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April Maynard
"I think it's good to have a laugh and just putting some more colour and beauty out there to the world, making people smile again!"
Artist Interview
What usually sparks the beginning of a new piece for you, maybe a colour, a memory, or material?
Often it’s materials! I love op shopping for materials or finding them when out and about, or while walking on the beach.
I call myself a ‘back to front artist’. It's like some people do their art and then get it framed.
I buy the frame first and then put it in there!
I use polymer clay and things like that and I embed things.
You know, the last one I did, I chopped up an old belt. A big part of the fun of actually making things is finding the materials, the colours, the glass.
I do have a bit of a story about how my career started with the glass. I used to do pottery and I found it a bit dull because my teacher, he was scared of cancer and he didn't want any red paints because of the chemicals.
But I'm like, I want the colour!
I used to program my dreams, so I said to myself, “I want to see the most beautiful thing on the planet.” So I had this dream that I was sitting up on a cliff and I had a beautiful glass brick, and I lined it with pretty paper and then I swam down to the bottom of the sea with a candle in it, and then I sat back up on the rock and saw the lights shining through the glass all through the sea.
And I think that's where I woke up and went, oh my god! I want to work with glass and make light shining through the glass.
I got so excited in a lead light shop when a big pane of red glass fell over and that then gave me the idea to start from little pieces and then I started cutting my own glass and putting polymer around it. It just grew from there.
With your theme of coastal landscapes, sea creatures, mythology, and mermaids. What sparked your interest in this subject matter what continues to draw you to it?
I grew up on the Peninsula, so I grew up on the beach, and little rowboats and spending so much time exploring rock pools with goggles and flippers on and back beaches and just absolutely loving it!
It’s in my blood! It became popular too! Back in my heyday, once I started making fish with big red lips and things out of glass, people just couldn't get enough of them and I couldn't make enough of them! I would be up until 3 in the morning and then during the week I would drop them off at various galleries and shops.
I had my own shop too! I was on a production line. It was incredible back in the day.
This would have been in the late 80s and 90s.
Before minimalism when it was more is more, not less is more.
Now everyone just wants a big, boring, old white…. or I reckon it's because they’re against artists! It's a conspiracy! All this “less is more.”
When you're working across mixed media glass illustration, how do you decide which medium will carry an idea best?
I'm back to front so the medium will usually talk to me first.
It's funny, sometimes you can see a shape or you have an idea when you're out with a friend and she's got lots of cats and you think, oh! I'd like to paint that! Or with glass, it can be more about reflection. It’s also about demand too.
If you're working towards an art show or, when I was doing the shop, I'd have to make so many glass fish a week.
I’ve got a market stall, where I've been making smaller things that sell because I think that's where we're going now, so smaller coloured pieces or art that could go into children’s rooms. People don't seem to mind spending money on children!
Then I do my books and things. These days I just flow from one thing to another.
The other day I thought, I haven't done polymer clay work for a long time, so I'm gonna revisit it again. I did and that was good fun! It's given me a little bug to go back into that now.
I’ve been making lanterns too! I’ll put them together with old glass plates, bowls and things!
I've got a bit of addiction to garage sales and op shops so I’ve always thought, I've got to combine it altogether so I can use the things I find to create something new instead of buying useless stuff!
It really gives me that fun of finding something!
How has your practice evolved in recent years, and what prompted those shifts?
A thing about evolving is that when you're younger, you think that you’ll always be able to keep everything up at the pace that you did and the truth is that you just can't.
And you don't realise until get older!
It doesn't even feel bad that you can no longer do things at the pace you used to, it’s more like, I just don't want to.
I've got other things to do. I'd rather go for a walk on the beach or have a cup of tea or coffee! So, I'm now looking more at a passive income (process), things like books. It’s much more gentle; just sitting down and drawing.
When you're making with polymer clay there’s a lot more stuff in your house, and you have to go and bake it and everything. When you're doing a book, it can be just a pad and then you send it off. It’s a slower pace.
I’ve done one and it's gone really well, so I've now got another one on the way.
It’s a little colouring book with about 10 of my drawings to colour in!
It's a little story of a beach and it's got a giant gypsy sea snail! It'd be good fun for the children……and adults too!
I did this (artist) talk for Cube 37 once. I was incredibly shy.
In fact, I was so sick about the thought of it. And it was a big crowd of people in there.
I had this idea that I was going to make my whole art career sound like I was addicted to heroin!
How my art career did start, was often making jewellery because I wanted every earring under the sun, so I had to start making them myself.
