Interdisciplinary

We were set this blog post to do quite a while ago now and its taken me until yesterday to get my thoughts together about what I wanted to say, I've found it really hard to think about something that really influences me. Before I starting doing illustration as a degree, I would always say that art was my hobby and my passion, while other people are in bands and are really good at running I've never been interested or good at any of those things, not that I haven't tried, its just that I'd never enjoyed doing anything quite like I enjoy making pictures. And that was always fine, until we were set a project in A level or a task like this where we had to talk about something we enjoyed doing and all I could say was "art?". I initially thought I could do something with my love of films, or books, but then thought that was too broad, so eventually I started to look into what kind of things I consume, and whether there was any common link between the books I was reading or the blogs I followed. And I realised that one thing that really drives and interests me is strong women.

My parents divorced when I was 10 and since then I've lived most of the time with my mum, and although its not always been easy and we've not always completely got on, now I'm older I am able to see how hard she worked to keep a roof over our heads, keep us fed and well looked after and most of all happy, even if it meant she had to make sacrifices. She raised and cared for me and my brother, even on a single income and working full time, and still managed to go back to study phycology at the open university. She has made and kept some of the most wonderful friends, and even though its been really hard she has set the best example both in terms of career and personal life for me and my brother to follow. When she had surgery at the start of 2016 I was able to be around to look after her while she recovered and it was during this time together that I was finally able to see all the positive things she has done for us, and the effect they've had on our lives. Leaving home after this was exciting but also made me really miss my mum and her positive influence on my life, I went from spending every day with her to seeing her maybe once every 3 months. However whilst I worked in Leeds on my year out I found a job at a shop in town which employed mostly women where I found a little surrogate family of strong women. Now I live in halls I've since made friends with a whole house of strong women. All of them inspire me in a similar way to my mum, they each have things that have held them back in life but hearing how they've over come this and become stronger has made me feel like I could do that too.

Me and my mum, nan, great nan and auntie

In a similar way to this I can definitely say that I seek to consume books, TV, pod casts and music that are either made by or that focus around strong women, not only is it a home comfort to me, but it makes me feel incredibly hopeful to see how many independent and successful women there are in the public eye and creating amazing things now. Although all of these different things have effected me in various different ways, I think the over-arching influence they've had on my practise in particular is that they've made me see that women's issues are still prevalent today, and that means we still need to discuss them. These woman have used their platforms and some have even created their own, brand new platforms just dedicated to talking about this issue. And that's great but it only takes one glance at some of the awful things in the news or in magazines to see that we still need more of this. One phrase that comes to mind is that "If you can't see it, you can't be it", growing up I was never told I could be a film maker or a pilot, in PE we were actively banned from doing any contact sports, whilst the boys played rugby we did exercise tapes indoors. When I wasn't getting the grade I thought I deserved in art at A level, my teacher told me it was because me and my friends were too pre occupied with having boyfriends and doing other "girly things". I was never told I could be a lot of things, and I often wonder if I had been told, whether I'd be doing something different now. But that's the beauty of having so many female creators now, young girls will be able to see women being successful and know that that is a possibility for them too. So I do want to be a successful illustrator for myself and because its what I'm passionate about, but I also want to use it to show that there still are so many issues out there that effect us, and to make those visible and accessible to more people, and hopefully if a young girl saw what I was doing now, she'd know it was possible for her to do it too.


(Some) of the things I consume around strong women: