When I went on my first ever residency, it was crowdfunded by absolutely lovely people (read more here) and pushed me over the line to spend a week on Orkney, writing. Writing! What was I even doing there as an illustrator? I didn’t know. I just felt like it was the right thing and I went for it.
A week on Orkney (wow!) without my child and husband (just me?) and the time and space to be creative in a new way (no way)!
The first few days with the Museum of Loss and Renewal were a packed timetable of speakers, presentations, talks and activities; all were leading into an exploration of ‘writing in its most expanded sense’. Huh. I had no idea what that meant in general and certainly no idea what it meant for me. But I was about to lurch headlong into the steepest learning curve and most reflective state I had been in since just giving birth (which - let me tell you - was a pretty transformative experience, good and bad).
Nearing the end of the week I left poetry and writing aside and - like little patches of lichen - wee observational ideas for comics started to form themselves in my notebook.
I hadn’t planned on drawing while I was there. I like to be a good student and this was a writing residency. Then again, isn’t a comic a sort of ‘expanded form of writing’?
It tells a story through words and image and it has to be planned out and edited and published in some sort of way so it can be read. Wow. I went on this long journey to Orkney, to writing, to this group of writers (I was the least writerly of everyone) and I had come out to myself as a comic artist.
I also learned the term ‘scatalogical’ which someone used to describe a couple of my rough, observational comics. Sounded fancy, but I discovered that it means that those comics refer to poo in some way... Not feeling so fancy anymore. On the last day we shared excerpts of our writing and it was very moving to be allowed into the other writers’ heads, but even more emotional to watch a couple of the other writers reading one of my comics, tearing up or crying and then bursting out laughing as they finished it. In a few scrappy, inky boxes I had managed to evoke two distinct, very real reactions and I couldn’t believe the connection it made, despite being so rough and simple.
These first silly, silent, quickly scrawled (sometimes scatalogical) little Orkney-based comics were the first faltering steps into a new way of making work for me.
I had made the occasional comic before Orkney, but they have become a driving force in my work. I wish I could make them as my entire job.
This residency was not easy, it wasn’t always fun, but I met some amazing people (who I still keep in touch with) and that week of hot house direction and creativity led me to a way of communicating that is mine. A voice that feels genuine; vulnerable, silly, occasionally insightful and of course, scatalogical. I discovered my voice.
See all the Orkney comics here.