Magazine issuu by Megan Cynthia McCormick

CANTO

CANTO ISSUE 1 VI. WITHIN THE OTHER WORLD VIII. DAVID CASS XIV. THE WEIGHT OF THE EARTH IS CRUSHING XX. ANNA FENNEL HUGHES XXIV. ENVY XXX. ANDY NICHOLSON XXXIV. LO MONDO E CIECO XL. FASHION AS A RELIGION XLVI. INCESSANTE LII. FRANCESCA KELSEY LXVII. GLUTTONY LXXVI. THE FINAL WOUND OF ALL

INTRODUCTION A NEW KIND OF MAGAZINE Welcome to the first issue of CANTO magazine, a new kind of magazine. Over the past few years, fashion film has exploded in the industry, not a day goes by without Facebook or Twitter notifying us of the next fashion film to watch. Why are fashion films so popular and captivating to watch? Because, fashion is not and should not be, a two dimensional object. When I started creating CANTO magazine, I knew that I wanted it to be more than just that, a two dimensional object. I wanted it to incorporate fashion film and all the elements of film, which make fashion, come to life like movement and music. So, I present to you, the Layar app that is free to download from the Apple app store or from Google Play. When using the app, you can scan any page in the magazine with this logo in the corner and the page will instantly transfrom- merging print and digital fashion together. As well as being for fashion lovers, CANTO magazine is for people who are interested in emerging talent within the creative industry. Too often, magazines and press focus on successful and wellknown people within art but what about young people who could

even still be studying who are creating amazing projects which are overlooked because they ‘haven’t made it yet’. In this magazine I have interviewed several young creatives who are doing amazing things whilst trying to establish themselves within the industry. It has been a journey creating this magazine which has seemed endless at points but which ultimately been amazingly enjoyable. I have met, worked with and interviewed so many talented people who I want to say thank you too because without them, this magazine would not exist. Creating all the music and films for this magazine has also been so much fun and I strongly believe that fashion should be fun. This is exactly what the app and CANTO magazine are intended to do, inject some fun back into reading a fashion magazine.

Megan McCormick

Download the free Layar app from your app store.

Using the app, scan any page of CANTO magazine with this symbol.

Watch hidden fashion films and augmented reality.

WITHIN THE OTHER WORLD DANTE’S PURGATORIO Dante’s Devine Comedy is one of the most read pieces of literature ever. It takes Dante and his reader on a journey from the depths of hell in Inferno through to a heavenly paradise in Paradiso. Sandwiched inbetween Dante’s version of heaven and hell, he paints an elaborate picture of a place called Purgatorio, or purgatory to you and me. Purgatory is a seven-terraced mountain stretching from stormy seas right up to the gates of heaven, located in a cloudy sky. Each terrace on mount purgatory plays host to a different set of sinners who are being punished for their sins before they are allowed to ascend up to heaven. You may be reading this and thinking, that’s great but what’s it got to do with this magazine? Well, I think purgatory is like the forgotten middle child, not as beautiful or as talented as heaven and not as rebellious or attention seeking as hell. Forgotten in the Bible and constantly overlooked. Heaven and hell have been illustrated through fashion time and time again. It feels like every

season there is at least one designer who’s collection is based on saints and sinners but have you ever seen a collection based on purgatory? Dante creates such a vivid and detailed image of what purgatory is, so it seemed only logical finally give the middle child it’s fashion moment. Following Dante’s precise instructions on navigating ones way through purgatory, I have created a series of photo shoots, which illustrate the seven levels of purgatory in fashion terms. Dante leads his readers through each terrace in excruciating detail. Past the proud at the bottom of the mountain who are punished by carrying great boulders on their backs, then the envious whose eyes have been sewn shut with wires and who are made to wear coarse head cloths. Then on to the third level of purgatory, where we find the wrathful who are blinded by thick, black smoke, which causes them to have hallucinations of meekness, this is the opposite of wrath. Dante continues to climb this mountain, leading us to terrace four which is inhabited by those

who were slothful in their past life, here they are forced to constantly run, imagine being stuck on a treadmill on groundhog day. After escaping this we move on to find the avarice and the prodigal who pay for their past sins by lying face down on a stone floor. Moving on to the sixth terrace, Dante paints a haunting scene of those who were gluttonous on earth; they are now emaciated, and punished by the smell of fruit. This fruit hangs in a tree that they are unable to reach. The final terrace of purgatory is home to the lustful who have to walk through a baptismal fire to rid their soul of their sins before they can enter paradise. One of the main things which Dante comments on throughout his journey of purgatory, is the music played on each terrace. Dante not only tells us what he sees on mount

purgatory but also what he hears, creating even more depth to his vision of purgatory. In the same way that Dante composes music for each terrace, each photo shoot in this magazine has it’s own soundtrack to accompany your journey through my vision of fashion purgatory. Ok, so perhaps my photo shoots won’t be as intense as Dante’s vision of purgatory and I promise you, you won’t feel like you’ve climbed a mountain when you finish reading this magazine. However, I hope that you find your unusual journey through purgatory thought provoking and memorable.

