Fashion Neurosis with Rachel Jones

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:17Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Rachel Jones. Thank you for having me. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Yeah, I'm wearing leopard print leggings and tabbies from Margiela. They're cream slingbacks. And then I've got a T-shirt on that my mum gave me. It was one of the first magazines that she ever worked for. So it's something I inherited. It's like, I don't know, nearly 50 years old. Amazing. I noticed it has the perfect kind of worn in sheerness with a few little holes which is the ultimate in a t-shirt yeah it's got like a little um moth hole on it a lot of the things I own have holes in them um kind of through like the use but also a little bit of it is just the age um but I get very attached to the things that I have and so having things from family members or things I've collected over time um are like a key part of my wardrobe and I won't stop wearing something just because it has holes in it I actually get more invested in it because I think it adds to the way it looks yeah I agree I love moth holes and for ages before I started doing bigger collections everything had moth holes in really and it just felt like it was contributing somehow it was part of the the wear and tear of being a creative person in some way yeah exactly and I don't know I feel like I I don't know as an artist I get stuff on my clothes quite a lot and they don't really retain their pristineness or like the idea of being as I don't know like clean and tidy as they could be like that's just not inherently how things end up being when I own them and I accepted that about myself I used to get really annoyed about things getting dirty or me getting paint on things used to really stress me out but now I'm like it kind of is what it is like it's a sign of the way that I live and um yeah I don't resist it so much anymore I love that because my father used to obviously have that being an artist and he would have these nice clothes and then he would have painted painting clothes but then there would be a moment when one of the nice shirts that he had would get paint on and then and suddenly it would move into the painting clothes.

4:02Yeah, you're like, oh, it's ruined. And then mostly he was quite relaxed in the studio, but then he was really fussy about any paint coming out of the studio and getting on the carpet because he had these really nice carpets, and my obsession with carpet came from him. And he used to have carpets made, but then when he died, I kept some of his painter's trousers and I've got even a vase that has paint on it. And I just love to see paint on something anywhere. Yeah, it's kind of like a weird antiquing. You know when you get something that's centuries old and there's no question in your mind about the beauty of the age that's visible in it.

4:55And the indents and the things that have gone wrong. it becomes like an inherent and necessary part of the object or the thing and I feel like maybe I've gotten to a point where I see my clothes like that I'm like the paint that's on certain things or the holes and I don't know the way things change over time they become I don't know like part of like a really interesting legacy of the of the clothing and then you get to just enjoy in a different way to the way it was when you first had it and you're a highly respected and successful artist producing work in many mediums including sculpture and poetry and even music and you work in international museums including the Tate Gallery I went to see your painting there a few weeks ago and art seems to me the hardest thing to do and I wondered how you decided on this path I suppose when I was younger I recognized quickly that I was good at drawing and I noticed how it made me feel like I always felt very focused when I was drawing and there was this satisfaction I got from being able to express myself in a way that felt like it was wholly mine and I just had this very clear thought process where I was like oh like I'm good at this and I should do this um but I didn't actually think that that would be a reality and it was something I could pursue so it's kind of amazing to me that I am where I am and I get to pursue all of these like creative interests that I have because it's not something that I ever really thought would become a reality but I made a decision when I was at school that if I didn't make art that I would be unhappy and that just seemed like a really nonsensical thing I was like why would you make a decision for yourself where you know that you're not going to be satisfied with the life you live if you walk away from this thing that is really important to you so I committed to it within myself and then you know I told my mom that I wanted to be an artist and yeah like she just thought it was absurd um and was very concerned about like what that meant for me in terms of being able to support myself but she understood that I have like a very strong sense of conviction about certain things and if I put my mind to something then like I tend to achieve it in whatever way it manifests so I yeah like went to art school and since then I've just kind of carried on trying to just prioritize like giving myself the space to make things so yeah it was like a series of small decisions that led me to where I am now it seems a pretty major decision to make you're so young it's really impressive what was the first painting that you saw and loved oh it was a van Gogh painting it was the sunflowers we looked at that in school yeah we had to draw draw sunflowers um based on the way that he'd made them and yeah he was the reason I was like oh like people make art for a living and and people learn about the art that you make like once you've died and yeah like the things you make become part of life beyond you and so he really was the reason I thought that I could become an artist.

8:45But so sophisticated to think like that when you're so young you seem to have this fully formed way of like feeling and seeing what's there for yourself but it feels round rather than linear I know that doesn't really make much sense but it's really yeah yeah I mean I feel like there I've got like a very good sense of um my intuition um being the best guide for me and like how I try to move through the world and yeah I've learned to listen to that more and more as I've gotten older and I think it's good because sometimes you can't explain why you're drawn in certain directions or why certain things resonate with you the way that they do but I feel like a really important part of life is learning how to listen to yourself and trust those feelings whatever they are and if you let that guide you then you kind of end up where you're meant to be yeah um and the more you do that the easier it is even when things might seem impossible or really challenging there's like a certain ease you can move through life with because there's this like unquestionable truth to like why you're doing something that comes from within you and it becomes like a bedrock in a way that means that no matter what changes around you like you don't really shift that much in your intentions god it's such a um because i know the feeling i know exactly what you mean and but a lot of my experience was so like overshadowed with um or sort of tainted by darkness so i had that feeling but it was almost like being hunted through it was like a threat response almost but what you describe is the opposite it's like a are going towards joy and you mentioned that when we were talking the other day and uh there's you also talked about this show you made which just sounds so amazing called blessings upon blessings yeah which was an installation sound musical performance and inspired by lyrics from mr vegas's song i am blessed yeah you described it as pro-black karaoke and you said this other thing which I loved which is you don't like to be the center of attention but if you've got a microphone in your hand then yes you can't get it's a different thing it's like how did you bring that into your art the karaoke I mean I just love music I feel like everybody has a very specific relationship to the things they heard when they were growing up and the things they listen to now um there was always music in the house um when I was a child and I listen to music when I'm working as well in the studio and I felt like it might be a really good time for me to pivot towards integrating some of the things in my personal life like my day-to-day life and bringing that into the practice um and I went to music school actually as a child for like 10 years and I played the violin and piano and I played in orchestras and learned how to read music so I have this formal relationship to it as well where I was like maybe I can start to think about the practice as something that becomes expansive and includes this relationship I have to sound um and I thought like the most accessible thing I could do was to do a karaoke performance because there's this very communal element to it and I don't know I just wanted something in um the work to feel like other people could join me and participate but I was also like creating the environment and structure that they were joining me in and so I was able to embed certain narratives in the performance and that was why it was like a pro-black kind of theme because it was in the year of COVID and all of this stuff had been happening with Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and everyone just felt very I think heavy and depleted especially because we weren't able to like be with each other because you know we're having to stay inside so I wanted this moment of celebration but also for there to be like a critical lens looking at like experiences around music and togetherness and so yeah I don't know it sort of became like this thing that evolved and I sang with my family and I got recordings of my friends singing and I don't know it was just like a really special moment and it changed the way I thought about the way I work quite a lot as well I mean it's such an inspired idea and it's got so many aspects of of artistic you know output in it it's really and also it's so good that it's when you were telling me about it and I was reading about it it was just that you can use these things that are a great source of energy and happiness and fun in life and extended into your art and uh and then it's art yeah it's great I love that I don't know I always feel like music doesn't have to be explained in any way and sometimes with art like there's this context applied to it that people find very intimidating and they sort of feel like they have to be given permission to I don't know like engage or they feel like it's not their place to to participate in commenting or like sharing thoughts about what they see and that doesn't exist with music and so it was really important for me to use that as a medium because it just it traverses all of these like boundaries that there are with visual art sometimes yeah it's a really good point actually because it can become so academic yeah people commenting on art and you just drift off and think I don't know what you're talking about yeah it's like how is this relevant to my life yeah and then music is just an automatic feeling that then kind of creates language for you to use it's yeah wonderful and what clothes have you been influenced by in your identity as an artist was there was there anything you were obsessed with wearing as a child oh um there was nothing I was obsessed with wearing when I was a child but I am obsessed with the clothes that I wore as a child now as an adult so I have all of these like t-shirts from um the age of like eight to eleven that I wear now and um things from my siblings as well um which is kind of crazy because I can still fit into them but yeah I don't know I feel like I have this very sentimental relationship to some of the things I wore when I was a kid and I feel like a lot of that is to do with the color and graphics of t-shirts and I think some of that is part of how I maybe started to understand my relationship to color and form and texture and the tactility of clothes and like the way they feel on your body and like the sensory experience of them I think all of that is kind of in my work