Transcript
Speaker: You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. Hey
Speaker: hey everybody, this is Ken Valente with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And I am very pleased to have Jay Webster Sharp reaching Gemma ah from New York. ah and ah Gemma is an illustrator that I encountered on Instagram that had such a visceral impact on me, the illustrations and powerful images. And I just kind of got drawn into ah these images, which is i why I reached out to you, Gemma. And I'm just so pleased to have you on the show. Welcome on to Something Rather Than Nothing.
Speaker: ah Thank you for having me. I, ah there's there's a couple like bigger typical questions that I tend to ask guests that I like to explore like their identity artists.
Speaker: um my first question is, was there a moment you saw yourself as an artist and identified as an artist? Was it, did it happen as a moment or has that happened or what's your feelings on that?
Speaker: I feel that it was something that I just kind of grew into from being a kid and knowing like when you're about seven or eight, wow, I'm really good at drawing because it's better than all my classmates' drawings and paintings and stuff.
Speaker: And being worried if a new kid joined the class, you could draw pretty well because it meant that
Speaker: My place in that class as being the good drawer was in jeopardy. um That makes me sound mean, but i I wasn't at all. i think um i I think I decided when I was about 13 that I was going to be an artist because that was about the age that I realised that, oh, this is something that you could do as a living.
Speaker: um and I would read a lot of artist biographies and get taken to... um art galleries in the nearest cities and things. So it kind of felt like it was something that was doable.
Speaker: And that's kind of what I aimed for from about 13.
Speaker: So when you're in when you're in class, when you're younger, was there something like you were intuitively drawing or processing out? Like for myself, I do geometric geometric patterns like and repetition. And that started when I was a kid. It's just something i like to do. Was there...
Speaker: Was there types of things that kind of emanated from you when you were younger, ah just like flowing out of you? I think you talk about repetition. I think I was very good at the way I taught myself was...
Speaker: um to copy things that I found, copy drawings. And and I had coloring books that were, um had a great coloring book that was a fellow's name, Russo, did all those jungle scenes. And there was a page and it the tiger coming out of the jungle and the tiger's got this manic look on its face. And you're drawing it as a kid and thinking, wow, you know, this looks crazy.
Speaker: um And also...
Speaker: I come from a working class background and I would get a lot of praise if I could if i copied something and got it as correct as I could. i Just so, yeah. Yeah. Because i you know I came from a family that was more responsive to people um more of the kind of like realist looking stuff, not so much abstract abstract work and sculpture and things.
Speaker: And so I felt that looking back now, that was the direction I was encouraged in because that was the kind of artwork my family could understand.
Speaker: yeah It was like that. There was like a value within it. I, I, I think I know exist but in my mind what what you mean is like within kind of um and work in that, like you had done it really well, like you had done the work really well, like as opposed to something in the environment where it's like super, you know, imaginative, creative, like you did the work well. What was like, what was like when you, when you were, were you know, doing art when were younger, like,
Speaker: what was the reaction? like What was your environment? like Even in school, did you feel like there were positive cultivations of it or it was like your secret your secret love No, it was very... I mean, knowing what I do now about art lessons in British schools, I think I was very lucky to get the art education I had in the primary school and secondary school that I went to. um it was way more involved, um very encouraged.
Speaker: You got to look at lots of different artists. And um now... yeah It isn't like that at all. it It didn't feel like something I had to keep secret. It didn't feel like something that wasn't considered proper. And I never met anyone who didn't take me seriously in my career goals.
Speaker: yeah i was never I never had anyone tell me that I couldn't do it or that it was unrealistic. Even though I never knew any anyone who had gone that direction.
Speaker: To them, I seemed capable of doing it, so I was encouraged.
Speaker: You moved into um i believe like portrait ah painting. in in and For context to the listeners, um ah Gemma's work moving more into kind of ah general sequential a sequential art.
Speaker: ah and I'd read from more from a portrait ah painting. if Within that period of your period of of your art um Were you enjoying that? but did that you so Was that exactly how you saw yourself? and And related to that, what was the transition to the type of thing where I can find your book in the comic book store and just be like, whoa, who is this? Which was my experience.
