For those of you who did not know, each year St Margaret’s House offers two studios to recent graduates of Gray’s School and the Edinburgh College of Art. Now in its second year, the Bursary Programme has been a great success. This year’s crop of student-artists have been surely and steadily developing their practices since they moved in last November.
Illustrator Seamus Killick is one of the three beneficiaries and shares his studio with fellow eca graduate Marissa Stoffer. He is also first to be subjected to a rousing round of questioning by the Arts Team, intended to introduce them properly to the building and wider art community.
Seamus’ answers are surprising, thoughtful and very, very funny! Enjoy them below:
AT: Hello Seamus, are you well today?
SK: Slowly coming out of a cold, but other than that my health is excellent.
You’ve just taken a bursary studio on the fourth floor with Marissa. What’s the space like?
I like the space as I can use it how I like and work how I like which usually involves some spillage. You can’t do that everywhere. I can also wipe on things, bang nails and generally get mucky. It is also a handy place to store items I like. I also enjoy the shape of it, which is cuboid. The size is perfect. If it were any bigger I’d feel quite small. The stuff I am making is benefitting from all these aspects. Marissa is also a great factor.
Where are you from?
Cardiff
Describe your practice in three words only.
Zig zag wanderer.
Do you find yourself thinking about your work all day long?
Generally, yes. But I don’t find it very helpful. When I have ideas I can never be bothered to draw/write them down, so when I get to my desk I have to think of fresh ones. This is better because the stuff I’m doing at the moment relies on quite a spontaneous thought process. I think better on the spot.
Describe your journey to the studio from home.
I get on my Viking bike and cycle through Holyrood Park. I enjoy this part because I can marvel at the surrounding nature and I’m cycling downhill with the wind so I can pick up some excellent speed. I can soundtrack my mood appropriately with some music; funk, rock n roll what have you. Then I arrive at the building and feel slightly Kafkaesque walking up all the stairs and down the dark corridors to my cuboid. I usually make a coffee on the way up as this is good thinking/drawing fuel. I really enjoy the coffee/biscuit facilities here.
Are you a one-project-at-a-time kind of guy, or do you work on many at once?
Usually one project at a time. I like to focus all my energy into the one project so it reaches its full potential. However, the one project will often be made up of lots of different things. The small individual works are always part of the whole body.
Inspiration! Where does it usually come from for you? Certain places or everywhere?
I’m not entirely sure. I’d have to say everywhere and everything. And then a lot of what I try to do is put this quite overwhelming sensation on many bits of paper. If my head is empty I let my hands do the work until something good comes out. I suppose a lot of my ideas arise from objects, and there are many of them around so I generally have to work quite fast to keep up with my thought process.
How long do you work for before taking a break?
I don’t really take breaks. I work for around 4 to 5 hours or so then I stop and look at it.
Do you find it easy to call it a day, or does it vary?
Usually it’s hard. After the session, when I start looking, it takes a while to absorb what I’ve done so I just sit in a comatose like fashion staring at the wall and then I have to enter the world again.
Do you work at the weekends as well?
Sometimes, yes.
How do you know when a work is finished? Do you keep going back to projects past?
All finished paintings go on the wall and ones I’m unsure of I leave on the floor and keep working on until they can join their brothers on the wall of completion. But then after that stage they must go through another stage of mounting on board. Then they are finished. It is a system that can either take minutes or months.
Finally, can you please draw a quick self-portrait? So that everyone reading this can put a face to your name.
Seamus Killick, we salute you.