“I’m a bit of a Womble. Making good use of the things that I find.” Bristol artist Lucy Roberts started her career as an animator but soon found a different way of telling visual stories.…
by Jamillah Knowles
Lucy Roberts is set up for the Windmill Hill arts trail, known as Art in the Hill as we meet to chat among other makers, shoppers and creatives scattered throughout the old vicarage. People are coming through at a steady rate, remarking on her work which is filled with character, texture and sometimes nostalgia. What is evident is a sense of play and enjoying the works that are for sale on the trail.
We sit together on a comfy couch and get to talking. Lucy’s career in the arts started in animation. Graduating in 1998, she was learning on the cusp of a technological revolution, one that would eventually change her course away from moving images. “We were learning on really old fashioned equipment. We did our finals on 16mm film. We were taught to edit on Steenbeck machines.”
At this point, computers were becoming a more important tool in the animation industry which was quite a distance away from the pleasure that Lucy had found in the work. “I went to study animation because it was a fine art based course. By the time I graduated I felt I was in an industry that I wasn’t as interested in. I didn’t want to use computers, I was more interested in scissors and glue and ink. I like to make things with my hands.”
“Computers can speed up a process. All the things in the past that would have taken ages, you can do in a second on a computer. But I like the slow process. I like the process of making, and the repetitive nature of the work. If you were attracted to animation for those reasons, it was a funny time. For me, it’s not the outcome, it’s the journey.”
A natural creativity
Lucy’s roots in play and creativity started early, in a household where making things was a natural thing to do. “I was always a creative kid. My dad was brilliant at art, I think he was a frustrated artist. He was a lovely primary school teacher and a very enthusiastic one. But really he wanted to go to art school and do graphics. But he was discouraged, his parents wanted him to have a predictable income – just looking out for him I think. So he really encouraged me, he really wanted me to go to art school and follow my dream.
“I grew up in a house where he always made birthday cards, he made our presents. Making and drawing and creating was a perfectly normal part of my childhood. My parents met at Goldsmiths, which was a very groovy place to be in the 60s, but neither of them ended up following an arts career, they both became teachers. I was brought up with the idea that as long as you are doing what makes you happy, then that’s the path you should follow, which is lovely.”
Lucy knew that she would probably want to follow a career in the arts when she was a teen.
“By the time I was doing art GCSE, I knew that was what I wanted to do. Studying art feels like playing. All the time I was doing art for GCSE or A-Level, it didn’t feel like I was studying, I was playing. I remember thinking ‘I can’t believe I’m being marked for this, this is like free time.’ I think that’s the dream. Making a living from it is another matter.”
Mind blowing animation
The world of animation inspired Lucy to explore wider genres of art. “Studying animation blew my mind, I was seeing lots of experimental stuff and weird stuff. The world of weirdness opened up to me then and set me on a different path where now I can make whatever I want. It’s very freeing.”
But figurative and narrative animation didn’t turn out to be her style. “The idea from the course was that you would graduate and be a director. The idea wasn’t’ that they would churn out people who would go and work in studios, it was more about making your own short films. So I graduated with a feeling that I had my own destiny. It shaped me in the sense that I realised that I want to do things my way.”
The sincere wish not to have a boss and to follow a path of greater freedom means that Lucy has a lot of different skills to bring to bear on her work and solve maker problems. “I feel like I can’t stick with one medium or craft,” she says.”I like working in so many different ways. The animation I was most interested in was abstract. The idea that you could make art work move. I used to paint directly onto the film and what you get is a psychedelic crazy moving image. What I learned was so different from what I thought I would learn. I really loved seeing people who were doing their own thing, experimental stuff. Punk ethic really. I think what I have taken is that if I want to try something, I will. I don’t consider whether something is odd or too strange.”
Lucy is known for a number of memorable works from her two headed Beanie Babies to the tiny people she places on objects to create a new scene. “I’m a bit of a Womble. I gather things and think‘ that will be interesting to play with. I was in a craft shop and I found a little bag of model railway figures and I thought ‘these will be great, what can I do with these?’.
“At the time I was having an exhibition and I added the little people near the comments book. They weren’t for sale, I just put them there as a funny little addition. Everyone asked me if I was selling them and I finally thought I would try a few for sale – now they are my best seller.”
Blazing a path
At the moment Lucy is working on items to sell for the festive season. One day per week she works at Blaze, a co-op gift shop located in the heart of Bristol and a stone’s throw away from the Christmas Steps. Blaze is run by nine independent makers and features over 100 local artists. It’s a magical place filled with art gifts, but its future may not be certain.
“We have new landlords at Blaze which could be a threat to its continuance,” Lucy explains. “Blaze has been there for over 20 years and I’ve been there for 12. We had really lovely landlords but they sold the space a couple of years ago. We’re a not for profit business, lots of makers sell with us and the business runs brilliantly but we don’t make a profit so any future hikes in costs will be a problem for us.”
Hopefully Blaze will be a Bristol destination for many more years to come. In the meantime, Lucy is determined to follow her own path, “You hear about people in hospices who say they regret spending too much time at work, or they wish they had done more of what they like, I don’t want to end up like that.
“I want to enjoy my days. I want to enjoy my life. I’m very productive but I like it to be on my own terms. Left to my own devices I will get up and I will work on things, not because someone has asked me to. When you talk to people who have jobs with bad bosses, I think I never want to dread getting up and going to work. I’d rather not be very well off and enjoying the time I’ve got.”
Jamillah Knowles is a writer, artist, AI specialist and RWA Friend. You can read a Floating Circle Meet the Artist Q&A with her here.
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