in a way and yeah it started to maybe register with me in a way that I didn't understand until my 20s um so yeah I've got a very particular collection of things from my childhood that are from like my family um that I feel kind of shaped my understanding of like not just how I approach dressing myself but how I approach making as well and the connection between the two which seems a bit odd maybe but I don't know like it makes sense in my brain like how I dress myself reflects what my paintings look like I think when people meet me and then they see the work that they're like oh okay that's so interesting yeah it's great and talking about the graphics and I like with a t-shirt that you can be quite shy and quite introverted but you can just allow someone to know something about you and I suppose through clothes in general but there's something about a t-shirt it's like an album cover and yeah it has the one word sometimes and yeah and it's like this is who I am even though I can't really be a bit more visible I have to step back until I can step forward yeah they're amazing and I just think like the way color is used um as well in t-shirts and like compositionally like the placement of text or images and then like sometimes there's nothing on the front but there's something on the back I yeah all of that stuff I'm like oh god it's so good um and I was saying to a friend the other day like if you know people ask you that question like oh if there was a fire what would you yeah what would you grab a hundred percent I would take a t-shirt oh really yeah yeah yeah like out of everything I have I would take a t-shirt yeah god I don't know what I take I sometimes dream about things like that and it would be like not not the most precious thing but just anything yeah you're just like in a panic I'm like no I have so so much clarity about exactly what t-shirt would take as well and how did you find the transition from girl to woman because you say you couldn't still wear the things you had between the age of eight and eleven and I wondered how's showing femininity for you oh I feel like I have quite a I don't know like extreme version of femininity that is about glamour and like sensuality like I love wearing things that are um relatively like transparent and sort of move around the body in an interesting way like they're either really structured and sculptural or they have this sense of I don't just like coating or like gliding over my skin and you being able to maybe like see a little bit of my body underneath but never everything so I have um yeah like a pretty good collection of dresses that fit into that that category but I don't wear dresses that often so it feels especially um significant when I put them on and I feel like it's me really trying to embody like a different part of myself that maybe I don't day to day because I feel like I have quite an androgynous way of dressing like I love um wearing jeans and I have a lot of boys clothes um wear a lot of hoodies and just things that I'm like comfortable in and can run around in I wear a lot of shorts in the summer and I've got quite like a sporty aesthetic probably um so it's fun for me to completely changed that when I want to feel a little bit more feminine or like sexy and to me I'm like oh that's just like a dress and then thinking about jewellery as a way of emphasizing certain parts of the body I don't know yeah it's quite it's quite fun that I've grown in into that because it's not how um maybe I saw myself in my early 20s but it's definitely part of the way I dress now yeah because it's quite easy sort of dressing androgynously which I do too to drift quite far from the feminine self because I feel quite feminine in androgynous things but I feel it's also really important to stay like suddenly go mad and wear a dress and like remember that bit yeah and revive that and yeah that's interesting to hear hear what you what you wear that sound really beautiful those things it's yeah it's exciting as well because I wear quite a lot of um like I love suiting but I normally only wear jackets and then like tights and heels or like I'll have um like really I'll have like hot pants on underneath and then just like a jacket with heels and no tights so that's another way of like combining maybe a little bit of more of like the masculine dressing that I'm into with this idea of femininity but that again it's like then I think about my body as like a sculptural thing like the length of my legs becoming like this way of like defining my femininity whilst I'm wearing a really structured and tailored jacket yeah so yeah I feel like there's little things I like to do to suggest my femininity maybe and then other times I like to really lean into it and make a little bit of a moment of it especially when I have something like I don't know like a show opening or like I'm celebrating something that's when I kind of go all out and try to wear something crazy yeah also there's something about you describing that outfit with the the jacket and then the super short shorts and it's like you look in the mirror and there's a picture of kind of innocence and demureness and then when someone's looking at you they're seeing these amazing legs and being spellbound by your legs so it's quite a good way of being able to feel unselfconscious about showing out a bit which is I think really important yeah exactly I feel like um because anything I wear I want to be comfortable in as well and feel like I'm being myself um so yeah it means getting to know your body and like what what works for your body but also like where you can play with things or subvert things um and maybe I don't know like shock people a little bit just in ways that don't seem obvious like sometimes it's even as simple as like um wearing socks with like a flat shoe and having a short like skirt or something and then like that creates this different division of your body and like like proportionally and like it's still really alluring but it's not maybe the obvious way to to seduce someone but like there's something about it that's interesting and curious and I feel like that is like the best way to dress where your relationship with yourself comes out in the decisions that you're making and there's a sense that you really understand like why you're dressing the way you are and it really is for you but it's fun for other people as well to see that.

