Gerry Coles: Perseverance in Printmaking

Printing with linocuts after a not-very promising start.
Oxfordshire-based printmaker Gerry Coles didn't have the best start to her linocut experience, but with perseverance, she discovered an art form she was passionate about, and good at!
Discover how Gerry, a creative youngster, trod a different path after school, but discovered the artistic practice she now loves on a visit to Bath.

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Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

You can find out more about my guests' printmaking workshops on the Creativity Found website. Simply visit creativityfound dot co dot uk slash jerryclose. Plus there's a handy link in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

It's just a magical hearth and I love it. Absolutely love it. So after that, there was no stopping it. I shall throw this in. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is a long-term dream of mine.

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

Hi, I'm Claire, founder of Open Stage Arts Drama and Singing classes for adults. Lots of the adults who come to our classes and online events are looking for a creativity that has been put on the black burner during their sensible grown-up years. I have found this to be true among other creatives too. So I've decided to find out more about the painters, photographers, writers, printmakers, actors, crafters, teachers and more who have found or refound their creativity later in life. In this episode, I meet Jerry Coles, an Oxfordshire-based Lino Cup printmaker. I chatted with Jerry in her conservatory studio, surrounded by her sketches, gouges, inks, plates, rollers, and prints hanging up to dry. Let's discover how Jerry Coles found her creativity. Hi Jerry. Hello, Hello Claire. Hi. Hi. So your newfound art form is printmaking. It is, yes. Can you tell me briefly what it is you do and how you currently channel your creativity?

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

Okay, so I am a printmaker and my speciality is lino cut. It's something I've found in the last four or five years. Never did it at school. Lots of people tell me now they had a dabble at school, but I didn't. And the lino cuts I make are floral, usually, flowers, animals, trees, birds, that sort of thing. Very nature-based and very colourful. I use water-based inks, but they're big block bold colours. And I have fallen in love with the process of making. I love the fact that when I make a print, I can make several, so I have ones that I can then sell if I wish to or give away. Absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:59

Fabulous. So as you've just mentioned, you discovered this as an adult, so we'll talk more about that later. Were you Arty as a child?

SPEAKER_00: 3:09

Yes, yeah, I was. I I always liked drawing, painting, main mainly drawing. I was always with a pencil in my hand, sketching bits and pieces. Just really enjoyed it. And I guess the sort of the practice of doing it a lot made me better. I I you know, I was I was sort of notably one of those kids who was reasonably good at drawing. And I think I remember my dad coming home from work, he works in an office, um, with a big box of computer paper once the sort of when when computer paper was a thing with the holes punched down the side and it was all perforated and joined up, and you know you fed it into the computer. Well, there's a big box of it, so this you know, heavy box. Um and although it wasn't very good quality paper, it was quite thin, I it was just reams and reams of this paper. So I I I could draw to my heart's content, and if it didn't go well, I could throw it away and have another go. And another go. So I I I just I had the opportunity to draw as much as I like, and I and I and I did, I took that opportunity. Um and then going forward, I did art O level, and because I'm old enough to be somebody who did O-levels, and I did art A-level, um, and I you know I was good at it and I enjoyed it, but it it just wasn't something that was presented to me as something that was a career. I never I probably put it in the category of hobby type things. I mean I did go to university and I I'm trying to remember whether I actually considered doing art or not. And I I don't I don't think I really did. And I don't think I don't think it's the school's fault for not sort of pushing art at all. I just think I don't think the school pushed anything in particular. I don't I don't remember the career service being fabulous at that time. I just I just think I didn't know anyone who was an artist, and I certainly didn't know anyone who was a successful working paying the bills artist. So I think if you don't ever see if you don't ever see someone doing something, you don't really consider it as a thing. I mean, I guess I mean obviously the art teachers were working in the art area, but I I didn't really want to be a teacher to secondary school children. I can't do anything worse. So uh so you know I just I it was never really a a consideration of of going into art at that stage in my life.

