We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Martyn Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Martyn, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I think it’s always immensely helpful to be curious and present, especially in the time we live in where everything is lived out vicariously through screens. Being interested and present in day-to-day situations opens up a lot of ideas. At least for me! It brings these ideas to life and they both play off each other. I think it also helps to notice the everyday extraordinary and by doing so, you learn to see and be grateful for the simple things in life. My kids are amazing for this and at this. My daughter in particular, is just amazingly creative. She was going around the other day taking photos of textures and then using negative space to write into the textures. I think that that is just so awesome. She looks at stuff that I can’t see, but now can use in my own work because of the way she views the world. Equally, reading and discovering other artists with this curiosity may sound obvious, but I think that this also super important and vital. Finding artists that inspire you not only helps your creativity but also helps you to move and work in areas that you might not try out yourself. I screen shot and write so much stuff down to get ideas from other creative sources.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I dearly love traditional printmaking and all the techniques around this. My original passion and background is draughtsmanship and drawing, but I think these fit perfectly and naturally into printmaking. All the techniques and processes you can do with this particular medium just blow my mind. I wish I was better at doing more. Professionally, as a freelance artist, my work has evolved into illustration, mainly children’s literature as well as some work for artists and philosophers. I have about 15 different published titles under my belt to date. I do the odd commission here and there, but I absolutely love the challenge of getting a big project like illustrating a book and seeing it develop from start to finish. I love the many and varied ways you can creatively use abstract and literal ideas to frame someone’s writing. Creatively it is extremely challenging and terrifying, but equally amazing and fulfilling. It can have it’s “hold onto your butt’s” moments, but that can be a good thing. It certainly keeps you on your toes!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think my advice would be to keep showing up and putting in the work. It’s super hard to be a creative in this day and age, but one of the main things I learned in the early days was not to stop. If you have to get a part time job or whatever it takes to enable to fulfil your passion, do that. But make sure you passion stays alive. One key turning point in my life was making the leap to becoming a freelance artist and albeit scary at times, I have found my resilience has become so much stronger. Because of this, I feel more at peace to do the work I need to do to make things come alive in amazing and creative ways. Looking back now, I kind of tell myself if I can do this, I can do that, I can do more than I ever thought was possible and even when it’s scary, you’re learning! There’s no short path. You’ve got to go through it.
Learn not to take the rejections (or just plain silence) too personally. This one was hard for me. I have applied for tons of things and been devastated at some more than others. But in classic Samuel Beckett ‘Fail harder fail better’. Keep doing the work, keep honing and learning your craft and skill. No matter what it takes. Never stop your passion and by no means let it be crushed out of you. Do what it takes to make it alive for you as much as anyone else.
Be around other artists and creatives. `People that push you to try and look at things in different ways especially. I find that as an artist it is an extremely lonely and can be a sort of tunnel visioned way of looking at stuff. You can live in your head a little (way) too much! I live in Cambridge now, but I have benefited immensely from being around other artists and upon arriving here I immediately joined a print workshop. Back in Otley where I used to live, I was part of the most amazing life drawing group which became sort of a safe haven and community of people that I really loved being with. It also honed and sharpened and pushed my skills to draw in ways that challenged me and frustrated me, but the groups understood this and helped with this.
I also joined various print workshops and was always around people who I got to know and trust, and would look at my work and say ‘this is great, but have you thought about trying this or have you looked at in this way etc’. etc.. I really believe you need people around you who push you to think or work in ways that are uncomfortable and challenging. I used to struggle and fight with this and was very defensive, but part of the learning process is that being uncomfortable is a very healthy and good thing. Any role where you are pushing yourself out there means that you need to be around people who have experience themselves and can push you to be better in your own role particularly in creative roles that can be solitary and lonesome.
It’s hard to put yourself out there for the critics to tell you what they really think! Or not say anything at all. But if you believe in what you’re doing you won’t let them drag you down. Keep moving forward!
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
I think I get overwhelmed quite easily and a lot. I am a yes person and say yes a little too often, but I think that is both a good and bad thing. As a friend and mentor of mine said once “you can LEARN can’t you?” I have found the best thing to do is what Chuck Close said and just show up and do the work. Show up to your desk or art table or studio or little corner of loveliness and do the work. It sounds obvious, but it is the day-to-day struggle when you feel overwhelmed. It is tempting to let whatever you’re doing pile up and scare the shit out of you so you don’t do anything!
Also, I think being open and communicative is super important. If I work with a client, I want them to know that it is a two-way street and that we are working toward an end goal together. You often find that doing the work and communication work hand in hand (or at least I do) and that when you do hit inevitable snags or brick walls you have to find solutions to these issues. Positively or negatively you’ve got to work through them. Breakdown of communication and not working on the problem a little bit each day inevitably makes it more overwhelming and unmanageable in a way that is also unhealthy. You have to tackle problems head on. I have learned so much by working in this way and have found the advice, wisdom and insights that some of my clients have brought to the table incredibly useful and help my work to progress as I move further into it as an artist and creator. I don’t think there has been a client yet, where I haven’t learned something from them, that I can take forward in my own work or next big project and I like to think that I can only build on this.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.xomartynxo.com
- Instagram: @xomartynxo
- Facebook: @xomartynxo
Image Credits
All photos are my own and I own the rights and credit. @xomartynxo