24:19Also the people that respond to the signals someone who gets that you think oh yeah that's exciting yeah exactly that you're reading me right yeah really good yeah and how about your hair when did you decide to keep your hair so short because it's something that other people like friends and family can be quite possessive about yeah your hair and I remember when I first cut my hair off when I was 16 I think from waist length to a crop wow and I had like some people were really up some friends were really upset what was your hair like when you were oh before you decided to I actually had dreadlocks oh my yeah so it was a big deal for me to cut my hair off um and exactly what you're saying people were so upset um at the idea of me cutting off my hair um and I mentioned it to someone and I was like I'm thinking about like cutting my hair off and she was like you can't do that like your hair defines you and I was like dear god like that is like that is all I need to hear to confirm that I'm doing this um because I was really worried I was like I don't know what the shape of my head is like um and once I've done it obviously it'll take a really long time for my hair to grow back if I don't like it but I spoke to my mom and she was just like you know like it's just hair and if you don't feel like it suits you then it'll take a little while but you can like grow your hair into something else and I was like do you know what like I can do this I think like whenever I'm feeling a little bit weird about something or like nervous to try something that I yeah I don't know if it's if it's something I'm gonna regret like I'll go to my mom and be like I'm thinking of doing this thing and like she knows me so well so I just feel like her reinforcing the fact that I can do this and it wouldn't be the end of the was just like okay let me let me just try it and so I chopped it off about 10 years ago and I've like never looked back I feel like it's the most me I could possibly look it's so weird and I actually have dreams sometimes where I have hair really yeah it's really nuts like I'll be like at exactly the same length it was before I cut it off and it's really weird because then I wake up and I'm like oh I have hair and like for an instant like I I feel like oh this is like the old me and then I remember that no like I don't have any hair and I get a little bit sad but then I'm never tempted to actually try and grow it back again like I don't feel like that would really like feel like me yeah it's so weird like your hair changes how you see yourself or like you maybe evolving into a different version of you it really does doesn't it you have a beautiful shaped head so it must have been lovely to find that yeah I mean it was a pleasant surprise and a relief yeah it really suits you it's so beautiful thank you yeah sometimes I do this I haven't done it for a little while but I love to do a really extreme cup where I get like a wet shave and so it's just like the most um kind of smooth and like extreme uh skin uh look you could have and my hair grows pretty quickly um so it doesn't last for that long but it looks insane it's kind of like don't look a little bit like an alien I feel and I once was on the tube um and I saw a woman who had her hair cut the same way and I was taken aback so I was like wow that's what I look like Like there's something shocking about seeing yourself reflected in someone else because not many people here have their hair cut short.

28:11So whenever I encounter another black woman specifically with their hair cut the same length as mine or like even shorter, I'm like, I don't know, it's like a moment of reckoning. I'm like, oh, wow, like that's how I look to the world. And it can be a bit of like a jolt for some reason. And then I'm like, wow. Yeah, I don't know. That's great. And I love it. anyway thanks your new fan and also you um you told me that you believe in god and that you've got something inside you that makes you not able to be silent and what is that i think like some of what i was saying earlier about this sense of intuition and like direction um that i feel in life it just comes from this place of having felt like as a child that I was always like surrounded by love and like it was like a thing that I couldn't really explain but I just understood it as God and yeah like it gave me a sense of I suppose like belonging but also like awareness of like my life being part of a bigger whole and I don't know I feel like that is kind of how I see what I do as an artist or how I see myself as a person I'm like everything I do is kind of in service of a bigger picture and like that is it means that like I always have to honor that in the way that I live and like the way I decide to work or how I make decisions about what I want to do it can be hard but it's also like the most amazing thing ever because it means I have this point that I can always return to of knowing like why I'm doing what I'm doing and like how I want to try to behave in you know relation to others and like how I want to exist in the world and it gives me this like compass so like no matter how much I might struggle with things I encounter or um when I go through periods of confusion about maybe like what I'm doing in my practice or you know like things you might encounter in life there's always this thing that I come back to that keeps me centered and yeah it's an incredible way to live because it's both challenging and like a blessing and yeah it just creates this balance for me that I think is really important and integral to how I manage to like survive life I mean it's so unusual to hear a young person say I believe in God and it's so interesting to hear how you talk about it and you do have this this kind of calm feeling of conviction and certainty about you that's very winning and and um yeah it's very impressive and thank you yeah it just alleviates a lot of um maybe a lot of things that maybe I would doubt about myself because I feel like I'm being guided And so, yeah, it's a huge part of how I live.

