Jacky Fleming is a name you may not be familiar with, but have you ever picked up a British Broadsheet, you will surely have come across her work. I would like to send a huge Thanks to the wonderful Jacky for being so encouraging to both Melanie and I, and for making us cups of tea!
For more of the below please visit: WWW.JACKYFLEMING.CO.UK
The Interview, Intro and Outro were all painstakingly hand-typed by Melanie Maddison of Colouring Outside the Line Fanzine (http://www.myspace.com/
Jacky Fleming is a prolific cartoons based outta West Yorkshire. Having been published in countless books and magazines, and documented as part of the Ladyfest Manchester women comic book artists exhibition we were thrilled to meet up with her.
We had both met Jacky a couple of months earlier when picking up artwork from her to auction on behalf of an anti-sex trafficking organisation in Leeds. She’d stuck in our minds as one of the most friendly, hospitable and interesting women we’d met in a long time – so conjured up a plot to meet her again, this time to interview her for this zine.
So, we took a quick drive (full of music and inspiring bonding conversation) over to Jacky’s wonderful home filled with nick-knacks, curiosities, love, and creativity. Once again, Jacky made us feel unbelievably welcome, encouraged, and supported as we sat around smoking and chatting about things that meant a great deal to the three of us.
Melanie: How did you get into a job that you like: doing what you’re doing now?
Shelly: Because you went to Leeds University and got a degree in art didn’t you?
Jacky: This wasn’t a job – this was just doing what I was doing and it became my job. There wasn’t a job called THIS! So you just have to do what you like to do, and do it enough until it turns into...
M: I think that’s the thing: finding what you want to do, and that you’re passionate about doing.
(chatter moves onto publishing and self-publishing work)
M: I think the confidence thing though, the “am i good enough to put things out”
J: No, don’t think like that!
M: You’ve been published in all sorts of things haven’t you?
J: Yeah, but you know if i stopped to think about it for too long – 'cause sometimes my drawing can be really awful – i’d have to stop. You just have to do it 'cause you what to do it, and not worry about whether... If you start thinking ‘is it good enough?’ then it’s completely crippling. This is what i always say to myself: the stuff that’s already out there, a lot of it is crap.
M: Yes!
J: So why bother to think ‘am i good enough’? as long as you’re doing the best that you can do (talk moves onto the art zine, Colouring Outside The Lines)
J: I suppose because I’m ‘quite old’ i didn’t know many of the artists [featured in the zine], so it was all new to me.
M: I find it endlessly amazing that there’s so many artists out there that people don’t know about.
J: So how do you trace them in the first place? How do you think THAT’S the one [you want to interview]?
M: There’s something about them.
J: There’s SOMETHING [nodding in agreement]
M: I think it’s that thing inside you; you see something amazing and something inside you just goes ‘TING’! to see them: well then you’re doing the right thing. If you keep doing it, it’ll turn into what you call ‘a job’; where your passion puts you in that position.
M: Did you put your work out yourself when you were first staring out, before you started to work for magazines etc?
J: Yeah. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Hmmm, what happened first? First I just photocopied a cartoon onto a bit of card. I was working with unemployed school leavers at the time, we had a sort of ‘arty project’ and we did a stall at a craft fair. So i photocopied these cards and just had a little stack of them. And they sold! And i was really surprised. So that was the first part. I hadn’t got a plan – this wasn’t a plan. Then Leeds postcards printed about six of them as a card, and that’s all that happened for a LONG time. And then someone said “you should do a book”, and i thought [squirms in her chair] I can’t really do that! But i stuck the six cards into an envelope, went down to the library, looked at publishers of other cartoon books, found the addresses, lobbed them off to various people and then did the first books through that. And as soon as you’ve done a book, the magazines and the papers because they’re always desperate for something ‘new’, they get in touch and want something.
S: I was thinking about looking at your work from a feminist perspective. Cause i was looking at your website [www.jackyfleming.co.uk] and had a giggle at the cartoons just because they’re things that people can relate to from an everyday perspective. A lot of feedback on your site was saying ‘Jack Fleming: Premier UK Feminist artist and illustrator’. Do you ever come to your work from a feminist angle? Cuz i just looked at it and to me they were just scenarios and situations that all women go through – just really easy to relate to. Is your work intentionally feminist, or is that just something that happened?
J: I didn’t start off thinking ‘FEMINIST’, i just started off feeling angry, and drawing whatever i was most annoyed about; y’know when you’re walking about in a complete stew...
M & S: YES! [together]
J: ...just feeling murderously angry, and i’d always be thinking, what do you DO with that? What do you do so that you don’t feel quite so powerless? And that’s always the motivation to do a cartoon. So, it happens to coincide with what’s described as ‘feminist’, which i don’t mind at all, because it IS feminist, and i do call myself a feminist. And i’ve got to do a cartoon about that, about the word ‘feminist’ – that’s just mulling – because you might as well shoot yourself in the foot as to not call yourself a feminist. Insane! To me, there isn’t a difference between the things that happen in your everyday life and feminism. They’re exactly the same thing; that’s what feminism does – it looks at your everyday life but though a different understanding, an understanding of the things that have happened to you. That is feminism. There’s no difference to me. But i didn’t think “I’m going to be a feminist cartoonist” but it’s quite clear that the things i draw aren’t just feminist, they’ve actually been described as ‘radical’ feminism. When they first came out everybody said “how do men react to these cartoons?” and i’d say ‘why do you care, why do you care about that?’ it doesn’t matter.