Speaker: So from the work that you were doing into the more of the you know comic space.
Speaker: Well, I'd had exposure to comics when I was a kid. when I was a teenager, that turned Dan Clouse and the like. Oh, yes. Even though I was a painter, I i did see comic work and ah graphic work and paint work as kind of belonging to different worlds, really, when that wasn't the case. But I'd gone to university with the aim of being a portrait painter. That was what I was interested in and what
Speaker: what I could do well but I just didn't have the personality to hold confidence to carry off that kind of career and of course I didn't know that until I'd left a university and tried to make a go of it and it it just didn't work because I wasn't the type of person to push myself forward or make connections and it kind of I really tried to stay on that track for a long time. And I kind of tried my hand at like textile sculpture. and And then I kind of dip into drawing and think, oh, no, I shouldn't be doing this. I should be doing painting because that's what I...
Speaker: went to university form and take took out a student loan for. And I'd always go back to the painting and then that wouldn't work. And i'd just spend I spent a good few years kind of yo-yoing back between drawing and painting because I couldn't do, and I still can't, I can't do two things both at the same time, two different things. So I can't paint and draw. It's got to be one or the other.
Speaker: And I had a go at making comics back in about 2009. And it kind of worked. And people liked it. um And then I i fell out of that and went back to painting. and And I, from where I am now, is where I began back in May 2021. Yeah.
Speaker: um so And now I've just made this my career. um And it it feels like it's kind of worked.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. The book you ah put out, The Scrapbook of Life and Death, um ah first of all, in my experience in in reading it, just really try to, you know, in talking aloud, like in audio and speaking with you about um you know the world of illustration that you do. I just want to say like my art experience like my experience of that recently and going through that, it pulled me so deeply into a a text, into ah into the pages, into the lines, into the illustrations. that ah it just i don't have the words to describe it, but it was really moving into that world.
Speaker: And I think there's this like fascinating, deep eccentricity that I, I don't know, I didn't know other people enjoyed or or would enjoy about the idea of what people collect or collect a lot of or...
Speaker: what they pick out from the environments around them and like the curious, the strange of like, I can't believe that happened. And, and, and it's in that world, um, uh, that you do, your you know, the recent work scrapbook of, uh, life and death. Um, um,
Speaker: what is it What is it about um what people collect or, in the instance of this book, what somebody else collects um that that that that launched into this project, the the eccentricity of of collection?
Speaker: What brought you to that space? Well, my book is is kind of from book that I had, which was filled with all these newspaper clippings this fellow George Ives had compiled.
Speaker: You get hoarders, you get collectors of and know baseball cards and film memorabilia and autographs and things.
Speaker: And it's like people
Speaker: people trying to find an anchor for themselves in a world that isn't maybe particularly as friendly to them as it could be.
Speaker: it It's about not having control maybe. over parts of your existence but then you can come home to this world you've made of your own and filled with things of yours um
Speaker: spaces i'm interested in spaces i'm interested what i can show in the space in a panel i'm interested in
Speaker: the spaces people inhabit, the worlds of their own that they make. And that's that's really interesting because it says so much about the people.
Speaker: Yeah. I really like... Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead, please. now not that this has anything to do with hoarding or collecting, but i think about I think about the documentary and by the Maisels' Grey Gardens a lot and the space that um Little Edie and Big Edie inhabited with all those cats and raccoons and their house falling around, like down around them and
Speaker: you know It's just filled with trash and rubbish. Yeah, yeah. I think about them and that world. That's a great documentary.
Speaker: i I watch that so much. and Thanks for the recommendation. you ever seen that?