DAVID CASS YEARS OF DUST AND DRY David Cass is one of the most exciting artists to emerge from Scotland in recent years. His work uses found objects, old desk drawers, doors, postcards, matchboxes are just some of the items he likes to use. These objects are transformed into beautiful works of art when Cass manipulates the grain of the wood, or scratches from an objects previous life into a seascape. How did you first get into art? I don’t really know! I’ve always done art, since I was a kid, but I first knew it was something I wanted to do when I was at high school. In sixth year I abandoned all of my other subjects and just tried to make artworks, all the time. It didn’t seem realistic to apply for art school but I did and I got in then it went from there. Have you always known that you wanted to be an artist? I think so, I remember my dad once asking me when I was younger what I wanted to be and I said an artist. It was never a massive decision, it just happened. How did you get to where you are now? Whilst I was still studying I applied for quite a lot of awards and things for after graduation. The one that I won was the ‘Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarship’ in Florence. Then because I had the scholarship, it created quite a lot of interest for my final degree show installation. This lead me to speak to the director of

the Scottish Gallery on Dundas Street, Edinburgh, and when he was leaving he asked me ‘what are you doing next?’ I told him I was going to do the Scholarship in Florence then he asked if he could buy my painting! I went off and did the scholarship, which was three months in Florence and was amazing because I met lots of other scholars and we did lots of exhibitions together and afterwards as well. Then when I returned to Edinburgh, I got in touch with the director of the Scottish Gallery again and he told me to come and exhibit all of my pieces and that was that! Where do you get your inspiration from? Hmm… You could ask me on different days and I would always give you a different answer. I’m currently in a new studio but my key studio, which is in Stow, that is a shed in the garden. It is full to the brim with old bots of wood, scraps and piles of things from skips, flea markets and antique fares. It’s a hoarder’s paradise and that’s where I get most of my inspiration. I obviously have artists that I’m

inspired by and things I look up. Recently I’ve been at a book about the 1966 flood in Florence because I love painting the sea and water but I wanted to inject a new concept into my paintings about water, the other side of it. My other paintings have been quite reflective so I want to do pieces that are about the blackness of water and the dark, bad things it can do. I’ve also been looking at the Paris flood of 1910 so floods are next. You have such an iconic style, would you ever want to try something completely different? I don’t know about completely different because obviously I have to root everything in what I’ve done before, I have to keep it within the same theme. I don’t know if I’d even be able to try something completely different anyway because I’m not drawn to new things, I like

things, which have a history. I’ve recently started doing work on paper, which is new for me, but its still always old paper like a collage of old maps. I have piles of old drawings and antique papers now that I’ve been building up over the summer. So that’s the new direction I’m taking things in. You’ve won awards and do a lot of exhibitions; did you expect your work to be so successful? I’ve won a couple of awards and I’ve been a part of a few exhibitions but I’ve also been rejected from a hundred others. I think as an artist you have to apply for at least one thing a week and get used to handling that rejection. At the beginning when I entered loads of things, I would get disheartened and think I’d never move onto anything else. However, it does feel really good to

go down to an award ceremony and have your name called out for one of the prizes. Then that helps you to get new opportunities as well. You use a lot of found objects in your work; what draws you to certain objects? Where do you find them? They are all from France, Belgium or Italy, from antique fares or flea markets. I just love those kinds of places. I get some old postcards and papers from Ebay or a website called Delcamp which is for geeky postcard or stamp collectors. I’ll find an old bit of wood like a frame or something and I’ll turn it over to check the back because it’s the bit I always use. I think it must make me look like I’m doing something quite professional because the vendors come over and think ‘he’s an antiques dealer, he knows what he’s looking for’.

I just look at things and think ‘could that be a painting?’ and if it could be a painting, then I buy it. What’s your creative process when beginning a new piece? First of all, I select the surface that I’m most drawn to that day or that week for a new project. Sometimes the grain of the wood will reveal itself as a seascape, if you follow the grain it could be the strands of a current or waves. Then it just leads from there – it’s very simple. How do you decide what materials to use to compliment the surface? I began by using Guage paint, dry without any water, because it works really well on wood; it has a crumbley, chalky texture. Then I started doing watercolour competitions and thought I need to do some kind of contemporary watercolour stuff because watercolour can have an outdated, old-fashioned feeling. I tried doing watercolour on wood but it doesn’t really show up so you have to really dry brush it but then it’s too sticky to last as a painting

so that’s why I’ve introduced paper. I’ve just come back from the Île d’Yeu off the west coast of France and I knew I wanted to do paintings of the island with materials from the island. I got driftwood, from the middle of the sea, burnt it then pulverised it. I then got water from the sea at Île d’Yeu and I’m now going to make my own paint with them. I plan on making a completely conceptual piece with the water and wood from Île d’Yeu on old paper. You recently did your first solo exhibition, years of dust and dry; how long does it take for you to create a whole exhibition? I finished my last exhibiton at the Scottish gallery in 2011 and directly after that I took the money I made from the show and went straight to Brussels with my van. I filled it with loads of new surfaces to work on like old drawers and tabletops from the flea markets and antique shops there. By the end of 2011, I had the majority of the surfaces and from then onwards, I created the show. It was a couple of year’s worth of stuff.

