such as warehouses, expensive equipment that can then be shared by the collaborators, and contacts in the industry. It also means that only the individuals who are confident in organising finances can take up the relevant roles, making the collective as a whole more financially stable than many of the individuals involved would be otherwise. However, possibly a larger attractor to the concept of the collective is the idea of having a larger name – “the kind of umbrella under which you all operate gets you publicity as well as your own name out there.” (Morison, 2017) Essentially, all of the publicity gained from each individual in the collective gains the collective, as a whole, publicity. As a result, all of the members benefit from the amalgamated efforts of their compatriots, meaning that everyone involved is more likely to be contacted by clients. This creates a mutually beneficial relationship between people that all work for a common cause.

However, Peepshow and Big Orange were founded just over a decade ago (Peepshow Collective Ltd, 2017) and approximately 27 years ago (Morison, 2017) respectively, so many of their reasons for being formed may not be relevant in the present day, especially in the case that a lot of equipment, although still expensive, is nowadays far more affordable than it was 20 years ago. (Morison, 2017) However, it seems that the pooling of financial resources is still necessary when it comes to buying working spaces, which are now wildly more costly than they once were. In fact, there have been very few, if not no collectives established in London in recent years due to the unaffordability of spaces brought about by the occupation of big business, effectively driving creative spaces to outer cities. As well as this, the exponential use of social media and other forms of digital communication calls into question the social relevancy of creating a studio-based collective. However, this may also mean that there is a new social reason for collectives to be formed, as “Collectives can play a really useful role as a sort of antidote to the dislocation that we feel from people sometimes in modern day society.” (Morison, 2017) That is to say, as our communication with commissioners and clients becomes more digital, it becomes ever more important to have working relationships that allow for the kind of organic and healthy conversation that can only be achieved by face to face contact. (Morison, 2017)

As it appears now, it seems that people still have reasons to form collectives, and these reasons are predominantly the result of a desire to support and be supported in an otherwise unsupportive market, and the want of the kind of creative stimulation that can only be provided by other creative people.

   Bibliography

·       Morison, T., (2017) [Interviewed by Author, 09 MAY 2017]

·       Bec, A., Rawle, G., Haber, M., Nencini, P., (2012) PEEPSHOW COLLECTIVE. Barcelona: Intex Book, S.l.

What can I learn from other practitioners that would help me to self-publish “Hickory’s Day in the Sun?”

                        Beth Grieveson 1600344

‘Hickory’s Day in the Sun’ is a short graphic novel drawn and written by me during my final year of Sixth Form study as a graded project. My main goal was to make it look as ‘professional’ as possible as to get a high grade but, as a result, was never taken any further than the communal space of The Sixth Form itself, and I have since considered revisiting it as something for me to use to experiment with the idea of self-publishing for the first time, now I have been introduced to both the concept and practitioners.

After reading about how Karen Inglis (1) goes about self-publishing her own children’s picture books, it has become apparent that my original project lacked nearly all the processes that go into developing a publication for print. For example, she writes that freelance editors can be paid to right any errors and check the file formatting of a publication before any commitments are made (Inglis, 2017). This didn’t happen when I was preparing Hickory for print as time was so short and I had so many other commitments that made proper editing, let alone by another person, possible. This lead to some rather critical typos and the exclusion of entire lines of text being allowed to persist in the final publication (fig.2). It goes without saying that it’s going to be difficult convincing bookshops to stock a certain publication, let alone when said publication has such basic errors. Therefore, at the very least I’ll be wanting a more rigorous editing process in future and another set of eyes to check to mistakes that I’ve become blind to.

As I mentioned earlier, Hickory never left the educational space it was created in, and this presents another problem I’d have to remedy in order to self-publish it – a lack of communication with potential buyers. Karen Inglis has been using her website to achieve this, as well visiting schools (Inglis, 2017), and I think it’d benefit Hickory to have an online presence. But also, when it comes to an online presence, I’m reminded that I need to make room for the possibility that Hickory isn’t the only publication I’ll publish which Inglis, being a long-term practitioner, has had experience with:

“I now have a catch-all author website – I don’t recommend setting up separate websites for each book as there is too much to maintain and it doesn’t offer a smooth cross-marketing journey!” (Inglis, 2017)

Therefore, it seems more fitting that a website be centralised around the person running it rather than a specific publication, as it broadens the variety of content that the individual is exposed to, to do with the creator. This may then lead them to discover more about the creator than they would have known and become aware of any other work they have done. Having all my work localised to one specific public online space therefore would perhaps act rather effectively as a sort of calling card (Inglis, 2017) – I’d only need to give those interested the website details and they’d have easy access to all my projects.