Speaker: I haven't. Oh, it's on YouTube. You should go watch it. I definitely will right after, right after this. um How'd you get into Fatty Arbuckle, right? I could say that for myself. I don't i don't even know. It's kind of like I've, the life I've had and just picking up bits and pieces here and there and kind of knowing that I know of people and and events before I even really know of them just because I've i encountered them by chance, just like,
Speaker: It's like i've I've always known who he was without knowing anything about him. So I obviously went to an antiques fair and saw something or read something on the internet when I was you know probably reading about Buster Keaton or something. yeah um um Mostly it was, I was watching there's a ah documentary series on YouTube that's about eight episodes long and it was made in the late 70s, early 80s. And it was about the beginning of Hollywood back when... um silent filmmaking moved from rooftops in New York um across to California because the sun was out all the time and everything that's Hollywood now used to be like orange groves um and there's an episode of that
Speaker: most of the episode is about Fatty Arbuckle and it's a kind of it's a story that I've definitely heard snippets of over the years because if you like true crime, probably you probably know something about it. If you like um you know old Hollywood, you're going to know about it from that. Scandal, scandal.
Speaker: Yeah. Media. Yeah. Trial by media. Practically one of the first ones as well and and just his associations with other people of the time, like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. And I just thought it was such a it's still a story that people have very strong feelings about, you know, um today, 100 years down the line.
Speaker: practically. And i I just wondered if I could tell it in the way that I, you know, because I make wordless work. So this guy was the star of silent films and I i thought i so I'd have a go at kind of telling this story in a silent way. Your ah depictions that I've seen on and on Instagram are...
Speaker: They're beautiful. They're beautiful. They're they're absolutely beautiful. um ah there's ah There's a reality there's a deep reality to the expression and in in the and in the face i think like when i think about that case and i don't um on um i've been throughout my life i've dipped in and out of it i've been fascinated by the idea of hollywood and that brightness and like the underbelly and i know that's been like at least in our american culture been like
Speaker: really develop. But I grew up working class kid in Rhode Island. And for me, Hollywood like is the other side of the US and actually represented, like because I love movies so much, these kind of like unreal fantastical elements. like yeah It was so far away. It was bright. the it It did glitter. And people were different. you know it's ah So I had that um compelling piece, but I'm also drawn by the tragic and dark and um the Black Dahlia murders. and Oh, yeah.
Speaker: the way you look at these stories and even the way they were written about, which, um you know, say in the clippings and stuff, ah the way they're written about is so different and feels so different words and in in sensation that, and it's so long ago where, like you said, there's still this controversy around Fatty Yardbuck. When you think about it's a century ago and we're thinking about video right in in in in film um i i could i i'm telling you like directly i i am i'm most excited for um uh the fatty arbuckle work do you are you talking about it at this point as far as like timetable or general aspirations for that work because if you do i'd love for you to indulge me oh well um
Speaker: There is someone who wants it. I don't know if I can talk about that, but um yeah, it's it it should be available at some point.
Speaker: That's good. I've nearly finished. I mean, it's taken... I was actually quite shocked when a few weeks back i I looked to see that I actually began this.
Speaker: It'll be like two years ago in November. So I've been working on it for longer than I thought that I had been actually. Wow. well What was that feeling like when that hit you, given the length of time and like what was in your head? What did that feel like?
Speaker: Well, actually, I was a bit like, oh, I should have done more, actually. It should be longer if I've really been working on it for this long. But the way that I draw, it's so it's it's great because it looks so great. But at the same time, I work as fast as I can, but it's just not quick enough.
Speaker: I'm so excited. And there are, you said somebody wants it. Absolutely. um Just for any, in in general, any publisher, anybody thinking about the space for this, I see the, just, you know, online, I don't, you know, and and I've talked to other folks who are are fans of yours. I'm in the kind of like Portland, Oregon around comics and comic book stores. So,
Speaker: like deeply excited and and and fascinated base of like even people that I know out here. And I've seen that, I mean, at least online through the reaction to work where it's like considering ah something significant. And I feel blessed in Portland, Oregon area because I've been a huge comics nerd,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: multiple comic bookhops multiple like creators and zine in independent culture so it's been a real thrill um can i tell you one thing about my collecting ah gemma of comic books yeah So I ah for years I've had my comic books and I got enthralled by the idea of like I'm ah turning 54 next month and like I was getting comic books since I was in diapers. So the idea is something like.
