Ruby Etc

0:07 Be a little bit too high or a little bit too low that's good I do have water so I don't know how that happened but and I am the last one yeah. So just also amazing talks I just yeah I can't it's it's hard going last but we're gonna do our best so yeah hi everyone I am Ruby and it is very lovely to see and yeah be among so many other wonderful brilliant creative people I'm not going to be able to find the words adequately but it's really nice to be here.

0:43 So I'm going to hold this I've also got the vision of a mole so I'm going to need to hold my notes up here if that's cool with everyone yeah my name is Ruby I'm an artist based in London I draw comics and cartoons I write and does this need to be a little bit harder I think that's fine where was I I draw comics and cartoons I write and illustrate books and I also create and Lead Arts workshops for people of all ages backgrounds abilities encouraging them to use art for self-expression and enjoy the process of making without worrying whether it looks good or not in essence and additionally for the last million and three years I've been putting work online under the name Ruby Etc or Ruby Etc I'm never quite sure how to say it because I typed it and that was how I came up with it.

1:39 So yeah my first book was self-published and made in 1998 I was four it's called I don't like tidying up.

1:49 So I drawed these drawings because I was cross and I've signed it twice it's good to sign your work you should always put your name on stuff and it's full of these and I like to share it because it's not that far apart from things that I make now which is why it's always nice to share so I like to draw from feelings rather than reality a lot of the time and observing the world and all its silliness if a thought or situation makes me laugh I take that as a cue to put it on the page and although I have spent a lot of time writing and drawing about chronic mental illness chronic physical health problems things like that I also like drawing about the more serious topics such as how to fit a chicken and dis into stiletto heels very happy doing both yeah.

2:46 So as an artist I am self-taught I have no formal qualifications despite loving drawing as a kid and growing up in a house full of pens and paper which was you know something I was really lucky to have art was something that I really hated at school at secondary school and stuff I was never able to do it without feeling very intensely self-critical and that's sadly something that I see a lot adults that I teach in Workshop kids find they'll make straight away they don't need me there but adults they say I haven't picked up a pen in years I can't draw I'm bad at this whole thing. And I think yeah the education system obviously has a lot to answer for in terms of that but yes wasn't it art at all.

3:34 And then when I was in my late teens I had to drop out of school after a few years of being really unwell I do really subtle illustration of how it all smashed its way into my life which I like to share because that's easier than talking about it.

3:48 But yeah. I was very isolated I was at home a lot I couldn't work.

3:53 And it was around this time that I picked up a pen again and began to write draw make comics about what I was going through without any pressure or aim I could really draw without worrying about what it looked like which I think was the kind of forming of a lot of my style artistic style and yeah Art became A coping mechanism and one of the ways I could communicate with people because things were so hard to talk about at the time. Basically. So it was my it was my way of talking to to my family and the people around me perhaps most importantly it also gave me permission to laugh which sounds like a bit of a weird thing to say but life was so exquisitely bad and unfunny that when I was able to draw about something in a funny way it gave me a different kind of ownership over difficulty and and pain and kind of distress and all those kind of experiences and although I'm oh sorry although although I'm in a different place now like it's still a driving force for why I make work if that makes sense yeah.

5:10 So the brilliant thing about Comics as a medium and why I like to work in kind of comic forms so much is because you can condense these really huge like intangible feelings into something that makes sense both to you. And then.

5:26 I think to people who are reading it and why it's such a it's such an approachable medium it's it's easy to look at and I love the the marriage of words and and pictures and it's also a really good vehicle for for darker subjects because you can kind of get that across and also be holding on to lightness and ultimately hope I think so in terms of kind of transferring this into a profession it was pretty unintentional it did happen over a number of years kind of in tandem with me becoming a bit more well I did use the internet a lot I think for someone who couldn't go outside a lot and obviously I had no training no qualifications so a lot of traditional art routes were just I couldn't go there.

6:22 So I did post a lot of work online and kind of was able to be seen that way which is really lucky however it has been a huge huge Landing curve understanding how to develop a practice as an artist and a lot of pretending to know what you're doing by day in front of clients you're like yeah no I understand what you're talking about I do not understand what I'm talking about.