In the speech, I started saying things like,
“Oh… I just wanted the cold metal to go through, into my body and that feeling of when I looked in the mirror… that sensation….”. I made everyone in the audience believe that I was a heroin addict and it was all about heroin. And it actually fitted perfectly!
And to my shock and horror, everyone was on the edge of their seats with their mouth wide open.
I thought, oh my god! They're freaking falling for it! The heroin! Oh my god!
I just went on about how I had to walk down the streets and get some money to buy more for my heroin addiction. It was like I was talking about how I was selling my stuff that I’d made myself on the street, it made me sound like I was selling my soul to get money to make more. And then at the end, everyone was like, oh my god!
I remember after my speech, I was in the toilet, and I could hear two ladies speaking and saying, “she should be a bloody comedian! That was brilliant!”
And I remember just thinking, oh my god, I did it!
But the nerves! The shocking nerves and the adrenaline! I think it sort of just gets you through somehow. It’s like an out of your body experience, but something's just pushing you through.
I’ve done a bit of stand-up comedy too, and it’s the same thing.
It's an outer body experience, and then you look at a video of yourself and you get kind of surprised you did it okay because in your own mind, you're thinking, oh god, nothing's coming out of my mouth, but things did!
Yeah, ‘fake it till you make it’ is the best thing I've ever heard! And it's so true. In everything you do.
My next question is about your new book project which you’ve talked a little about, but I’m curious, what are some ideas or themes emerging for you? And how does writing sit alongside your visual art practice?
Well, it came about quite by accident really! A friend of mine asked me if I’d like to join creative writing. But I’m dyslexic you know, I can’t spell! And he said, “well, you can just read your own writing aloud.” I thought, oh that’s good! At least no one else has to read it! And I’ve always wanted to write my memoirs because I’ve got so many funny stories to tell! And I’ve sat down a few times and tried to write, but it’s just so hard to do.
I thought, I’ll just write them one story at a time using the topics we’re given at creative writing, because you can always find a way to apply the topic to your stories.
That’s been really fun, writing the stories and making everyone laugh! I love it!
A friend of mine, saw one of my stories on Facebook, I’ll often read them out on there, and he wrote it in story form and sent it back to me with “you could put a picture here” and I thought, oh wow! That actually sounds really good! I can turn it into a book!
When I wrote it, I didn’t think of it as being a book!
The name of the book is called ‘Crevice Creatures.’
I had previously made some little books before just through publishing at Officeworks so all this has been in the brew, but I’m finding this has been a fun new outlet! And creative writing forces me into it which is great!
I need to be forced sometimes. Because if they weren't forcing me to say, right, you’ve got this topic and you've got to write 500 words, I don't think I'd do it.
You grew up in a creative environment. How has your family shaped the way you think about art and making?
People would say, “oh, your dad's famous” (April’s father is Australian cartoonist Ken Maynard renowned for the Ettamogah Pub cartoon series) but I just knew that he was a policeman by day and he sat at the drawing board all night. He wasn’t a very proactive dad, well, with the children. But he was good! That's just what he did. And mum was always doing art lessons and painting from home.
But the strange thing was, my parents were so busy with themselves. I don't think they saw that I had any talent, which I did! Because my jewellery went on display in the headmaster's office at school.
What ideas or directions are you excited to explore next!
Well, putting my feet up and doing nothing! Haha! That’ll be pretty good!
But I think at moment, I’ll do whatever gets put in front of me and it seems to just go from one…. something going on like at Oak Hill or somewhere, and of course books! I want to get back into clay again because I did put some of them in my last show and they all sold really well. I think probably clay and writing!
But yeah, just a lot slower now. Enjoying life, enjoying friends! I feel a bit more inspired lately, a bit more alive!
But you know, you go through patches.
But at the moment I'm going through a really good one!
I'm curious, do you ever get some days where you experience creative block?
Oh, yeah!
What is your approach for finding your way out of that?
I used to do this thing. Oh my god, it was bloody bizarre. I'd put on Leonard Cohen. I love Leonard Cohen. “Suzanne takes you down to her place….” You would think that he would be the last thing to bring you out of a creative block.
Now I just don't do art if I'm not in the mood. I'll go, there's too many other things I would like to do, like go down for a walk on the beach, so I just don't do it. Walking's fantastic.
And another thing is, I used to make a career and living out of it. I don't have to do that anymore.
I like creating laughter and beauty. Laughter is good health.
It's sort of like if you can all laugh at even the bad things, somehow, there's something funny in everything. I think it's good to have a laugh and just putting some more colour and beauty out there to the world, making people smile again! And a lot of people say that about my art is that it makes them smile!
Which is most important I think!
Interview and photography by Amelia Morgan.