SPEAKER_01: 5:41

No.

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

No.

SPEAKER_01: 5:43

You carried on and went into a career doing something else, sciencey, I think, weren't you?

SPEAKER_00: 5:48

Yeah, I was well I I I went into environmental health. I so I did a sort of sciencey degree, I did biology and food science, uh, trained in environmental health, did that for a few years, um, then um met my husband, we had children, and at that point sort of made the decision to come out of that for various sort of lifestyle reasons. We we needed um my husband had a building company, I needed someone to do the books and the admin, and it was a stay-at-home job, so that suited me. I could do that and then look after the children, meant I didn't have to then be out of the house, so it absolutely suited us down to the ground, which is what I then did. Um, and uh various other things along the way. We we've got a small holding and we still have them, and we uh I was looking after sheep and and pigs and chickens and various things, we all of which kept me very busy and were good, but none of which were to do with art at all.

SPEAKER_01: 6:50

But I understand that the creative juices were still bubbling under the surface at that time.

SPEAKER_00: 6:56

Oh gosh, yeah. I mean I I've always if people ask me, I would say, oh I I love art, I love it, I do whenever I can. And I mean I have I've dabbled in things over the years. I I I very much like fabrics and sewing. I enjoyed, I've done patchwork, um, you know, various fabric crafts. Um and also, so when my children started school, uh I used to love going in and bringing a bag of materials or bringing a glitter and my cardboard and doing various things with them. And I used to be be sort of like known as the go-to lady for coming in and helping make stuff and things, and uh, there was a couple of different incidents happened while I was um my children were at school. The first one was they had a pop-up art show. As as all the artworks were hung, and I was sort of looking round it. It sort of dawned on me that there was some very, very good work and there was some less good work, but it just dawned on me that these were ordinary people coming in, you know, people like me that were just doing art but still doing it, that not not just talking about it or doing stuff with the kids and the Pritsticks and the glitter, they're actually doing it and bringing it in. And I was actually I felt quite cross because I thought, well you used to do that, Jerry. What you know, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you why aren't you still doing it? You know, why are you fiddling around with the Pritsticks? You know, it just anyway, so that that was the thing. And I do remember actually being quite cross with myself that I I sort of let this go. Yeah. And the other thing was, um, and that's completely separately. Uh you know, I was coming in and was doing cards and Christmas bits and pieces with the children, and one of the TAs said to me, Um, Oh, I bet you do some lovely stuff at home, don't you, Jerry, when you're not messing about with the children. And I sort of thought, no, I don't, you know, and it it that really dawned on me that I I'd just I'd just stopped. I I don't really do anything for myself that I would call proper art inverted commas. Yeah. And I just think there's those kind of things started to maybe turn the wheels in my mind that, you know, kick up the backside, come on, you used to really enjoy this. Yeah. That sort of was the was the feeling.

SPEAKER_01: 9:14

Presumably that was a bit of an impetus for change. I don't know if the change happened right there. Um, but what generally did change to allow you to allow yourself to start producing, do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 9:31

