I feel like a lot of people can be discouraged by the idea of moving back home after their 3 years at uni.. After you moved back to London you kept busy, created lots of lovely work and began writing articles about your favourite zines! How was it keeping motivated for you and how did you keep motivated?
I’m not going to lie, it has been a very tough year. I was excited for graduate life but it does come with a lot of set backs. Uni shapes you as a person, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the world of work. I made the decision to move back home because I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a career when I finished uni, and I wanted a bit of freedom to be able to decide. Motivation has been a really difficult thing over this year, but after a few months of being unemployed and getting fed up of not creating work, I really tried to fight the lack of motivation and worked hard on trying to build myself a routine whilst looking for full time work and making my own work. The best thing for me was forcing myself to have that routine when I was at home every day. Starting the day with a walk in the park and trying to go swimming regularly really helped me feel more energised and ready to create stuff.
Do you feel that living in London has inspired and benefitted your work?
In a way yes. Particularly because of my interest in architecture, there’s always new parts of London to see and be inspired by. But I think there’s plenty going on in Bristol too that is equally inspiring.
I’ve read all of your zine blog posts and I love them! What was your inspiration to write these? Do you think it’s important to venture into different creative avenues?
My inspiration for writing these was because over the years I’d built up a good collection of zines, but after looking at them once, I would often just stack them away on a shelf. This felt like a shame, so I wanted to rediscover them, and talk about them so that other people would want to read them too! I have always written a lot in sketchbooks alongside drawing, but I think it was through writing my dissertation at uni, I began to properly realise I enjoyed writing. I do think it’s important to explore other avenues, it stops you from getting bored of one thing! And they often feed into each other in ways you wouldn’t have guessed.
Sometimes I still consider the points I learnt at uni when making decisions.. Do you reflect on the lessons you took away from your time at uni and apply them to your current creative life?
Yes. I think at the time in third year when I started to find my style and really enjoy making work, I remember it finally felt right, and not so difficult and frustrating any more! Obviously things in life have to be difficult sometimes, but I think I’ve learnt to trust my instincts a bit better, and know that the right decision for me is usually the one I don’t have to think too hard about. It just comes naturally and feels right.
For me, I like to go on days out to new exhibitions, read lots of comics and watch lots of Netflix. But how do you like to enjoy your downtime?
These days I don’t have a lot of downtime, so I usually fill it with making time to see people. But I would like to make more time for creative things, like going to exhibitions. I guess the best thing is if you can combine the two! I find that in my downtime I have to get a good balance of relaxing and doing something mindless, and doing something slightly productive to stay motivated. When I’m not ‘relaxing’, I’ll go swimming, practice with my Samba drum group, and try and make some time to learn German! (I’m not getting very far with that one…)
What’s next for the creative life of Ellie Green?