Do you plan on doing another solo exhibition? I hope so! When I was creating my last exhibition, I didn’t apply to anything, I just focussed on my work. So, I haven’t planned anything yet except a few group shows which I have coming up. I would like to do another solo show but I just need a good venue, I would really like to do one in London. Do you get obsessed when painting or do you sometimes find it hard to stay motivated? A bit of both really, sometime I will be completely obsessed with materials and getting it right; rubbing out marks and putting them on again just until they’re perfect. But, other times I’ll just not be bothered. I think it’s the same with most creative disciplines; you can’t be consistent with your energy levels.

What advice would you give to young artist looking to work in the creative industry? The key thing is to apply for lots of tings; funding, awards, competitions, put your work into open shows. For every discipline, there are awards that you can apply for, it’s just a case of looking for them; it’s a good idea to subscribe to websites like Artist’s News and constantly Google competitions. It’s really about pushing yourself out there and not being scared of being rejected.

XI.

THE WEIGHT OF THE EARTH IS CRUSHING.

ANNA FENNEL HUGHES CROCKET’S FALL Anna Fennel Hughes is a self-published writer and illustrater who released her first book, Crocket’s Fall, last year via Kickstarter project. Crocket’s fall is about the turbulent relationship between the surreal characters Crockett and Poppy. The short story is a hybrid between a traditional children’s picture book and a collectible handmade artists’ book, where each page is like a work of art which uses printmaking and monoprinting techniques incorporated with collaging and gold embroidery. Tell me about Crocket’s fall? I wrote the story four years ago and did some preliminary drawings of the narrative. I didn’t do anything further with it until around Christmas last year when I decided I could take the project further. I started experimenting with print making techniques I’d developed over the last couple of years at university; I tried to incorporate the illustrations with the prints. It took about nine months to take the illustrations from the pencil drawing stages to combining them fully into finished prints, after I’d designed the fonts as well. Then I had to put the book together digitally and had a printed copy made.

so that it can appeal to a wider audience because the art can be accessible by all rather than just being a reflection of myself.

What inspired you to write it? It was an event in my life that I felt had such an impact on me that I wanted to write a story about it but didn’t want it to be biographical. So, I made it more surreal.

How was working with the Kickstarter project? It was difficult and tiring… It’s a great thing that it exists because it does mean that you can see creative projects that otherwise wouldn’t have got off the ground. It’s also good because you are pitching directly to the consumer so there is no middle person. But, you do have to put a lot of time and energy into the

What message is behind it? I wouldn’t say that there’s any specific message. One of the reasons for not making it biographical was 22

You’re self-published; do you think this was an easier or harder way to produce a book? It’s quicker! If you’re driven enough and are passionate enough, you’ll see it through. You’re not relying on anyone else to give it the goahead. You also have free reign over how everything is laid out and that means that you don’t have to compromise on any artistic level, text or content. I would definitely encourage other people interested in making a book to self-publish it.

preparation of the project because people need to see that it’s going to be well executed and that they are putting their money into something that is worthy of it. People will be more wary of supporting projects that don’t seem well organised. Did you expect the book to be such a success? I guess I was partly well organised and partly lucky that I found people who were particularly interested in my book, so much so that they wanted to pass it on to others and get it into newspapers and press. So, that was great but most of all I was just pleased that it got to it’s target so it could be printed.

Would you write another book? Yeah, definitely! But right now I’m experimenting with animation so perhaps in a few years when I have the time. Do you think you’ll continue to work within the creative industry? I hope that I always can! It would obviously depend on jobs and circumstances but I would always like to.

XIII.