Yeah, I I think you're right. It didn't, it didn't change straight away. Um, and I I certainly wasn't consciously looking for alright, okay. I need to find something I can I need to find an art form because um I don't think things will work like that, do they? Um so what changed? So so my children got older, they needed less input. Um I I was sort of approaching 50. Um, probably like lots of people thinking I I need to perhaps do something that's a bit more for me, you know, that kind of you know, not stop helping everybody else because you know my family still do come first, but maybe you need to just think I need to I need to put something back to me. Anyway, yes, so so it didn't happen overnight, so I had probably a little bit more time on my hands. There was little my children were more self-sufficient, they were doing their own things, needing less input from me, and it this probably just about coincided with my visit to um to Bath and we visited the Victoria Gallery and they had an exhibition on of printmaking, and it was I didn't know it at the time. I I I mean I I do line note cut now, but I it was actually wood cuts, but um it's still the same relief kind of relief printing, so it's it's a very similar form. And anyway, so I walked around this exhibition um and I was absolutely blown away by these woodcuts. Um just and now I just oh look at that, look at this. Yeah, look at you know, it was something like oh, it was it was amazing. Yeah, it really was a kind of light bulb moment, and you don't have that very many times in life, do you? It was kind of like I love this, I love this. Um which then quickly sort of moved on to I want to try this, amazing, you know, because I thought, well, I you know, I am Archie, I I can probably have a go and do this, I probably can. So, yeah, so I thought, well, I'll I'll have a go. Ordered a Lino cut kit off Amazon because I thought uh you need more equipment for woodcut, woodcut slightly more involved, you know, lino you can buy very, very cheaply, very easily. Thought, well, I'll make a start, I'll do that, and see see how I get on. So I got this uh 20 quid kit from Amazon, had a go, I had a little small piece, about sort of uh oh dear, about the size of a tissue box, that sort of size. Yeah, um, had a go, and I was really crap. So I thought, okay, okay, okay, sorry it's wrong, it's not for me. So, anyway, so well just thought, okay, well I've had a little go, never mind, I mean 20 quid down the drain, that's not a problem, put it away. Um, and I think it was about another year on for um various not very exciting reasons. I got it out again, and I thought, oh do you know, I'll have another go because maybe I didn't quite give it the proper go the first time. And this time I thought, well, I do know what I'll do, I'll I'll copy the design that comes on the pack because it sort of shows you what to do. I'll I'll copy that rather than trying to do my own thing, I'll I'll copy what it says. So I'd I sort of did, I used the the little gouges and the lino and and and did what it said to do, and I kind of it fell into place in my head. I thought, okay, oh I get it, oh right, okay, because I've I've been I've been do I've been treating the the gouges like a pencil and trying to draw outlines and it it just and I it hadn't for some reason it hadn't occurred to me that wasn't quite the way you approached it. Yeah, you need to sort of carve in light and and dark, you need to carve away and it but this time so following following a good example it I sort of oh okay I see I see it okay yep got it oh brilliant right but so after that there was no stopping me I I just I just kept going. I think I made Christmas cards for everyone that year with with Lino. Yeah and everybody said oh this is a different doing Lino now yeah so you know so it was it was good it was very good um and it started to just work a bit bigger and do a bit more and a bit more and then of course you know you suddenly realize that the tools you're working with are not very exciting and you need to just upgrade a bit you know and and you people gradually buy a bit more yeah interesting inks and and it's it's it's very it's a very easy hobby to get into because you can start very basic but actually you know to you do need a bit of the good kit helps, yeah. It's like anything you know the the sort of the the better quality kit does help you on your way. So yeah, and it was very good.

SPEAKER_01: 14:30

So with kit in mind, tell me a bit more about your process of working and how you've kind of developed that or honed your craft over the last not very many years.

