Comfort Art out of chaos
Jenny Robins may be a relative newcomer… but she is already busy livening up and bringing a smile to our neighbourhood. She introduced Elestr Lee to her award-winning graphic novel, and talked about her recent ‘collage zine’ workshops and portrait painting.
Slightly worried about me seeing the ‘chaos’ of her studio at her Caversham home, it turned out that it’s a word that Jenny likes to use about herself and the world in general – although out of the muddle and confusion she is someone who has an observant eye and determination to ask questions while providing a quirky yet clear sighted commentary on everyday life. “People are amazing,” she said, in summing up her work.
Having always had an interest in both collage as well as comics, it’s not surprising that Jenny studied for an illustration degree at Southampton Solent University. Having freelanced in London, where among various assignments she got the chance to sketch fashion shows, she subsequently gained a PGCE and a Master’s in art education at University College London – “I’m too much of an extrovert to work solo,” she laughed, however she still values the experience she gained sketching fashion for her current work providing live portraits. Currently she teaches art at a secondary school four days a week, while also taking bookings to do commissioned portraits, as well as live portraits at parties and weddings – and has started attending local events such as this summer’s fair at St Anne’s School in Caversham.
She remains fascinated by creating collages, something she started making in her teenage years. “I am text-led,” she explained. “So, for example, I keep folders of words I have cut out that I like. “You can use anything to create a collage; people still cut out images from magazines and I am not afraid of using pages from books. So many unwanted books are sent to landfill, after all… You can use leaves you find, pieces of fabric. I think making a collage is a bit of an antidote to the digital overwhelm we all face. You create something new from the stuff in front of you.”
Jenny combines her skills in illustration and collage to create graphic novels – “My collages, illustrated comics and live portraits all feed into each other,” she said. “I have self-published on a small scale my own comics, which I sell, along with original collages and prints, at fairs. Then in 2016 I started developing a series of illustrated characters – little snapshots of people I created, whose lives I imagined. Eventually, I worked out a story structure, which I approached in a way that may seem almost scientific – I even made spreadsheets, so that the stories of my invented people could overlap, but in a way so that the characters could find what they needed.”
The result of Jenny’s ideas turned into a full-length novel which was published by Myriad, Biscuits (Assorted), which won First Graphic Novel Competition in 2018. And this October Jenny was chosen as one of just five comic creators representing the UK to travel to one of the world’s most important comic art museums in Brussels to take part in British Comics Now, an event organised by the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Speaking before the event, Jenny told me, “It’s a great opportunity to reach out to the European publishers. Although there is a big indie community in the UK comic art has never been accepted as mainstream in the way it has in the USA, Europe and East Asia. “I think there is a certain snobbery against it here in the UK, unlike the golden age of comics in the USA for example. Here it has always been thought of by many as something ‘just for children’.”
Jenny continues to create collages as pieces of art – as a teen she started off making collages as covers for mixtapes. “I’m a bit of a scatterbrain,” she remarked. “In terms of the art I make, I like to bring together all the pieces I have gathered. It’s a way of making sense of the sort of chaos we experience in modern life.” She has recently been offering short courses in creating what she calls ‘collage zines’ (simple mini art-books) at both Fourbears Bookshop and Caversham Library, and she is keen that these workshops, together with her work in schools as an art teacher, helps youngsters to spend more time thinking about and making art of their own and less time online. “If you are drawing, making collages and using paints, these can only be done when you are not online.
“There is a strong theme which runs through all my work: how do we live in a world of such over-stimulation? How do we learn to care about each other as humans?”
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