ENVY

ANDY NICHOLSON THE MAN BEHIND THE MUSIC Andy Nicholson is a very talented musician and song writer who I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for years. When I began making CANTO magazine, I knew that Andy was exactly who I wanted to create the music for each photo shoot. Here I have interviewed him about the experience of creating music for a magazine and how it differs from his usual kind of work. How did you decide what kind of sound to create for each photo shoot, and did you find it difficult to write music for specific images? To be honest, the process of matching music to images was actually quite straightforward, and I can’t really take much of the credit for it. That honour goes to Megan. And to gin and tonic. I sat with Megan late one night, had a few drinks, and just chatted about what sort of sounds she wanted to go with each of the shoots. We looked at the plans she had made for them, she would throw adjectives at me and I would make notes. Looking back over those notes now they’re filled with a lot of weird phrases like “ grungy but floaty” and “fairly angry but not too angry”. I even have the word “eggs” written on its own next to the greed shoot. As far as I’m aware the finished product features no eggs. After we’d gone through that initial brainstorming I got out my guitar and opened up my itunes and tried

to give her a vague preliminary idea of where I saw each piece going. This resulted in more scribblings phrases like “maybe evil flamenco” and “glassy crystal castles type stuff ” started appearing in my notes. Where my ideas didn’t match with Megan’s we’d go through the process again until we settled on something that made sense to us both. Which of the tracks you recorded for the magazine was your favourite and why? I guess it’s a toss up between The Weight of the Earth is Crushing and Envy. Pride was the first track I wrote. It was originally going to be the only music I provided for the magazine but Megan liked it so much she asked me to do the rest. I think I like it because, for me at least, it’s the track that fits best with the photos it goes with. The whole desolate landscape thing made sense to me right from when Megan first described what she wanted. I hit record right away and just started playing. I had a finished product after one take.

Envy I like for different reasons. It was a lot of fun to record. It was originally supposed to be a sort of loose call and response thing between me and Megan. She would sing some “ooh” type noises and I would follow pretty roughly on guitar, picking out parts of her melodies but mostly playing chords, leading to this kind of cool overlapping sound kind. In the process of doing that though I reversed and stretched the sound on my computer as a bit of a joke, but it ended up producing this abstract Sigur Ros kind of sound, a million miles away from what we originally played. We built on this idea and by the end of the night we were breathing into the microphone and hitting wine glasses with forks and other stuff to make the sound that finally appears with the magazine. It was a lot of fun. How did the project differ from the way you usually write music? Entirely. I usually write pretty straightforward songs: lyrics and guitar chords. Those songs are intended, in theory at least, to eventually be played live with a band and/or recorded in some sort of studio somewhere. Here I was writing music which was essentially background music. All I had to record it was my cheap USB microphone and some free recording

software on my laptop. I had to write stuff that was pretty sparse, but also stuff that could be recorded live. I’m not a sound engineering and my equipment sucks, so there was no avoiding the fact that it was going to sound pretty lo-fi. I tried to build these limitations into my writing, using the unavoidable patchy, distorted sounds produced by the recording process and the high gain I was using a lot of the time to create sustain and fullness of sound as a feature rather than trying to find ways to work around them.

the sounds I was trying to make. Who are your favourite artists to listen to? The guys listed above: bands like Okkervil River and The Decemberists. Having said that, I seem to be going through a pretty angry phase at the moment. I’m listening to lots of stuff with a punk influence: Titus Andronicus, Fucked Up, Cloud Nothings, that sort of thing. I just got a hold of Perfect Pussy’s debut. I haven’t fully got to grips with it yet but it’s growing on me.

What influences your own music? I like wordy indie music. The bands that most influence my “normal” writing are Okkervil River, The Decemberists and maybe Neutral Milk Hotel. For this project though I was going through a lot of post-rock. I really focused on Mogwai, particularly on their soundtrack work for Les Revenants. They have a really great, doomy sound, ideal for a lot of what was going on here. I’ve also just finished playing The Last of Us. The game was scored by an Argentine guitarist and composer called Gustavo Santaolalla. The overall vibe of his soundtrack for that game is similar to Les Revenants, and the fact that it’s guitar led - both acoustic and electric - made it an ideal reference point for

Is music a hobby for you or do you hope to pursue it as a career? Who knows. I’m currently working on surviving a few months at a time. It would be nice to get paid to play my guitar and sing songs, but music as a career seems to be based on a hell of a lot of commitment and more than a little luck. At the moment though I can’t even get over the first hurdle and actually get a band together. I have no idea if I’ll ever succeed there. Ask me this question again if I ever succeed at making that happen.

XV.

LO MONDO È CIECO.

FASHION AS A RELIGION THE PROBLEM OF FAST FASHION Fashion is often described as a religion; with devout followers, fashion publications described as Bibles, Anna Wintour called the fashion Pope, pilgrimages to fashion week and shops regarded as temples. Fashion in the same way as religion is a hugely influential industry that can sway people decisions and life choices. If we take on board the idea of fashion being like a religion, due to the many similarities between them, we should perhaps begin to think about the way the fashion industry could promote good virtues and morals in the same way that religion tries to do. As fashion has such a global presence, like religion, the industry should take on board some responsibility and start being more fashion virtuous in order to educate the consumer about the environmental implications of fast fashion. Fashion and textiles are currently one of the highest contributors to landfill waste, 7.5 billion items of clothing are sent to landfills each year, and this is arguably due to fast fashion. The term ‘fast fashion’ has been introduced to the fashion industry in recent years. It refers to cheap and affordable clothing, which has been copied from designer