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33:38And why did you decide to do that? It's kind of unusual. Everyone's trying to get a gallery. and it's interesting to that you chosen to act independently yeah I suppose I was always a little bit um resistant to having representation because I just wanted to figure things out in a way where I could make things um in a way that reflected maybe my own inherent ways of working but I also didn't know a lot about the art world and felt very green and kind of naive about maybe the more career element of what I was trying to do because you know like I all I wanted to do was make work like that very innocent thing I felt as a child and like the decision I made to pursue art like that is different to maybe practicing as an artist within the context of like an art market or the art world being an industry so um joining a gallery just provided this um support that I think I needed although I was aware that I wanted to work in a way that maybe didn't reflect the way things kind of are structured within a gallery system and so yeah I managed to accomplish some incredible things in my time with Tadais and I was really proud of the work that we did together it was really meaningful but there was this thing within me still that felt like there was maybe a different way for me to to practice being an artist and I wanted to give myself the opportunity to do that and so the decision to to leave was really just about giving me the space to explore this other you know like pull I had towards the way maybe I might be able to work and taking more time around like projects and taking time off I'm inherently like pretty lazy as a person um it's weird I have these like extremes I mean we're very lazy or I work obsessively um and the lazy part of me was just like I think like we need to take over and I was like yeah I agree so I was like if I'm not represented then I can lean into some of the things that are really important outside of just producing where it's like you're living and you're just experiencing life and you're absorbing things and yeah you're just letting um a different pace guide you yeah that's what I had before I had representation and also before I went went to school like when you're at uni you're really kind of in this context of engaging all the time and speaking about your work and other people's work and like making things and questioning things and trying to be critically engaged but I also think it's important to have things outside of that where your relationships with people inform how you work and the things you see in the world inform how you work and I don't know like just the practice of living is like really important I think so I just wanted to experience a period of that and so that's kind of what I'm entering into now so I'm excited to see what will happen and like how it will change what I make and my relationship to the things I do.

37:25I mean he's such a nice man Tedes Rovac isn't he? It must have been really hard and you also have made an opera and you said that you'd never even been to an opera but you decided to make one and uh how did you know that I mean it's probably the stuff that was coming um out of my years of playing you know classical music as a child um at music school and playing in orchestras and I don't know also like after the karaoke I was like oh that was amazing like what's the most extreme version of this like how can you turn the karaoke into like a more intense experience and I was like oh like an opera like that's the most um like ramped up version of karaoke um and so I was like well then I'll make an opera it just I don't know I don't know the way my brain works I just have these very like simple moments of like oh what like how do you feel about this and then I think about it and then I reach this maybe slight um slightly confusing but also very clear level of understanding and then I'm like oh well then we'll just do that um and so that's really why I felt like I could attempt to make something um that I'd never experienced myself because it came from a place of understanding what the like what the karaoke did for me and how incredible an experience that was and I was like okay well I can trust myself then to find my way through the process of making an opera and I knew that it would be collaborative as well so I wouldn't be by myself in that process and um I got commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art to make that work and so I had this whole team of people around me who really like mentored me and guided me through the process of you know how to make something and they were really rigorous in questioning me about like why I wanted to make an opera as well like it wasn't this whimsical thing yeah um and so there was all this intention and thoughtfulness that went into it and then I carried that into the project in terms of how I found the people I collaborated with and so like the central purpose of the work was that everyone was aligned and knew that they had ownership over the work that we were making but also they had to pour themselves into it like I have this thing where I am so committed to what I do that I sort of demand the same from other people and something about classical music is like the way that people are trained is like they can show up rehearse for a few days and then perform but I was like that's not the relationship that I want people to have to this like they have to really come with a desire to invest themselves emotionally and spiritually into the work because otherwise that's not going to be felt by an audience when they come and the story that we're telling is about like self-care and like prioritizing a relationship with your soul as a way to care for yourself and to build bridges within yourself of restoration and in the context of a black woman doing that in a world that is maybe not designed for her to be able to care for herself in that way so I was like people really need to understand the work and want to participate because it resonates with them in a way that feels authentic and like expansive and so I was so so lucky with all of the people that got involved like the performers my composer Joseph and Victoria the poet I wrote the libretto with um and the Ria team like everyone really connected to that and it made my job of like leading really really pleasurable but also really humbling as well because I've never worked with a creative team before so I was kind of nervous but it was the literal dream and then the opera was just like I'm like wow we made an opera like how iconic do you know what I mean like it was just amazing I watched some on YouTube and it was amazing and it was so full of