Another thing I’m become aware that I need to consider is the truth that the method I used to print Hickory’s Day was not remotely practical in the context of self-publishing with the intent to at least make back the money spent printing and distributing the publications. You see, the final print of Hickory’s Day was done through Book Printing UK (Bonacia Ltd, 2017), a website that allows people to upload PDF documents that they then print and bind, with the price depending on what specifications the client gives. This cost me £77.88 for 10 copies, in full colour, full gloss paper, perfect bound, A4 leaves, and each page at 115gsm. This is not practical for true print runs. However, risograph printing, which I have only recently been made aware of through exposure to such collectives as Hato Press and Note Well Press, is much less costly than photocopier printing to have done for larger printing runs.

Fig.3 (Hato Press, 2017) Fig.4    (Hato Press, 2017) Examples of images printed using a risograph copier.

However, as is true in most occasions where a piece of work is transferred from one medium to another, I must consider how I would work around the limitations of risograph printing and take advantage of its benefits as much as possible. To start, risograph printing cannot be used to print on glossy paper stock (Hato Press, 2017), which is what the original Hickory’s Day was printed on.

Therefore, this would force me to experiment using alternative paper stock to find something that shares the integrity and quality of the original. This seems to be for the best though as I think a more organic look would better fit the story of Hickory, having antiques and bereavement as its primary focuses, more than the original which I only wanted to look as professional as possible at the time.

More significant is the difference in how colour would be applied as risograph ink is only available in a very limited palette instead of using the CMYK ink colours used in photocopiers, which result in full colour. Any colour outside of this palette must be produced by printing the colours over each other one colour per layer (Hato Press, 2017). Hypothetically, I believe that Hickory’s Day would lend itself well to this process of colour printing as the palette used in the original printing was limited to only shades of black and yellow. However, I can’t know exactly how Hickory’s Day would look without experimenting with an actual risograph, which I lack access to as far as I know. But, I can look at how existing images made the same way turn out and apply that to my own work. As you can see (Fig.3-5), the various tints used in Hickory’s day can be achieved using a risograph as can the bold combination of black and yellow. However, Hickory’s day was not made for print using a risograph, and therefore will contain some colours other than black and yellow. To improve this situation, I’ve edited one of the pages to only contain these colours, which conserves the image but makes it look much paler than the original.

I think that, using what I’ve learned, I could conceivably self-publish Hickory’s Day in The Sun, but this would take a lot of hard work in making the publication accessible to and known by the public, which requires an effective use of both digital and personal communication. It seems like an easy choice to say that I’d print the publication using risography, through a company like Note Well Press as I couldn’t afford the setup costs of a risograph printer. However, I have my doubts that Hickory’s Day is something that can be successfully transferred to this new form when its original, intended form was so different. Perhaps this means that, if I ever want Hickory to see the light of day, I’ll have to re-illustrate it from the ground up so that I end up with a publication I can truly get behind.

 Bibliography

·       Inglis, K., (2017) Self-publishing at a glance. Available from: https://selfpublishingadventures.com/self-publishing-at-a-glance/ >[Accessed 24th February 2017}

·       Hato Press., (2017) Introduction Available from: http://hatopress.net/about/ >[Accessed 24th February 2017]

·       Bonacia Ltd., (2017) Simple. Quality. Book Printing. Available from: https://www.bookprintinguk.com/ >[Accessed 24th February 2017]

·       Hato Press., (2017) Dogs’ Artist Print by Jean Jullien Available from: https://shop.hatopress.net/collections/prints/products/artist-print-by-jean-jullien-1 <[Accessed 24th February 2017]