brands, that is available in highstreet stores like Zara, New Look and Primark. Production of these products is done in the fastest way at the lowest possible cost. One of the main problems of fast-fashion clothes is that they tend to fall apart quickly, according to a case study of Zara, their fast fashion garments are generally designed to only last around 10 wears! The rapid production and short life-cycle of these products means that they are disposed of more quickly which leads to some serious environmental problems. The disposal of fast fashion is an issue that more people need to be aware of. Currently nearly 50% of all clothing purchased gets re-used at the end of the desired lifecycle, however, the remaining 50% of discarded clothing inevitably ends up contributing to the £140 million worth of clothing residing in landfill each year. But, can this really go on? Here’s the scary part, if Britain keeps throwing away rubbish and clothing at its current rate, it will run out of landfill space by 2018. I believe that the fashion industry should do more to make people aware of these problems but should also be more vocal about what can be

done to combat them. The fashion industry should be promoting sustainable and eco-friendly fashion; clothes that are made using raw materials such as cotton grown without the use of pesticides, clothing made from recycled textiles, clothes designed to be more durable so that they last longer and garments that are made without the use of harmful chemicals, dyes or bleaches. Designers like Stella McCartney are already proving that environmentally friendly clothes don’t have to look like brown, linen midi-dress we all associate with ecofashion. The fashion industry could also do more to promote virtues like reusing and recycling old clothes or buying second hand or up-cycled clothes. Up-cycling is a relatively new concept within the fashion industry which takes clothes which are headed for landfills, then alters them in some way to make them desirable garments again which are then sold on. Later in the magazine, there is a really interesting interview with Francesca Kelsey who runs an up-cycling business. Some of her up-cycled products have also been used in the ‘Incessante’ photo shoot. If clothing really can’t be reused or recycled due to damage or stains etc, then the fashion industry should develop a more responsible way of disposing of waste clothing and textiles. Companies like Marks and Spencer’s have already tried developing recycling schemes by cooperating with Oxfam - those who donate old clothes to Oxfam receive a voucher worth £5 to spend in Marks and Spencers.

However, these problems can’t just be pinned on the industry, we also have to do our bit to be more fashion virtuous. We should try to buy more quality products because they have a longer life cycle so mean more value for our money but also they won’t end up in a landfill as quickly. We should also try to give away or sell our unwanted clothes through eBay or car-boot sales or by donating them to up-cycling projects instead of throwing them away. This is currently the lowestimpact and most sustainable option for disposing of clothes. If we became more fashion virtuous, this would undoubtedly lead to a change in the fast fashion industry as it is a primarily consumer driven business. Companies would have to take notice and start creating higher quality garments with a longer life potential. They would also have to produce smaller runs to combat the problem of waste textiles and create recycling schemes for consumers. I will raise my hand and admit that I frequently buy fast fashion garments. I wish that I could buy the original designer pieces, which have a longer life cycle, are made from better quality fabrics and are more economically friendly but unfortunately I can’t afford the price tag. I will also admit that I was unaware of the serious implications of fast fashion but now after reading up on the matter I do want to change my shopping habits and do my small bit for environmental change. Hopefully after reading this, you might do the same?

XVIII.

INCESSANTE

FRANCESCA KELSEY THRIFTY LITTLE Francesca Kelsey started her up-cycling business in early 2013. The previous article, Fashion As A Religion, spoke about the problems of clothing disposal and the problem fast fashion is creating for landfill space and the environment. Up-cycling is one of the key solutions to this problem. Here I speak to Francesca about the promotion of upcycling in the fashion industry as well as finding out more about her business. Tell me about your business, Thrifty Little. Thrifty Little is an up-cycling brand; at the moment I take second hand men’s t-shirts and I hand sew them or stud them or cut them up to make them into women’s clothing. Then because I use second hand men’s t-shirts, not only is there a lot of fabric in them so I have more options of what I can make out of them, but also, the colour and the prints are always more interesting than those on a women’s t-shirt. The quality of the fabric is also always higher than a women’s t-shirt. The best thing about using second hand t-shirts is that all the prints on the front are different. So, if you’ve bought one of my t-shirts, you’ll know that no one else can have that same t-shirt. At some point, I would like Thrifty Little to become a larger up-cycling brand where I branch out into different products. Where do you get the inspiration for your designs? At the moment, I do three basic manipulations; with the over-sized tees, I like to roll up the sleeves and stud them. I also do a sleeveless 58

tank; I cut the sleeves off the t-shirt then sew up the sides, this is what makes these different than some other up-cycled t-shirt brands who will just cut the sleeves off, but I like to put in the extra effort to make sure it looks like something you would buy in a shop. Finally, I make crop tops where I cut off the bottom and sew elastic to them. The way I decide what to do to them is, I will accumulate fifty or so t-shirts and I will take them to the studio and go through each t-shirt and decide which of the three styles I should make from it. If it’s not too baggy and the print is at the top, that’s when I’ll make the crop top. If there’s a rip on a t-shirt that will determine which style I go for because I will need to cut a certain bit off it. That’s the cool thing about what I do, I can use t-shirts which have rips in them or many men’s t-shirts will have marks under the arms but I can just cut those bits off and just use the bit of the t-shirt that’s still in perfect condition which is better than it ending up in a landfill.

