Wednesday Holmes

0:04Negative stereotypes around mental health and gender their bright images are filled with detail and color and are often accompanied by inspiring messages of support and encouragement wednesday joins us this evening to discuss how they use their instagram to facilitate queer liberation while providing solace and educating others not to mention as a form of self-care for them as well wednesday I'd love to ask you to turn on your audio and video now.

0:25So we can say hello if that's possible hello hi ma'am hi how are you doing I'm doing great thank you thanks so much for having me no thank you for joining us and yeah amazing amazing background image I think we were saying such a beautiful beautiful painting behind you thank you yeah do it myself okay that makes sense and listen yeah I guess you've you've got your presentation to get through so I'm gonna let you share your screen now.

0:54And I'll kind of once you've once you've got it up on the screens I'll then I'll duck away okay great and again everyone else yeah if you have any questions for wednesday please pop them in the q a and yeah I'll we'll start right sorry everyone you just saw a glimpse of it okay to get a bit of a teaser you know okay. So my name is wednesday I'm a 26 year old artist and I'm based in london I'm also a writer and a queer community organizer I started making art because I felt quite silenced in the world and actually in foundation year I was discouraged from making art that talks about being queer so naturally me being me when I left I decided to do the complete opposite so basically what I do is I share artworks online to educate inform and to make people laugh to make people feel better specifically queer people so here are a few things that I've found I can use my art for so a big part of what I do is using art to encourage community action so number one is an image that I made in order to encourage people to send letters to their mps in response to the scrapping of the gra so I kind of use colorful hopeful images in order to get people to get moving and get behind us number two is an example of the sort of work that I do with voices for london I basically use my artwork to facilitate any community protests and this one is our current campaign that we're running to uh get people encouraged people to donate to african rainbow family who are great check them on instagram number three is a really special project that I worked on with the lgbt center and basically this these ads were running on the new york subway and they were to encourage tgnci people to come to their residence youth program sorry guys ah we go so I also found that I can use our two I think we can't see the presentation.

3:40Now I don't know if you've oh okay sorry sorry that's really weird okay ♪

3:57I think we're having a bit of a problem with your connection now okay no I can see it now yeah it seems to be loading so is that working yeah it just says loading but I think yes perfect your background great so I found out really quickly the in unlearning things that the world tells you about yourself as a marginalized person can be a great way to like you could share that with other people to promote their own healing too.

4:39So these are just some examples of artworks that I've made to just be there for other people huge part of what I do online so another thing that I do is I use art to facilitate education.

4:57So I know that. There are a lot of things that perhaps people don't know about being non-binary for example so I use art to communicate what's going on so so number one is about promoting gender inclusivity when talking about menstruation number two is another one that I made it's kind of like a mini-z so I usually will come up with a statement and then like a rationale and like the the meaning behind it in order to give the reader the tools to start the conversation.

5:39And then number three is another sort of scene that I do as well.

5:43So I found that I still find that myths about being non-binary can really get in the way of non-binary people's lives so this is a kind of a way that I've used art to sort of get rid of my frustrations and just communicate to thousands you know this idea and the hopes that perhaps they won't go on to perpetuate those myths so this is another part of my work.

6:16So I noticed that although I do want to make art for queers there are just limits to my experience and my art is me.

6:30So the only way that I could make my project more holistic was to seek out outside sources and to seek out friends or colleagues or other activists who would like their story shared so I basically just say can I illustrate this for you would you be happy with me illustrating your story so number one is this again I did with lenny morris from stonewall uk and it was basically like a a small toolkit into like the understanding of being asexual and how people can show up for asexual people.

7:15So that was really great the second one intersex 101 was written by interact advocacy you can see the app there I'll follow them yeah.

7:29So basically I'm trying to bring unseen people experiences within the lgbt community and just bring them to light with this platform that I have number three is again something that I've done with voices for and trustee my friend presh so this is a really great way of us educating people about the pansexual experience and a really brilliant way of her sharing her writing and her wonderful story.

8:03So that's a really big part of voices for london as well is promoting education and therefore empathy so another thing that I do with artwork and the final thing I'm going to talk to you about today is designing for the future something really powerful for me is the notion that I can actually be using art to make queer kids lives better or more comfortable I know that is common story throughout queer people throughout the queer community that you know as children we don't feel seen or accepted whether.