SPEAKER_00: 14:43

Not very many years, no. Okay, so well okay, the tools are the main thing that allow you to um to carve better, really, really good, sharp tools. Um allow you to uh you know make very decisive lines. There's and then the other side of that is is the lino. I mean I I've I've started off in in the pack that I got for 20 quid was some sort of horrible, um very rubbery um soft cut lino, and it it's uh rubbery, you you can cut in and and you get a sort of a tail left, and you've got to sort of then clean clean off. So I've said I've since then moved on to Japanese vinyl, which is what I nearly always use at the moment. So that's not the traditional people think about lino, there's a grey lino with a Hessian backing, it's it's not that that I traditionally use. Um I use the Japanese vinyl, which I find um is a good, a really good texture. It's slightly slippery on the top, but it it it carves nicely and it holds it holds the image very well. So so that that sort of thing, you know, the find finding, working through, finding the um the liner that worked best for me was important, you know, the good tools, and also um upgrading from um the ink that I initially used to a finer quality, runnier ink that's um the one I've stuck with all the way along. I mean I'm I'm very happy with the ink that I use. I have it's a water-based ink, but I have dabbled in oil-based, but I'm I'm not a huge fan of the oil-based. I I just I prefer to go back to my my water-based. Yeah. But I also it the other thing I've needed to do is to look at how I um I treat subjects for lino cut because the type of lino I do, um I try to pare down an image so that it's sort of in a in more a basic form so that it's not like in a if you're doing a painting, you'd try and maybe include all the tones. If you're doing a sort of a brown butterfly, you'd include all the sort of sort of maybe 17 different browns to to do the different tones, and you you you sort of grade them. In Lino Kart, the way I work, I try and see how few colours I can actually do something in with it still being rendered and recognizable as what it is. Wow. So I'm always thinking, how how can I pare that down? How can I use fewer colours? Um it it sounds a bit strange, but it I I it's it's the way I I like to work to really kind of narrow it down.

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

Each colour is a different layer, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:38

Yeah. So I mean some people don't. Some people uh do very, very painterly lino cuts. Um there's um a lady who taught me the the method that I use called Alexandra Buckle. She um her very recent work is is very painterly, and she can she she does um you know beautiful grades of colour and and that then it it it's you would have a job to tell it wasn't a painting, uh lionel cuts. Um I'm sort of veering in slightly the other direction. I I just want I I really like lionel cuts that look like lionel cuts. Sure. I like to see some of the working lines that are sort of very characteristic of the line cut. Um and I I just like I like them to look sort of blocky, big areas of colour. Um yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm I it's very hard I don't I'm very good at talking about well that's because you do it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:38

Yeah, I don't I don't verbalise it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

No, that's good. But uh yeah, that's how I try and work.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

Yeah. With the red kites screeching overhead and just before the rain came down, I asked Jerry where she got her inspiration.

SPEAKER_00: 18:56

I start with photographs. Um I I'm out and about, I live right in the countryside, I'm out and about all the time with the dogs. Um I I've nearly always got my phone which has the camera on it, with me. Um, so I'm always looking for shapes, uh, light shadows. I love plants, I love plants, I love gardening, I love flowers particularly, um, natural forms, seed heads, you know, you name it. I I love anything that's natural. So then I've got this sort of stream of photos on my phone. Um and I'll I'll have I'll have a thing, you know. I mean and I do I work quite closely with the seasons, so if if you know we're autumn now, so I'll I will be trying to think, oh you know, autumn print would be lovely. I mean, the one the print I've just done um is some autumn seed heads. Um so you know I think it's it's quite nice to work closely with with the season because then if you're sort of putting stuff up on Instagram, people don't really. want to see snow drops in the do you know which is what I've just done but but I'll I'll gloss over that one anyway so yeah it's quite nice to be to be seasonal so so once I've got all these photos on my phone um then I it it's it's then it's coming up with a composition so that that is hard I have I do I I don't struggle with it but I f I find you've got to work to get a good composition because it's quite easy to sort of just think oh I'll do a poppy seed head in the middle of the picture that's it and a black background great but that's not hugely interesting so you you've got to work to make make sure you've got you know maybe three seed heads and are they are they lined up are they um asymmetrical and then what what's going to be in the foreground is it going to be semi um realistic in like a hedgerow setting or are you just going to focus on so all those sort of things you've got to you've got to come up with an answer for um so I'm not I'm not sort of somebody who just takes a picture of a setting and thinks right I'll paint everything that is in that photograph I'm I'm making my own composition all the time. Yeah and it it is it's quite it's it's challenging and also I am somebody that wants to rush that stage because I don't I don't enjoy the composition stage. I need to enjoy it more because it is makes the whole thing work if it's good. So I need to I do need to start so I will just I will just get out of the pencils I draw I know what size print I'm gonna make usually or I know what things so I I've got the size the piece of line now I usually draw around it in pencil on my bit of rough paper and I'm thinking right that's my composition that I need to fill in that rectangle and I draw it right out to the right size and I keep on drawing and rubbing out drawing and rubbing out adding bits in until I'm happy with that composition then I will trace it back because then it has to be um flipped for to go on the line it doesn't you don't always have to I mean I because nobody's gonna say oh that poppy seed head is the wrong way round because clearly it doesn't make a difference. Yeah but if it was writing it would you know it would make a difference or if it was a familiar landmark it would probably make a difference so so you know it in with most of my work it really wouldn't matter whether it was flipped backwards or not. But uh it's something to bear in mind yeah so yeah so transfer it onto the lino and then um I'm ready to start the exciting bit which is the carving.

