Crack

Do you remember how you spent your school days? Perhaps it was learning supposedly essential nuggets of information such as simultaneous equations and assorted numbers from the periodic table?

Nah, me neither - I spent most of my time scribbling on my exercise books and daydreaming about being the next cheerleading co-host of Fun House. Like the rest of my classmates, the doodles and daydreams eventually faded away, but for illustrator Diggy, these distractions have become central to her work. From suicidal pandas to pensive, androgynous figures, elements of the subconscious trickle into her fast paced, linear drawings.

Currently based in South Devon, Diggy has dabbled with fine art, graphic design and creating her own clothing company. This most recent endeavour led to an internship with Gloucester Road’s art and apparel emporium Avalaan, which then turned into a solo exhibition of her illustrations throughout May. Fluid lines become fluid collaborations and seemingly, without force “it just happens”, which ties up Diggy’s style in a nice neat bow.

Once she puts pen, pencil or charcoal to paper the possibilities, as they say, are endless.

On the eve of her solo show for Avalaan, Diggy sat down with Crack for a chat and a beverage, revealing all about her recent artistic collaborations, ‘selfish’ drawing process and her animal alter ego…

Forgive me but I’ve got to get this question out the way… the name Diggy, is quite unique…

I knew that was coming! (laughing) It isn’t on my birth certificate, but it is my name. The story was, my Dad was really into the blues and when I was really tiny, like a baby, he got this idea into his head that I was gonna grow up to be a blues singer called Diggy Malone. The Diggy part stuck

So at the moment are your blues singer plans on hold?

Erm, yes - I can play the blues but I can’t sing it!

Is your Dad a little bit disappointed at your chosen career path?

I think he might be, I don’t know. But if I carry on doing what I’m doing then I don’t think he’ll mind.

So singing aside, have you always had an artistic streak?

I left school at 16 and did a diploma in Graphic Design, but then I suddenly started drawing and really got into it. Not in a GCSE kind of way, but where you have to copy something and get it picture perfect. I’m sure one day I just randomly drew something really strange, it was a doodle I guess, and now that’s how I draw. At the time it was really different and I thought, ‘yeah, I like this’ and I carried on. The key was I didn’t think about what I was drawing, I didn’t have a pre-conceived thought in my head and that’s when I've had the best results. It’s like I learnt how to be free with my drawing in a way, like I didn’t try to draw stuff. I think the key is not to think about what you’re going to draw and not to want to draw something. Do you know what I mean? You don’t set out to draw a really good hamster, you just draw something and it becomes a hamster, or you use a mark on the page and it surprises you. That’s what is nice about drawing like that, you don’t know what you’re going to draw next. That’s what keeps me going.

Living and studying in Cornwall and Devon, you must have been fairly influenced by the great outdoors. What inspires you?

Yeah, it was nice. I’m a bit strange with inspiration though. I’m quite inward as an artist. There’s not a lot of stuff I really like, which I know is really bad! I get my inspiration from myself. I know that’s really inward, but I look at what’s around me. It’s more subconscious and that’s why I like it, because I don’t know it.

The way you draw, to me, is very fluid and elusive. There are so many characters like foxes in party hats and androgynous portraiture. Are these characters coming from your imagination, or do you start with a still life model or photograph?

I don’t really start with anything other than what I’ve thought about. Lets say I’ve met you today, and maybe tomorrow, without realising it, I’ll draw something from your face, or something that I’ve grasped of you as a person. Some people look at my work and say ‘that looks like so-andso’, but its not, it’s just a collection of an idea of someone. I try to capture, without really knowing that I am, someone’s mannerisms. It’s like the sixth sense, the feeling you get when you meet someone. I’m not trying to draw anybody, I’m just letting out what I see. I guess I’m just showing what I see in people and a lot of my work is about the creatures in everybody.

So are your drawings of bears, foxes and pigs portraits of people you know or have thought about?

I always look at people as being animals in their own little way. Different people have little features, not necessarily in their face or how they look, but how they are in general. Have you ever seen The Golden Compass? It’s like that, where everyone has an animal inside him or her, though this was something I did before I saw the film. I try to find humans in animals and find animals in humans. It’s a very human thing I think, when someone loves their dog like it’s their child. If I owned a dog I think I would treat it like a child, or a friend.

Do you have an animal persona for yourself?

