In Conversation: Jess Nash
In Conversation: Jess Nash
Our latest In Conversation feature is with Jess Nash, an illustrator and workshop facilitator! We’re very excited to be able to share this one for you. Read on to find out more of Jess’ notable inspirations from the creative world, and important advice for emerging creatives.
Find Jess’s work at www.jessnash.co.uk
Hello! Introduce yourself, who are you? What do you do?
Hello! I'm Jess I'm an illustrator and workshop facilitator which just means I get to draw all day and meet really nice people.
You're from the South-East, are you currently based there? If not, where? How's the creative scene there looking at the moment?
That's a really great question, I am currently still based in the South East. The specific area that I live in hasn't really got an established or easily discoverable creative scene (that I know of!) which I tried really hard to get going when I was younger, but it never really took off so I tend to be stationed a bit more in London for work – but I'm sure there is some underground music and art scenes here that exists that I just haven't managed to get into!
You're an illustrator, workshop facilitator and a guest lecturer, so your practice intertwines between creativity and education, tell us a bit more about how that came to be! Do you find it difficult to balance it all day-to-day?
When I was in uni my tutor realised that I really loved making work about people and she thought that workshops would be a good thing for me to start to get into, to bridge that gap between just making work about people to making the shift to working with people. So I did, during the course of third year I started running workshops with different audiences and I absolutely loved it; I did a learning traineeship afterwards and volunteered in gallery learning departments to learn a bit more but since then I've just kept it going. The same thing kind of happened with lecturing, another tutor asked if I wanted to share my experience of being an illustrator to current students and then I just kept getting invited by other unis – it always really baffles me why I do but I do! It does get a bit tricky to balance everything, but I try and make a daily list of things I need to do with time stamps next to it so that I can put deadlines to tasks and so I don't get too too stressed.
Have there been any recent projects you've been proud of?
I'm still really proud of a project I did with a writer called Farzana Khan, it was at the beginning of the pandemic when everyone was losing jobs and was really scared – it was just a horrible time in general. So, when I got this amazing commission from Farzana to create an animation based on a conversation she had with her Grandma I was really excited to throw myself into it. It was a huge creative challenge for me and it pushed me a lot as I'm not an animator and I don't really know what I'm doing but I was so inspired by the text so put everything into it; hopefully her Grandma liked it!
Who have been your most notable inspirations from the creative world? Why?
These are such great questions! Art wise I am a bit obsessed with the artist Jacob Lawrence, he's just the one. Musically, Solange's visuals always make me want to consider the audience in a totally different way and all of my friends; I can't get enough of their work. Also I got into Portugese/Brazillian artists from the 1970's like Tim Maia which is a really nice vibe.
Your work's been featured in a ton of exhibitions and platforms with the likes of gal-dem, Penguin Random House, We Are Here and many more. Have you taken the time to look back and reflect on your achievements at all?
Honestly, I'm a really reflective person but I still haven't been able to deep all of the great opportunties I've had. I think it feels a bit like it's happening to someone else?! I'm always really proud of the projects, really proud; I love working on them, maybe one day when I'm retired and sipping on coconut water somewhere it will hit me and I'll be able to take it in properly.
What advice and tips would you give to creatives coming into the industry right now, especially to those from racialised communities?
I would say, enjoy making the work first and foremost; if you don't enjoy what you're doing the work will never be good. It can be a tricky industry so you have to love what you're doing. Secondly, make friends, connect with people, be brazen and email people, just keep pushing and putting your work everywhere and hopefully by your tenacity it will work out. There are also great platforms that support us so I would connect with people from those, places like Fuse, We Are Here UK, Don't Sleep On Us; find your community and plug in.
Finally, what's next for you? Where can people find your work?
Well next hopefully you'll be able to find a little bit of my work in bookshops next year which is mad! In the meantime I'm very friendly and so you can find me on online here:
insta: jess__nash (these are 2 underscores)
www.jessnash.myshopify.com (if you want to grab a bit of work for yourselves)