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

Because obviously you have to have that drawing because you can't rub out when you're carving the lino can you so that you've got to be definite.

SPEAKER_00: 22:51

It is an unforgiving process you you there isn't there's no uh it's not for wimps lino cutting there's no there's no going back no so you I mean it it comes in practice the sort of the um holding the tools and being careful with the tools um you know not letting them slip away from you that's that's uh you know but sometimes it can happen and sometimes it still does sometimes I cut out a bit and I think oh flip yeah you know um but usually you can creatively disguise it or um turn it into a something else yeah you can you can usually there are ways round it um you know it's it's not it's nothing's nothing's and at the end of the day it's only it's only lino it's not yeah you know it nothing's nothing's irreplaceable so you you you you can usually work round stuff I mean I'm I'm I will I will normally make one or two errors and usually if if I take you back through all my lino cuts I've ever made I can I can point out all the mistakes in all of them yeah but most people wouldn't notice them because they're not looking for them. Yeah you know so and I and I don't point them out. No I do not which is not something I do because why would I?

SPEAKER_01: 24:08

You started exhibiting and selling work and have been invited to join the Oxford Art Society.

SPEAKER_00: 24:15

Yeah um all of which must have boosted your confidence yeah it did well the the the huge joy with printmaking is that you make more than one thing so you you know you have your liner cup plate and you may have 10 copies of something you may have a hundred I mean I I don't I don't I don't work like that. I usually make editions of probably 10 15 so you've got these 10 15 copies to to sell to give away to do what to prop the table up with to do whatever you like with so I I very quickly thought oh I I could enter little local art shows so what I did was I I googled all the local town names and put art after them so I did Watlington art tame art and loads of results came up and and you most people will find that most towns have an art show those bigger towns you know even if it's something a little pop-up show in a school like I was talking about and most of them don't have a selection process so you just self-select and if you think your work is good enough you you go along. Yeah and I remember the the first one of the first ones I did I had my work framed and everything looks nice in its framed and turned up and it is my my stuff's about sort of A4 size you can imagine me turning up with these couple of things in the back of my car and saw these big beardy blokes coming in with enormous oil paintings and I suddenly thought oh what what am I thinking what were you thinking Jerry you stupid women you know these beautiful green oil paintings and I miss me here's my little tiny Lido cut you know but it hung and I sold something and I just thought you know it it's a validation of what I do people some people are prepared to pay money for what I do um and at that point it wasn't it wasn't a huge amount of course it wasn't but it it was a lovely validation that somebody liked what I did and was prepared to put their hand in the pocket and I I've since learned not to be intimidated by the beardy blokes with their huge oil paintings because because you just think well there's something out in art there's something for everyone you know that huge fantastic oil painting won't appeal to everyone. Yeah my lino cuts won't appeal to everyone but you know there's room for us all you know so yeah and it we did feel a bit like imposter syndrome like who who am I to be bringing my who am I to be thinking I can sell art you know you silly woman you know you and your little scratchy lion cuts but uh you know as I said there's room for everyone so that was so I've been doing those I've been doing local shows quite often I google the Oxford art and I came across the Oxford Art Society if you have pictures that are accepted for two consecutive of their shows you may be invited to join and I was invited to join which was a huge huge amazing thing it was wonderful um you know very very flattering and uh and so I'm a member now and of course it's sort of stupid COVID situation we we've everything's been not very good at the moment but uh but you know ongoing there will be shows and there will be exhibitions and it and it's all very good yes.