Speaker: In a half century, obsessive type who loves his comics for comfort, imagination, tactile enjoyment.
Speaker: How many have I acquired acquired? So I get this app where I'm taking photos of the covers and then add in a little detail of what issue I own. So I'm going issue by issue, snap by snap by snap. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think the total amount, from my estimation right now, I'm about a quarter of the way through my collection, is 6,500 individual issues. And you could say, Gemma, it's like, oh you know, yeah I've seen some people collect some. You know, I love that as a fact or like ah a material piling up. I'm fascinated by my piling up because as I go through it, I can tell you that my therapist told me it was my number one form of meditation.
Speaker: So as I'm going step by step, touching and feeling the things that are like the worlds I've had since a little kid, like it's it's it's all it's all good for me. The other piece, though, Gemma, is I got two bookshelves that are filled with, you know, properly bound and collected graphic novels. So it isn't like those 6,500 issues were enough when I had a little more resources maybe over the last 10 to 15 years to indulge in manga and and graphic novels. I'm like, i didn't replace one with the other. They just both compiled to such a a massive degree. So as I'm talking to you, you know, and in doing this interview, I think it's kind of funny because at about midnight last night, I'm over there sitting on my recliner with my happy pile of comic books. Yeah.
Speaker: So that was my experience. Well, i I wish I owned that many. um ah Alas, i I don't have the funds to ah buy everything that I want to buy.
Speaker: um But God, that sounds like, that's an amazing number to own. That's great. If the ah shipping rates rates weren't so high and these things didn't weigh a thousand pounds, i I'd certainly have them up to you. I don't know if people put them out by freight or ship, but maybe that sounds like a curious adventure that we could create related to the podcast. Let's see if the the freight sent across the seas arrives. I got to ask you one of the big conceptual questions, Gemma.
Speaker: It can be annoying, but I think it's a cool question. ah What is our... Oh,
Speaker: so it's freedom.
Speaker: um
Speaker: It's a search for and indulging in an identity. and finding yourself.
Speaker: um
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you think the role of art has changed at all? The world all feels different now?
Speaker: Sometimes when I'm talking on the show, it's like a lot of times human beings create meaning out of like you know the dangers that they're around. But politically and otherwise, and conversations I have with people, things feel different.
Speaker: And it causes me to wonder, like is this the role of art any different now than it's been? Or is it just doing its thing like it has?
Speaker: question I think it's it's more important now that people have access to the ability for self-expression um and understand art being used for protest um and art art is what you know teaches you about the soul and how to have empathy
Speaker: and
Speaker: With what's happening in the world,
Speaker: you know, there's a lot more.
Speaker: If art was a person, there's a lot more on its shoulders now. It has a bigger job to do. And it feels like there's never been less resources in the way of... Like what I was talking about, schools here do not i mean You know, there's been prime ministers we've had here in this country lately who just, they don't see the value in an art education.
Speaker: um yeah There's universities here where certain courses have just been removed and those courses are creative writing and even...
Speaker: I was going to do a comics PhD, uh, maybe about a year and a half back. And I was, there's not many universities in this country that do it. And that I was contacting the ones that did.
Speaker: And, um, the professor of a university down South, I, um, I gave her a kind of outline of what I was planning to do. And she said, Oh, this is great.
Speaker: But, we're going to have to put this on the back burner because I might not have a job in a few months and this course might not be here. um
Speaker: Yeah, the role of art.
Speaker: Yeah, it's got a lot on its back and it's probably going to be fighting to survive.
Speaker: yeah the um Yeah, the loss of, you know it was artists and and creatives and seeing the attack upon, but let's know education system in general, higher ed.
Speaker: um Yeah, i and it's also good for somebody to tell you what's going on. I remember when I was applying for, ah yeah i'm ah ah by by day, and I'm a union organizer, so um When I was applying for like programs, master's studies at the level of you know doing research, labor representation, just being smart.