feeling and yeah there was and your part was so interesting because it was like part Greek chorus part MC and it was just so great the way you drove it and then the the singer oh my god her voice I mean it was just so moving and I know we're really lucky like Roxanne and friends of her and like I sort of contacted her last minute and I was like you know we don't have any time really left to think about costume but like would you be willing maybe to contribute something because we'd focus so much on the music and it's kind of nuts like I didn't hear the opera being performed in full until the week it was being performed um so there were all these things I just had to trust would fall into place like it's so different to how I work in the studio where I have a an impulse I react I make a mark on the canvas and then I respond to that and it's just a cycle of me going towards the work and coming back and making decisions and it's like a little I don't know it's like a a dance or some sort but with this project it was like there were so many people involved I really had to I had to learn how to be patient with like the process of listening and like talking with people and testing things and I don't know just having to like trust that whatever we made would be exactly what it needed to be without being able to see it in its fullness yeah um and Roxanda was like part of that process because she only really had like a month to to put something together for us um and again I was like I don't know like how we're going to figure this out and she hasn't heard the music and you know but it's something that she understood what we were trying to do and I knew that you know the way I wanted the clothes to move or like frame Gwen's body and the singers and the way she uses color was like a really brilliant like accompaniment to what we'd made and so she trusted me and I trusted her and then we had this fantastic I don't know experience where what she gave us was like the most beautiful accent to everything and there is this moment where Gwen enters the church and like what she's wearing becomes like such a significant part of her entrance and the sound of like the dress like running along like the floor yeah it was and with her voice I don't know it was just yeah the whole thing was magical yeah I love the way Roxanda uses color it's just always like she's invented color yeah it's just so I don't know how she does it because every season I'm looking for like I a color palette and I feel like well I've used up every color under the sun and then suddenly you find another one and yeah yeah you've talked about red being your favorite color yes yes colors describing emotions and what what does red describe for you oh everything yeah it's like aliveness yeah and it's I don't know like threat and desire and purging and I don't know it's like all of these different processes and like cycles that happen in life um that fluctuate at different moments depending on like where you are within yourself and it embodies like so many different things for me I think it's maybe one of the only colors that covers so many different um like emotional states for me personally um and so yeah and it's just like warmth I don't know it's like it just radiates in this way that I really respond to um and it's weird though because I don't really wear red I was I was thinking that actually it's funny how you can love a color and and then you don't want it on you necessarily but yeah it's just somehow overwhelming or too much or I see you know the way you use it and the thing of it being about desire and drawing towards and threat is is such a good description of something that matters so much because caring about things deeply is also such a risk isn't it yeah it's incredible to be struck by something so much that something within you moves and I have that with color and it's I don't know I just feel like really special and like privileged to have that relationship with color because it's um it's really enlivening and I don't know like I just I don't know yeah I don't know what my life would be without that because I know not everyone cares about color or or people feel intimidated by it um but I just find it the most like phenomenal thing like I find color terrifying and also sublime gosh that's so good yeah I totally agree and you've got a big show opening at the Dulwich Picture Gallery um soon in June yeah and then you're taking a year off to grow vegetables and look for a husband and looking for a husband I cannot wait that's such a radically modern and an old-fashioned plan and who how is this husband in your projections I just I don't know I'm like I kind of just want space for maybe I want space to be surprised you know like I think I've had so much stuff on recently that my whole world has revolved around work and it's been amazing but I also feel like it's prevented me from being able to explore other parts of my life and things that are actually important um and so the idea of having um the time to prioritize relationships not even just like in terms of a partner but like friendships and family and yeah like me being able to grow things like that's incredible like having a relationship with the earth and dirt and worms and there is no greater feeling than growing something from a seed to a plant and then eating the fruit that is produced from that plant and then being able to give the things that you make to other people because you have so many of them like I'm growing some flowers for my friend at the moment um I was like I've got too many dahlias um so like do you want some she was like yeah 100 so like I dug up um the tubers um and I put them in some pots and that they've sprouted so I'm like gonna give her some like flowers I'm like isn't that isn't that like a lush way to live your life like so you know you grow things for yourself and others and it just incredibly like transforms like the the way you structure your your life everything becomes more slow and luxurious but in like a really different way to the luxury of maybe engaging with um like the world of making and like exhibiting it's just a different type of satisfaction that is um yeah something I want to kind of like pour into for a while sounds amazing all about germination yeah yeah growing stuff it's um it's part of I suppose like my life in a way because of what I do in the studio like I'm always trying to start to make something from um maybe like seemingly nothing but actually that I'm drawing from like what I have within me um and what I have within me consciously and like subconsciously and yeah like how that births something and then And I sort of like just, I don't know, like I'm able to build things around that.