What made you want to use up-cycled products? I just love up-cycling, I always have. It maybe comes from being really poor; I’ve always had to make do with what I’ve got. Even when I was a kid, I always had to wear second hand clothes but I always thought I can wear this thing which doesn’t fit me or suit me, or I can cut it up or dye it to make it look better. I would do the same with things in my room, I might have a disgusting table but maybe if I paint the top it won’t look so bad. So, I’ve always just loved up-cycling stuff far more than going out and buying new things. It’s great when someone says ‘I love that’ about something I’m wearing because I can say I made it. I used to run Thrift Little, the blog, which is where I would do up-cycling tutorials. I would take photos of things I made, and how I made them and put it on line. I then decided to move Thrifty Little on to a business idea. How did you go about starting the business up? I was a manager in Superdry and I absolutely hated it, hated it, hated it. I had been working my way up in retail and just hating it. I thought that being a sales assistant was rubbish but maybe being a supervisor would be better, but it was rubbish, so maybe being assistant manager would be better but the further I went up I realised, it just gets worse and worse. It just gets more and more stressful and less worth the money. I was on a good wage but I was waking up every day hating my life and thinking of reasons not to go into work. My refuge from work was coming home at night and doing my up-cycling projects. I would get stressed when I didn’t have time to make anything. When my contract at work ran 60

out, I had the option to apply for other jobs but I decided not to, I decided to work the system. If your contract runs out, you can sign onto job seekers allowance and then you’re entitled to new enterprise allowance for starting your own business plus you can apply for Princes Trust grants. Basically, you are more likely to get help starting a business if you are unemployed because they are so desperate to get people out of unemployment. So, it was the perfect time to start my business. When I left my job, I didn’t have any idea what business I was going to do. For about a month and a half, I let myself get bored so that I could really know what I wanted to do with my life. I knew that I wanted to up-cycling so went to a kilo sale and kept finding loads of really cool t-shirts which were cheap. So I bought a big pile and took them home, up-cycled them and showed them to my flat mate, who is such a fierce bitch, she has amazing style. She loved them and asked if she could have one, then I knew that was the business I had to do because if she thinks it looks good then it definitely looks good. I could see how it would work as a business too, how I could get the products cheaply and make them look really cool. So, the idea just happened upon me but I’m really glad that it did. What are the positives and negatives of having your own business? The negative is having no money! Another negative for me is, I know there is a market for my product but trying to get to that market is quite difficult because people ask things like, ‘I like this t-shirt but do you have it in blue?’ or ‘I like this one but it’s too small for me’. That’s difficult because every item is unique

so I can’t have things available in various sizes or colours. It’s a constant struggle trying to make money, at the moment I’m trying to push sales internationally rather than in the UK because my t-shirts seem to be selling better there. The biggest struggle is not having any money and trying to make little bits of money to put back into the business. Also, running a business on your own can get quite lonely. I’m really glad I’ve moved into this studio now but for four months it was just me in my living room all day. Then I had no money to go out and socialise so I was starting to go out my mind. The best thing through is that having your own business rocks! I used to spend my whole life hungry, I’d get into work and I’d be waiting for my tea break and then I’d get hungry after an hour and be waiting for my lunch, then waiting for the end of the day. I was always hungry! Since starting my business, I haven’t been hungry in months because when I want to eat, I can go and eat and when I come back I do better work because I’m not focusing on how hungry I am. I can get up when I want, I work when I want, and I’m so passionate about what I’m doing, it’s my hobby and now I do it every single day. When you have the drive to do it, having your own business is the best thing in the world and I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it. What are you working on next? What I’m going to try and do is find the right avenue of sale for my t-shirts. I’ve been taking them to vintage markets, which is really strenuous because it’s almost every weekend. I have to take all the t-shirts, the rails and everything else I need, then set it all up then take it down again which is really

laborious. I don’t actually make mch money there because we’re in a recession and people don’t have much money and there will be £4 pieces of jewellery in a stall next to my £20 t-shirts so it’s quite difficult to compete. So, I’m looking to really push my online business. I’ve also been looking into dance companies who will often have stalls at their dance competitions. I think it would be really cool to sell my t-shirts as sportswear or dancewear. After that, I’m looking to expand, I have a few ideas for products but they’re all still in the prototype stage. It wouldn’t necessarily just be clothes, I could up-cycle furniture too. I’m thinking about also making a few up-cycled couture pieces when I have the time. Not to make money from them but to try and build more of a name for myself by entering them into fashion shows. I think that could push my online presence as well, if people go online and see amazing couture pieces, they might want to be a part of the brand so would then buy one of the t-shirts.