SPEAKER_01: 27:39

Speaking of ongoing what are your plans for the future near or far?

SPEAKER_00: 27:45

The Oxford Art Society I've just heard their autumn exhibition is going to be online so I'm just waiting to hear details of how that will um actually materialise like a lot of things things are going online. Next spring I'm hoping fingers crossed to be taking part again in Oxfordshire Art Weeks which is Oxfordshire's big um big arts festival um I've done it for three years now two years with a group at Chowgrove which was lovely which is exhibition exhibiting with a group there was pottery woodwork all sorts of sorts of things it was lovely but this year next year so 2021 I am hoping to do a solo exhibition for Art Weeks which will be very exciting because it's sort of the first time I've felt I've got enough of a body of work to be exhibiting by myself hopefully at home here we'll see how that pans out I'm I you know who knows where we're going to be in May next year. Absolutely everything's uncertain isn't it unfortunately yeah but that's that's one of the hopes and of course um I shall throw this in it the um the Royal Academy summer exhibition is a long term dream of mine. My um the lady who taught me art art the taught me the the lino cut that I do Alexandra Buckle she has um exhibited at the Royal Academy on more than one occasion um she managed to get one of her very first lino cuts in that she ever did in which of course gave me huge hope for my small offerings and I've entered several times and never been lucky um but it's one of those things that I think is on my to-do list that one day I will get something in the summer exhibition it's an it's it's one of the world's biggest open exhibitions anyone can enter for a fee um and you know you you get selected and then you go and hang but I've I've I've had one um one of my liner cuts got through the initial selection it was very exciting um that was last year um but this year nothing so we'll see we'll see that's that's sort of a that would be a good brilliant thing to put on the CV wouldn't it I could I could I could retire happy if that happens we'll see anyway I shan't have my breath there are many many podcasts out there it's difficult to know where to start so for each episode I ask my guests for their recommendations. You're welcome one of my favourite podcasts is the fortunately podcast which is um Fee Glover and Jane Garvey um two middle aged women wittering I think they would describe as wittering on about life they interview people every week out on a Friday that's just very very um very entertaining very um very light very humorous so that's fortunately and the other um I like a bit of true crime another another podcast I like is the missing crypto queen um which is all about cryptocurrency and um intrigue and it's it sounds like oh I don't think that's my sort of thing but it's brilliant I would really ask you to have a listen to the missing crypto queen on BBC Sounds okay it's really interesting fascinating. Oh brilliant that's brilliant good one oh thank you Jerry it's been really really lovely to hear everything and to talk to you uh hear about you and your newfound creative outlet so how can other people find you and find your work the best place is probably my website uh www.gerrykolesprints jerrykoles prints that's a jerry with a g and a y uh dot co.uk so from there you'll be able to see all the other links to my stuff I have a I have an Etsy shop which is also Jerry Coles Prince on Instagram and Facebook but if you go to my website that'll give you all the links to everything else. Oh brilliant Jerry thank you so much it's been lovely to uh visit your studio and chat and it's been lovely to chat with you and it's been nice to it's nice to tell somebody all about all about what I do.

SPEAKER_01: 32:16

Brilliant thank you ever so much thanks so much for listening to CreativityFound. If your podcast app has the facility please leave a rating and review to help other people find us. On Instagram and Facebook follow at CreativityFound Podcast and on Pinterest look for creativityfound and finally don't forget to check out creativityfound.co.uk the website connecting adults who want to find a creative outlet with the artists and crafters who can help them tap into their creativity