50:31And then I get to look at them and then share them with people and people can respond to them. And then that moment dies and then I start again. So it's kind of like mirroring maybe the way that I exist as an artist. I never really thought about that before. It's great. I think it's really radical to apply that to meeting your future husband and making that space and bringing all this kind of this cycle of of of loving really into into being and um yeah and if you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing does it kill your attraction do you know what it doesn't I suppose I'm more confused by it than anything I'm like why have they decided to put that together that way or like how have they done that but I don't find it off-putting like I won't reject someone based on like a bad outfit but I'll be um maybe confused and then like curious about it and sometimes amused as well like sometimes it's really funny how little people care about clothes or care about how they look like in a way it's kind of incredible um but I'm always more attracted to someone if I like the way that they dress because I think it's yeah it tells you a little bit about them as a person in a really subtle way yeah um without you knowing anything about them you know so it's a good point actually that because I like it when people don't even notice what they're wearing.

52:14The thing that's always a bit more alarming is when it's something very calculated. And then it's like, how am I going to deal with that? But when it's good, it's a real joy. It's a bonding thing. It is. Yeah. Because also you talked about your love of cartoons. And I've always loved cartoons. and they're very clear about their values in cartoons and also about what they wear. And I always liked the sort of Dennis the Menace and they had this thing and they had this attitude. Yeah. I wonder which ones you're drawn to. Oh gosh, yeah. I love, oh, I love Looney Tunes. And then probably like as I got, I mean, I loved anything that Cartoon Network made, but if I think about like some of the Nickelodeon stuff, goes into like hey Arnold and you know like he would always wear I mean all cartoon characters always wear the same outfits don't they but like Helga with her pink dress and white t-shirt underneath and the bow and then like her really aggressive monobrow um and then Gerald with like his high top and like his red like jersey top and like Arnold with like the tiny little cap in the middle of his head like how absurd is that but like it's just you're right like this idea that Like there are all these codes and they can be about gender or about personality or I don't know, like class.