Where do you see Thrifty Little in five years? I would like to be an up-cycling brand. What I would really love is to have a shop somewhere that sells only up-cycled products – The Thrifty Little Shop. The shop wouldn’t just stock my work; it would be a place where other upcyclers could sell. Up-cycling is such a useful and forward thinking way of doing things because of the amount of wastage we produce and the way the economy is, I believe it’s a socially good thing to do. In five years I want my brand to be really set so then I can branch out to have Thrift Little as the name of up-cycling. That’s the dream. Do you think that within the fashion industry, up-cycling is something which we need to promote? Definitely, because of all the social benefits it has. Looking at it from a more selfish point of view, I hate seeing lots of girls walking down the street wearing the same clothes. The thing with up-cycling is it’s

you can’t go and have things made in China; you have to source stock so in terms of the economy, it supports local businesses. Socially, it great because you have to buy products from charity shops which then funds charities. Then environmentally, of course up-cycling and recycling is the way forward because clothing is one of the highest wasted products that we have. However, I don’t think that the customers will be thinking about the social side of up-cycling, I want them to think that it’s just so cool and that it’s something completely unique. Tell me about your involvement with helping young people working in the creative industry? It’s so organic what happens here; there are three of us working here and we all have different skills. The idea is that we’re going to work together, although we all have our own projects at the same time, we’re going to put the effort into finding other volunteers to make this old office block into something amazing – a place where young creative people can come and do their work. We’re organising markets where 18-25 year olds can come and sell their products for free, this is a great way for them to promote their products but also promotes the project we’re doing. We also have contacts from RBS who want to use this space as part of their Community Give Back program.

We have RBS managers who come and do DIY and painting for us! The idea is that it’s a mixture of the organisation, Somewhere To, and a new charity, which we’ve started, called Space Club. Once we’ve turned this into a useable space and we have money and volunteers we hope to be self sufficient but nonprofitable creative space aimed at young entrepreneurs but available to anyone. We want to support small and creative businesses and that’s what we’re focusing on. It will be free for 18-25 year olds then anyone else who wants to use the space will have to pay a membership fee or rent out a space to work. Would you encourage other young people to start their own business? I really would although it is hard; you could be the most creative person ever but you might not have the business acumen. I would say if you feel like you don’t have that business acumen, then it’s a good idea to collaborate with someone who does but doesn’t have a product. It is so difficult to run a whole business all on your own. My advice would be, remember that it’s hard work and remember that you might not have any money for a long time so if it’s not worth that, then don’t do it but what you’ll probably find is if you try it, it will be worth it. The absolute main thing with any business is, networking.

XIX.

THE AVARICE AND THE PRODIGAL

CHRIS MACDONALD COMIC BRU Chris and Keith MacDonald are brothers, living and working in Scotland who create short comics every week for their website, Comic Bru. Keith writes the stories and Chris illustrates them. I interviewed Chris about their creative process and what it’s like working with his brother. We also spoke about his favourite comic that they’ve made, Melissa, which you can read if you scan the next page with the Layar app. Tell me about your comics? The comics my brother and me work on at the site are generally short stories, no longer than seven pages and they vary pretty broadly in terms of tone and genre. Character work and high-concept stories are things that interest both of us and those are things that we like to try and focus on in our work. For me specifically, the comics are about challenging myself artistically and trying to find interesting ways to tell a story visually. How did you get into comic illustrations? Apart from a few very silly ones I made when I was a kid, I never really got around to drawing any comics of my own until a couple of years ago. I drew a seven page story that Keith (my brother) wrote and after it was finished, I got more of a sense of accomplishment and pride from it than anything else I’d been turning my hand to, so I just stuck at it and have been trying to improve since then.

When did you start drawing and when did you realise you could do it professionally? Like most people, I drew when I was very small, but I just kind of stuck with it. I started getting more serious about it when I was halfway through my second year of studying English and Psychology at Glasgow University. I was doing alright on the course, but I was putting in the bare minimum of effort and really couldn’t be bothered with it. It seemed silly to keep doing a course I wasn’t passionate about and probably wouldn’t even be able to get a job with, so I decided to drop out and get on the path of going to art school and pursuing a creative career a bit more seriously. What’s your personal favourite comic to read and why? I’m a big fan of Grant Morrison’s writing and almost anything by Frank Quitely, Francesco Francavilla, Ross Campbell, Brandon Graham, Becky Cloonan, Kate Beaton, Michel Fiffe... It’s a long list.