6:47 And then at night you're kind of lying awake and then going on sure and also how long is this going to last you know we're like is this forever. Now is this one I'm doing and I think something that has brought me Comfort all the way along is is like talking to people other people who are doing the same thing and being open and honest and knowing that a lot of people are kind of imposter syndroming their way through but doing it regardless I mean that's just like the creative struggle sometimes so a little bit more about how I what happened there exciting a little bit more about how I sort of generate ideas and make work my sort of my most continual project something.

7:34 That's going on all the time for me and my sketchbooks so I have literally hundreds of these in various locations somewhere in like my parents house there's a lot in in my house I've just got turns from the last decade or so really and they're filled with my Comics my illustrations thoughts kind of just records of daily events I find that when you draw every day you create this sort of it is like a living breathing body of work. And I sometimes describe them my sketchbooks as like an external hard drive for your brain right like that's what they should be they shouldn't be somewhere you need to be perfect there should be somewhere where you're getting all your all your thoughts and then there's always time to edit it later like I can't stand people tearing pages I can't stand it I don't mind people can do what they want to do but like you know tearing Pages out I'm wearing you know it's just about just getting everything on it and not worrying about what it looks like and it's also a really great way of remember it like not forgetting stuff I feel like there's writing a written diary but there's you don't even need to describe exactly what happened if you're drawing it or you draw an image you will your mind will kind of go back to that day this is one I share quite a lot because it was a day I was trying to look a little special but not really feeling it.

8:59 So I was just drawing myself kind of Smashing my face into makeup and things. And I just draw it again and again and again and then scan it and kind of chop it up.

9:09 But it it's sort of that like compulsive drawing as well that there's something quite relaxing about doing that until you feel like you've you've got the right version you know really it's like running head first at the page and just enjoying the surprise of the outcome oops where are we yeah this is about I think going to the going to the beach or like some something to do with having a Beachbody or not wearing shorts maybe something like that and again I think I just I just really enjoy focusing on expression taking all the detail out of something reducing it as much as you can and and I think in that you can kind of retain that humor and that movement and that Honesty the thing that kind of made you laugh in the first place so that's something I really like to another project that I thought I'd share and this is the last bit so don't worry these were two books I made over the last couple of years called silly me and silly ass they were published with the pound project who are really great independent publisher based in Birmingham they work with a range of kind of artists and authors to make these crowdfunded books they're kind of on sale for three weeks they're five pounds they're really lovely little objects and these were sort of based on sort of day like daily drawings and and they had to work like that in them it was really nice I was fined with with books rather than posting work online you get that really nice satisfying outcome of having something that people can actually hold it's really nice to make an object when so much of your your work for people exists in like a like a matter of physical space you know like it just all evaporates so quickly so I think having something even if people are just like using it as a door wedge I'm like great amazing like you know what I mean it's really it's it's really nice to make that make that so those were those are something I really enjoyed making I think yeah it's it's like running workshops and drawing with people in real life and like everything. That's been said tonight in so many more like eloquent ways there's something about being people being with people in a space and being able to share work in a in a physical way that I think is so important and for me holding on to any humor and any joy in a world that is so often kind of like crumbling around us just feels really important and really special so I thought I would end with a few pages from silly us which was the second book I did I'm going to read them out.

11:54 And I'm going to stop reading them out because after a certain point it becomes weird but I thought it'd be strange if I just if I just stood here. And we all had to wait to him so so on the rate like a like a story a short story very short story when I've had just about enough of myself and people and the world I look out of the window you know Nature's television I'm gonna have to actually look at the screen because my eyesight is so bad I see a child legging it down the path with an ice cream that is seconds away from flying straight out of the cone and two people who have clearly had a fight and are doing the 20 minutes dump of tense silence that could not be any louder I see a little old man who I think is alone on a bench but on closer inspection has an even tinier old Jack Russell tucks in by his feet they're just chilling I think about all the ways we are existing Alone Together in a silly and impossibly beautiful pattern and then I spot a squirrel with a bit of leaf in her mouth or could it have been a crisp either way I think I'll phone you is a bit you can read that's me thank you [Applause]