53:47And it's kind of woven into the way someone dresses themselves, either intentionally or unintentionally. Like there are all these messages and signals. It's kind of like an animal thing, isn't it? Like there's a, like a, I don't know, like a pheromone thing or like a, like cryptic coding that's happening that you pick up on and you even respond to it or you don't. But either way, like it's something that you start to try and decipher and help as a way to help you understand the person before you. yeah it's true about that code thing and uh you know it's like a it's a container in some in some kind of way isn't it and and um I read that you said about your time at art school that I was you said I was trying to center my experience as a black woman in a space that was predominantly white and ultimately not designed for me to thrive and have you made it possible for yourself to thrive because you are a thriver I mean abundantly so do you know what it's my Aries energy Aries yeah me too I feel like 100 % I just have like I don't know why but I have such a um like a compulsion for um like propelling myself through whatever situation I'm in whether it be bad or good yeah when I was at school I just felt quite isolated like emotionally and mentally because I think I was trying to it was the first time I was really making work about my experience like my lived experience and so obviously that includes me you know thinking about how my race and gender is part of that but I was doing that or trying to do that through abstract painting languages and so I was like oh god like how do I bring these things together and can I and should I be trying to do that um and so it was a period of me really grappling with myself um and maybe it was like more intense because you know there weren't loads of other black students in the school and so I didn't really feel like I had a place to go to maybe where I could understand myself amongst others and it's quite isolating if you don't have opportunities to I don't know like learn about who you are in community with other people like we're social beings aren't we um and so when there aren't spaces for you to to discover who you are with people who are like similar to you or who can even even if they're not like who can understand something about you and the specificity of your experience like it it kind of hinders your opportunity to to like to maybe delve a little bit deeper or like confront difficult things or experiences you might have um so uh yeah I don't know I was just going through a period of working my way through that and then when I left school I felt like I don't know I'd kind of gone through this period of um maybe like shedding a lot of things and like I came out with a lot more clarity about the way I wanted to make things and I developed this language and it was like the very sort of beginning of it was like a nucleus that I'd formed when I was at school but it was enough for me to then like go like above and beyond in like just allowing myself to like pour out all of this stuff that I had stored up but I didn't know and that was sort of the birth of me painting like the way that I uh paint now um and yeah it was a really difficult experience but I think a necessary one it was kind of like um I don't know like the the nexus for me like being where I am sometimes you have to experience like really challenging things in order to get to a point where that then becomes part of a transformation or like a rejuvenation you featured in a Loewe campaign last year for Jonathan Anderson who's a big art lover and how was it to be at the center of attention but not the author of it oh do you know what I loved it because it really felt like I was stepping into someone else's world and I was so intrigued by the whole thing um so I I mean I said yes because I thought like this is such a bizarre thing to do but also like how incredible and I love clothes and I love the images that are made um to try and like create a context for like the designs that someone's come up with but also to create like this imaginative world around them and like this narrative like the idea that someone can um I don't know like care so much that they think about the entire experience of how someone can encounter something that they've made through the visual language and through the storytelling um even through like maybe like the music that's used you know when it comes to shows and things like that so yeah I was like I really want to see what it's like to be part of that experience and to be in the role of helping to tell that story um and I'd never done anything like it before as well and I'm always intrigued by new experiences and like I'm up for things so it was a great picture I mean you just look fantastic and it looked so real you look like just you inhabited those clothes they were they seem like you just found them and they suited you yeah like I live in them yeah so cool it's kind of amazing as well like to see how they um like picked what I was gonna wear and then how they decided to to shoot it like where I was um like I don't know like we shot in this house that was like from I don't know like the 60s or something and it had um this really old patterned carpet um and like textured like wallpaper and then on the back of this like lorry with like all this like furniture shoved in um in this higgledy-piggledy way and Jürgen was so clear about the way he wanted me to to sit or stand um and he took the pictures so quickly it was insane I was kind of prepared to be I don't know on set for hours just like hanging around and like waiting or like taking tons and tons of photos but it wasn't like that at all um and there was just this speed and like brevity to the moment that was incredible and it was really really um amazing and I was like wow like he knows exactly what he wants and then it made me feel really reassured that I didn't really have to worry about what I was doing because he was so responsive to me in a way where he knew what he wanted from me so I just enjoyed the whole thing it was like um nothing I've ever experienced before it was amazing that's Juergen Teller right yeah I felt like it was a brilliant thing to encounter and will you miss not making art for a whole year how will you cope with the thing that describes you your identity as a maker yeah um 100 % not no I relish any time to not make things but having said that I do feel like I get this little itch after I take time off so I think instead of it being me not making anything for a whole year it's just like a year of me not making anything for a show or for uh like uh end an expected end result like if I end up making things it will just be me playing and experimenting and just trying stuff like I think it's good that I have the opportunity to muck about a little bit and yeah I think failure is a really important part of a creative process and I don't feel like I've really given myself um enough um time to like try something that I might fail at and I think that's important so yeah god you are like Yoda you just this is so good yes me my profound thoughts about making it's very because the way you turn it round to I'm not going to not work for a year but you're going to try something for a year and it's really it's wonderful especially with this intense speeding up of and this attachment to success and what that looks like but everything you have described is about this kind of cycle and that it continues and and um it's it's just been so wonderful to hear hear your thoughts and thank you listen to you and talk to you and thank you so much for being on fashion neurosis thank you for having me

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