Did you study to be an illustrator or is it a natural talent? After dropping out of the course at Glasgow University, I got accepted into a portfolio course at Langside College and then ended up on the Animation course at Duncan of Jordanstone, so I did study. I feel like I need to work really hard to get anything I even think of as passable onto a page. Studying anatomy, colour theory and a ton of other things related to drawing is still an ongoing process... Apart from a few very, very exceptional cases, I don’t really think there’s such a thing as natural talent. Maybe the closest thing for 99% of creative people is the ability to maintain focus on a particular discipline or something and then put in the hard work to improve. How long does it usually take to illustrate one of your comics? It depends on the page. The least amount of time it’s taken me is around 10 hours, I think. That felt rushed though, and I wasn’t too happy with the result. Generally it takes a day; to sketch everything out and start the inking, then maybe a second day to ink it, apply any colours/ mid-tones, then the lettering.

You work on short comic stories, would you ever create a longer length one? That’s something Keith and I have talked about, but right now I want to get more pages under my belt and improve before committing to a big project. The best thing about short stories is that if you get bored, you can move onto another one fairly quickly. If I were going to work on a big project, it would have to be something I was really invested in and wanted to see get produced. I’d like to, eventually. Your brother writes the stories for your comics, and you illustrate them; how well do you work together? We get on really well and we share a lot of the same sensibilities as far as films, comics, TV shows and animation go. There’s very few things that one or the other of us will like that the other hates. We’ll collaborate on the early stages of stories as well, discussing the kind of thing we want to make and then Keith will go off and approach it in the way he thinks works best, we’ll workshop the script and then I’ll usually tweak some of the dialogue when I letter the pages.

Do you ever disagree about the direction or content of your comics? If we do, it’s usually at the early stages when we’re trying to flesh out which direction we want the comic to go in, or what we want it to say. When that happens, I usually just ask Keith to do his own thing and get a first draft of the script out the way he sees it. That gives us a foundation to work from, and then we can make changes and refine it instead of arguing pointlessly about vague ideas. Where do you get your inspiration from? A ton of places... For some stories like The Bird and the Cave, that was just a sentence that I thought was cool, then Keith just built a story with that as the title. It can also just be things we think are funny, or maybe an old folk story that we think we could adapt. Generally any themes (such as they are) come later. The Captain Max stories started out as just spoofs of some funny games console ads that were in old magazines, but I started to think of the character as representing the “angry fan” that writes horrible posts on the Internet. A lot of

the people who feverishly defend whatever console the own come across as immature, stupid people full of impotent rage. Captain Max is basically the personification of that: he’ll fly into blind fury at even the slightest provocation. Where would you like to see your comics go in the future? I’d like to do some more personal or autobiographical comics, as well as some stuff that’s a bit more crazy and high-concept. We’ve got lots of ideas for different stories. I’d like to develop my style of storytelling and also just improve my artwork in general. Do you think that comics can say something that can’t be captured in books or films? The thing about comics is that at their best they combine several elements in a very unique way. They’re different art forms, so it’s hard to compare, but I think that you can tell a certain type of story in a comic that’s harder to do in film and TV. Even the lowest budget film or TV show has a number of people involved that can dilute the voice of the director or the writer. In a book, an author can describe a scene in

great detail, but a comic can present the same scene with more impact and more succinctly. The artist also has greater control over how he guides the reader through the scene, maybe placing subtle, subliminal details in the artwork without drawing attention to them. It really depends, but I definitely think there are certain types of stories that lend themselves more towards comics than any other art form. Describe your creative process. When starting a page, I think about what I need to get across to the reader and what the best way to do that is. For example, if a character is supposed to feel depressed, I’ll place them low down in the panel and draw the scene from a high angle; if a character needs to look powerful, I’ll draw the scene from a low angle and put them in a strong pose. I’ll break down the script while thinking about these things, then sketch out the pages, blocking in things like where the characters are in relation to each other and also block in where the lettering will go roughly to make sure I’ve got enough space. After that, I start refining the linework, adding details, shadows, and

background elements and so on during the inking process. I always do any colour last, but I’m trying to integrate that more into the early stages, since it’s so important in setting the tone. Finally I’ll letter the page properly, always making it as easy as possible for the reader to follow which speech balloons come after which (this sounds easy, but when you’re trying to fit them around the artwork and make the whole thing work together, it can be a challenge...). Once I’m happy with the way the lettering looks, that’s it, a finished page! Can you tell me a bit about Melissa? The Melissa story is really about how people manipulate the talents of other people to suit their own ends. It’s also about the human instinct to gawp at things we don’t understand or seem weird to us. Then the fact that people will always try to make a profit from that. We saw it in the Victorian freak-shows and you can still see it today in “documentaries” about people who have some deformity or another. It boils down to the same thing: exploiting people.

XXXIII.

GLUTTONY

XXVI.

THE FINAL WOUND OF ALL