Everyone says I look like a chipmunk, but I feel like a hamster. I like to make little nests… I’d either be a hamster or a squirrel.

Your imagination feeds your work but the initial ideas come from your subconscious, do you find it easy to categorise your thoughts and your position as an artist?

I wish it was as simple as that, but it isn’t. I’m quite bad about talking about my work, as I don’t really understand it myself. It’s hard because people want answers, want to know things and to like it. I think if someone can connect with an artist and their ideas, then they can like their art. In the same way when you look at something, you know if you like it or if you don’t, but then if you know what it’s about you can like it more. With a lot of my work I don’t know what it’s about. I think people should just chill out with the whole, ‘what does it mean?’ thing. I think that really started to happen when the modern art movement came in and now it’s all about ‘what is this about’, with artists trying to be clever. But I’m not trying to be clever. I’m not really clever and I wouldn’t want to try, especially with my art!

Moving back to your introspective nature and your desire to work from your subconscious, how do you initiate the drawing process?

Well white paper is awful so I usually find something that has some kind of mark on it. I feel like I need to do it now to understand it (at this point Crack hands over a reporters notepad and trusty black biro). I start out with a squiggle or something, and that something becomes a something else. I guess I do a lot of portraits and a line or a squiggle is where I get my inspiration from; it gets me going. I start to think, ‘if I draw this line then this could happen’ and go from there. Its like you start something that you don’t even mean to do.

That’s an interesting way of working, in that you have no set boundaries or limits.

Well the limit is my style and the limit is my subconscious. My imagination is my imagination. I don’t imagine in the same way as other people, so the only limit is myself. Sometimes I’ll just get massive urges to draw and that's usually when something nice has happened. There is one piece that came about when I was on my own in my house. I had a drink in the middle of the day, which I never normally do, and I was in this massive mood. I had all this energy and felt like I had to draw. I had nothing in the house to draw with, so I scrambled round and found this old bit of display board from the shop downstairs. I just grabbed it, got some charcoal and did this scribble. I really love it now. At first I just scribbled it out and now when I look at it it's probably my best piece of art – I would never sell or get rid of it.

You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would be precious about your selling your art.

No, I’ve never felt like that because I just do it at the time and that’s my time with it and then what other people do with it or get from it is their own. But at that time it’s just for myself. I’m very selfish and inward in the way that I draw for myself and if people like it then that’s great, but for the moment it is just me trying to get out what I need to express, whatever that is. I’m not trying, it’s just my release in a silly way, I just do it and I feel good.

Do you feel a bit like a fraud because you’re sketching and you can’t necessarily explain where your ideas are coming from, but when you put them down on paper, five or ten minutes later it looks fantastic and you can sell it on. Do you feel like an artist?

I don’t actually. I feel like I should have a real meaning behind my work like other people do and that’s why for the last year I hadn’t done an exhibition, because I didn’t understand why I was trying to sell my work. Why would I want to sell something I just do in the evening? I didn’t understand that and that’s actually what spoils it for me – trying to sell my work. Now working with Avalaan is a fair exchange – I did stuff for them now they’re promoting me. It’s a really nice exchange and that’s what I like. I don’t really want to make money from selling things that I’ve done as a hobby. A lot of the time I don’t even put a price on my work, not because I don’t want to sell a piece because I like it, but because I don’t understand why people would like it.

Do you think you’ll ever have a eureka moment where you have a greater understanding of what you’re doing, do you want one?

I don’t really want that, no. I don’t really like the art world. I did find it really hard when I first started out as I was really trying to sell my work too much and it spoilt it for me. Being in the art world and meeting people I didn’t like and trying to be a stupid artist, I hate that word. I tried to be ‘an artist’ and it spoilt it.

So you prefer just being Diggy?

I prefer doing what I do, having fun and doing things for people and they do things for me. I like that exchange, you know. If it becomes a business then its not fun. I’m not doing what I do to make money. I’m actually happier when I’m trying to make money . I’m not poor but I try and I like the fact that you have to work really fucking hard. I like that hard life and I love what I do. I get inspired to do things because I get upset as I find it hard living and that’s what gives me inspiration, from the bad times and the good times – if I had it easily I probably wouldn’t draw.

Words: Sarah Pusey

http://www.diggysmerdon.com

- - - - - - - - - -