Creative Report: Nick White describes himself as an Artist, Musician, Lecturer, Baker of Bread, Maker of lists and Breather of Air. He works as a lecturer at Winchester School of Art and is a member of the band, ‘Owen & The Eyeballs’. I chose Nick White as my practitioner to research as I’ve admired his work for a while now; he manages to create wonderfully naïve art which is incorporated expertly with his humour, something which never feels forced or overused. He presents himself online in a way that feels unique to a lot of contemporary illustrators, choosing to avoid the seriousness that a lot of practitioner’s employ to demonstrate their professionalism. It’s a risky marketing exercise since it could suggest to clients you don’t take yourself, and be extension your work, seriously. However, his art more than disputes this, demonstrating a high level of craft, consideration, and care which is immediately apparent and which is linked immensely to his personality. I was able to get in contact with Nick White to ask him some questions, such as his favourite way of spending time outside his art: ‘Perhaps the one thing I do outside that doesn't directly feed into my work (yet) is gardening, which is something I do enjoy though i am not particularly good at. Can you be good at Gardening? Professional Gardeners would say so. As would my grandad and my dad for that matter. What I mean to say is I like growing things even If not all the things I try to grow do that well. I mostly grow Vegetables because I am big fan of Veg. Have you tried Vegetables? You should, they're great. (sorry) Anyway It's a good meditative thing to do, even if the kids on my block just come and ask questions all the time, which makes it less meditative. I find asking questions back to them works well as a way of getting them to leave me alone! (I am such a teacher.) What are you doing? What do you think I'm doing? Growing stuff? Yup. Why? Why do you think I am growing stuff? Cos it looks pretty? Yup and why else? So that you can eat it? Yup.
Can I eat it? Well it's early days and nothing has properly grown yet. When will it be ready? Not for a while. Ok bye. Bye.’ Another main reason I contacted Nick was due to the honesty with which he makes work. The way he draws, writes, and generally chooses to communicate feels silly, but wholly genuine and frank at the same time. In the interview he goes on to say that he ‘fell out of love with drawing when I left uni. I was exhausted by it and stopped enjoying it. I also moved to London and had to make money to pay for rent and all that so ended up doing lots of random jobs which didn't leave much time for making work’. He also goes on to say that as he grew older he found where he wanted to go, becoming more knowledgeable and thoughtful with his work, which would then leak through into his personal life as well as his teaching. It’s been a fantastic opportunity reaching out to Nick and I’m really glad I did since it’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of the year.