Speaker: labor rep I contacted one of the programs that was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was like, yo, Ken, this is this turning over management-sided HR programs, so don't even apply. you know what I mean? I was like, yeah, it's nice for somebody to like, you know, it's it's it's sad, right? Like that wasn't happy news, but it's like where somebody just says, hey, yeah.
Speaker: prognosis not good, it doesn't mean like you shouldn't try or figure out your way, but here's what I know from where I am. And I see a lot of that. ah you so um
Speaker: I've been fascinated by those type of, I don't know if they call them sequential art, comics, and and otherwise. um Are there any programs you know ah that you're looking at or is that just kind of like under threat in your head and don't go?
Speaker: you mean am I aware of anything in this country that's kind of... Yeah, you're still interested in pursuit around that area? You see it under such direct threat where it's like, I'm not sure about that idea.
Speaker: Well, i I'm not doing the PhD anymore just because that was, I think, part of... whenever i get I do have insecurities doing the comic stuff the same as I did doing the painting, only now I kind of have the idea of, oh, I'm not good enough to do this. Yeah.
Speaker: I can't make a living at it rather. um So i'll I'll try teaching. And then I think to myself, no, you can't teach. The only thing I can possibly teach is teaching someone how to draw exactly like me.
Speaker: and no What are they going to do with that? If you could pull that as a fan, if you could pull that off. I know. I know how as a fan, if you could pull that off. But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's. Then I tell myself off and say, are you doing? Don't ruin anyone else's life. um So I do have, because this country, I think, has a very funny thing. ah It's probably just me that thinks like this.
Speaker: But. Unlike America, where sequential art is like a proper art form and it's respected and taken seriously, this country, I think, in order to give legitimacy to something, they've got to put it in the world of academia.
Speaker: And then it will legitimize it and then you can like it and study it and all that stuff. Yeah, I see. Again, I think that's like a class thing and stuff.
Speaker: um
Speaker: Yeah, like in order for it to be taken seriously, it it needs to have like university departments behind it and things. And that's not the case at all.
Speaker: All right, Gemma, I got the titular question of the of of the show, Something Rather Than Nothing podcast here. um Why is there something rather than nothing?
Speaker: Because there's always a residue or a byproduct that branches off into different things.
Speaker: Hmm. and with comics or sequential art, it'll branch off into different modes of storytelling
Speaker: or inspiration.
Speaker: Thank you, Gemma. What ah comic books you freak out on? What are your favorites? Tell me. Tell me somewhere your brain's dropped in and this is it, this is me.
Speaker: I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I can tell you that I've just bought Katie Scali's new book, Heaven, and I'm about halfway through that, and I'm really ad enjoying it. Yeah, um yeah. um
Speaker: It's the thing where, you know, I'm one of these people, I make lists of things, things I like, things I want to see, films I need to buy and stuff like that, and then I get asked,
Speaker: what was a favorite thing? My mind just goes blank.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's one of those questions. And like, and for me, it's like, I've been doing this show for seven years and that's just like, cause even I get flummoxed when somebody asked me, but like, there's such a, it's like almost like an overriding curiosity that like, I don't know, pushes my, my pushes my mind in. And, uh, um,
Speaker: One thing I really want to make sure of is that if you could let the listeners know, let everybody know how to encounter your art that I've expressed, it's really moving. just adore it. It just...
Speaker: um just ado it and it it it just It just lights up my brain and it's it's a great feeling. That's me.
Speaker: um But for others who are interested, um where can folks find find your art and what you would like you know to to present?
Speaker: um I have a big cartel shop, J Webster shop, and you can get issues one to four of my single person anthology called Fondant from there. um I'm doing a couple of reprints of things that I haven't had in print for a while.
Speaker: um they should be on the website around October in time for a big comic con here called Thought Bubble that's in November. Oh, yeah. One's called Jade and Her Schizophrenia, which is um my sister's story.
Speaker: um She got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in February 2013, so she wrote down what happened to her because she went missing. She went to... the Ecuadorian embassy in London to go be with Julian Assange. um So she wrote that and I drew it.