8:49That's through education systems or just at home anywhere really we're pretty much raised so this has been such an amazing way for me to to bring that light there bring that representation there so number one is part of a collaboration I did with bbc bite size where they commissioned me to make three artworks to send loving messages and messages messages of support to queer students which was wonderful to take part in number two is a children's book which I illustrated this year and that is so powerful to me in this book we're teaching really and how to count but at the same time we're cementing queer culture you know into really early education where I mean I'm really hoping that queer children can read this book and feel seen and feel celebrated and I also hope that children read this and they are more empathetic and more open to understanding people who are different than them also the adults too the parents number three number three was actually one of my first commissions it was with albert kennedy kennedy trust who are brilliant charities for queer homeless people homeless young people and every single year they do this brilliant conference where they have where they have children come to london young people not children come to london and basically talk about queer community and what they can do better and this was such a brilliant chance for me to contribute to that and you know to use visual art to invite people to come in and have their say so that's just a whistle-stop tour of some of the ways that I use art.

11:02But the project most of my projects are all on instagram and there's so much to it so check that out thank you everyone thanks for listening thanks so much wednesday that was absolutely amazing so so inspiring and also yeah thanks for coping with the the internet issues and that's the kind of joys of doing these things on zoom you always get a bit of that.

11:28But yeah there's so many nice comments in the chat which I'll let you let you come to in your own time we've got a couple of questions for you I think there was a lot of people really inspired by that. And I guess one one person who submitted a question before and before this evening started so this person said what advice do you wish you were given at the beginning of your career in illustration.

11:49And then how do you make sustainable income in the illustration industry so I'm guessing this is someone who yeah is probably starting out as an illustrator and just wondering yeah how you kind of make that start.

11:57And then hopefully make it sustainable going forward oh are you there wednesday sorry we can't hear you are you there oh that's really strange oh it's the internet I'm back I'm back can you can you repeat the first question for me of course yeah yeah yeah it was I think from someone who's you know starting out in illustration they just said what's any advice that you wish you were given at the beginning of your career and then how do you kind of make sustainable income in the illustration industry so I I specialize in fine art when I when I did my foundation year and every time I would bring up a money or finance or a business you know I would sort of be brushed off like artists don't need to make money all of this sort of stuff you know you could be like van gaal and I'm like I love fango but van gogh was also desperately unhappy and yeah you know really struggled financially as well so one of the first things I did was to look up illustration business and do some research into how other illustrators survive and I think I think I really am a unique case here because I think a lot of what I got what I have is because of the queer community online so okay I would say be yourself everything that you're hiding which you think that the art world doesn't want to see needs to be seen and people need to hear you. And we're very much in a case right now where you we haven't been represented in the art world at all.

14:00And I always say that if people won't give you a seat at the table you make your own table you know. I was told that I wasn't gonna I was made to feel like I wasn't gonna get anywhere. But I I truly would not believe that. So I think really really believe that.

14:19This is for you and don't fight for it don't let that go amazing advice thank you and the final question from stephanie who put this in the q a tab she says I adore your choice of color and I think she speaks for a lot of people when she says that do you have a process to decide your color palette when you take on a particular project I I honestly just went for it when I first started illustrating and then.

14:55I started to pick out colors which I just thought were lovely and made me really happy and then. I thought you know if I put these colors and it makes me happy I wonder if it makes someone else happy and that's honestly just the way it works but then.

15:10I started to get way more creative with color palettes now so like if I have a client and like they send me their like root palettes I'll be like I'll find that quite interesting and I do save them. And I push the boat out a bit. But also what I would say is recently I found this app and I for the life of me I can't remember the name of it.

15:35But it randomly generates color palettes so that can be a really interesting way of just keeping things going but like also like on a on an instagram level your viewers kind of really like to see they like to see like consistency so like I think my color palette like people associate that with oh that's wednesday you know but you're welcome to like push that push that boat out because you know every single every single month I'm learning something new or I'm unlearning something or I'm trying to just make just experiment with art practice I really do with every single thing I don't think it's binary and I don't think that we should be in a box anyway.

16:23So yeah go for it that was a really long reply that was amazing yeah no thank you so much to get through those two questions with the internet holding up as well.

16:36So yeah thanks so much wednesday I'm going to ask you now to turn off your audio and video as well but thank you so much for joining us this evening you