Speaker: um And another one,
Speaker: not that I've forgotten the name of my comic, it's about a guy who partially survived a nuclear reactor incident back in the late 90s, early two thousand No way. And I can't. um It was only a little one. It's only little a little A5 that I did, but that's not been in print for a while.
Speaker: ah quite like that one. I should have printed that before. So those will be coming on the web website, well, the Big Cartel shop in October. um But my fondants are all on Big Cartel right now.
Speaker: And you can get um the scrapbook of life and death from any good a comic shop or bookshop.
Speaker: Absolutely beautiful, beautiful ah beautiful volume. Thank you.
Speaker: that there's There's something core of of your work, and like I was talking about in um in in collecting and seeing how things are compiled and that that really connected.
Speaker: ah with my experience and just like the curiosity around the bizarre and finding like a space for that. i think you open up a lot of space for people to kind of like look and see and um it really helps particular minds kind of um ah ah see the story, see the the big story that's there. So I just wanted to thank you for everything you do, Gemma. And also, like I said, it it is truly an honor for me to have you on on on this show. And
Speaker: just so you know sometimes like as an artist it's like hey what's going on who's out there i bump into a conspicuous amount of people who know your work own your work and i know it's portland oregon but still that's a long way from where you are so just so you know that's great to hear and people have been so nice about some of the things i've drawn i feel very lucky in that i've not really had I've not had any complaints.
Speaker: Someone who had my work in their anthology had a complaint, so I've only had one. um But i'm I'm so glad people like the work and it makes me feel like I'm going in the right direction of things. and um Yeah.
Speaker: I got one more question that's stuck in my head, and it's a little out of sequence, but it's a quick one. You mentioned Thought Bubble. I go to the comic shops here. I don't know that much about it, but I get the results of it. um Publisher ah publishes kind of like like the best of out there. So we get it out here in the U.S. i don't know how far thereafter. So I know it's a big thing, but I don't know that much about it except by the kind of...
Speaker: the larger comic that pops out. um what what is what's What's Thought let's stop Bubble? Thought Bubble is um it's the biggest comic con in the north of England, and it's ah in a spa town in North Yorkshire called Harrogate, and it happens at this big conference center. and there's There must be a about close to a thousand people tables it must be 800 to a thousand it must be and it's for a weekend mid-November every November and prior to that there's a week of um exhibitions and activities and things in the lead up and it has some panels and talks and workshops and guests and
Speaker: um And I've been lucky enough to have a table there again this year, which is great. ah It's only about an hour, 20 minutes away from me. so So that's really good as well. um Yeah, it's great.
Speaker: it's great
Speaker: That's wonderful to hear. ah We got in my, my area with the Rose city comic convention in Portland and a beautiful, very large one that I went to once that I really enjoyed the Emerald city comic con in the big, beautiful city of Seattle, Washington, about three hours North from where I am. So um thank you for indulging me on that. You know, I love my cons and, and kind of taking us there and it was great to hear that.
Speaker: that that you had a spot there. So um everybody, jwebstersharp, find on Instagram, Gemma, it's been a great pleasure. I would say that ah this is a humble offering from this independent podcast in the strange state of Oregon to a hungry...
Speaker: hungry crowd for what you have to say and some your thoughts about art. So again, thanks and just really great connecting with you ah over there. Keep, keep, keep digging in because ah a lot of us fans out here are really enjoying your explorations.
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm not very fluent verbally. I don't talk to many people on a day-to-day basis. And sometimes I hear myself speak and I think, oh no, you sound like that.
Speaker: um and and yeah thoughts in my brain don't come out the way they're supposed to sometimes but thank you so much for being patient with me um um look look I'm in a position of of of being enthralled and so you know this is how we record it so it's it's a perfect episode and um everybody check out check out the work whether you look at it online but ah think about getting in in in in that printed form check out that big the cartel and Gemma, thank you so much and um thank you for your art.
Speaker: Thank you. You're welcome.
Speaker: This is something rather than nothing.