M: You currently publish in ‘You’ magazine; the very fact that this ‘radical feminist artists’ as you’ve been dubbed, is in a weekly is really important in itself – how did that come about?
J: it’s quite subversive isn’t it!? [cheeky grin]
M: ISN’T it!!
J: There are some people who say, ‘How can you draw for THAT paper? It was a hard decision; but now i’m glad that i made that decision, as my vanity might have made a different choice. But in terms of ‘getting on with it’, it’s great to be there.
M: Did they approach you knowing your background (as a ‘radical feminist’)?
J: Yeah! It all just depends on the editor – and it just depends if you hit lucky or not. It probably had something to do with Kate Figes, who’s Eva Figes daughter. She does the books section, and sometimes there’s parts that surprise me (not all of it!) Though I’ll probably get sacked soon
M: REALLY?? I guess that’s one thing about the work you do... have you ever felt secure? I guess art is quite...
S: ...faddish, and lacking longevity
J: Which bit should i feel insecure about? Do you mean financially, or in another way?
S: What if there’s not always a call for your work?
J: Yeah, I’ve been through that, it has happened. I got sacked by the Guardian. To be honest it was a relief because I was not having a good time. But after that I did go into a crisis of confidence and thought ‘now what?’ And that was a tricky patch. But in fact i did masses of work – it was quite liberating because I could go back and do whatever, you know, see what happened next. [During this time I saw a print for sale] of a wild-looking girl and it was absolutely fantastic. But I thought, you don’t have to buy it, you can just go home and DO SOMETHING instead. It actually started off this whole Alphabet book of girls doing subversive things, and I worked on that for months in that ‘bad patch’, so it was actually a really productive time even though I was not feeling very secure. I think the sense of security comes when you know that the thing you’re interested in is always there; so you can approach it in a million ways and just think creatively about what you’re going to do next with it. You just have to come at it from a different angle. So having those gaps isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it kinda gives you a chance to breathe, whereas if you’re a mouse on a wheel, turning out a weekly, there’s not much chance to stop and do that.
M: Is it hard work doing a weekly?
J: VERY!
M: Cuz I guess in the back of your head, like you were saying to us when we arrived tonight, that today you’d drawn a cartoon that you didn’t think was very good, but then had managed to turn it around and make it funny. And that pressure week-on-week that your work is ‘up to standard’, whether your standard, or their standard...
J: ...before i’ve done it i actually feel ill. Ill and depressed. And then i think “why are you doing this?!” This is a really stupid way to earn a living. But then as soon as you start it feels better. And when you finish it feels A LOT better!
S: Does it feel good that your work is in such a big publication as The Mail On Sunday, because as you were saying earlier, not everybody does identify with feminism, but if you’re flicking through such an accessible newspaper maybe somebody who hasn’t identified themselves as feminist might flick through, see that cartoon and it might strike a chord with them, or set them off thinking.
J: That’s what I’m hoping. Cause you know that thing where you look at something, or hear something, and you think ‘oh my god, there IS someone out there that thinks the same’; it is SO important.
M: Yeah!
J: So important. So i’m always trying to imagine that somebody finds it in a waiting room, or somewhere, and thinks ‘oh my god... oh my god, you’re allowed to say that’. Cuz a lot of it’s about taboos as well – what you can say, what you can’t say, and what you dare to say – and saying it not from a man’s point of view.
M: So do you have an audience in mind when you’re working?
J: Yeah, always. It’s always talking to somebody.
M: Is there a specific sort of person you think reads/understands?
J: Somebody who is having a bad time, who would maybe read and think “a little lifeline – I’m not on my own”.
S: My favourite pieces of your work that i saw on your website – one, where it said ‘Biography’ i was expecting it to be a written piece, but it’s a cartoon of you looking in the mirror saying “It is me, just a little older”. The other was the cartoon of a woman doing the dishes, throwing them out of the window. And that struck a chord!
J: That should be animated shouldn’t it!!
S: That’s what i mean, your work is really easy to identify with because women are seen that their role in life is ‘to do the dishes’ and you’re like, ‘yeah, chuck ‘em out the window!’ And even if people aren’t thinking of that as a feminist cartoon, people are gonna be identifying with that at home, going, “yeah, that’s right!” And that’s why I think it’s really important for them to invade pop culture and be subversive, even in just a little way. It’s heart warming, encouraging, and important that there’s something creative going on in amongst all the trash.
J: Yeah, and it’s such a shock when you see it! There’s not enough. Or at least not enough that you come across.
[We chat about alternative culture and how communities of ‘like minds’ form, which makes it even more difficult to bear anti-feminist statements. Jacky suggests Shelly and Melanie email her examples of this which she can adapt into comics form.]
M: Is that the sort of thing that will spark off a cartoon for you: an email you get, or a situation you hear about?
J: Yes, it’ll start and I’ll mull away at it as something that HAS to be addressed – has to, just has to. For it to end up a cartoon it has to be synthesised down until you’ve got the argument cornered so that next time someone says “IT”, the answers are already there; it’s like ammunition really. There are things that come up so often that it just has to be expressed in a cartoon.
Before we knew it, four hours had passed, the tape recording our conversation having long since run out; thus not capturing talk of button phobias, battered pizza, Alice in wonderland, six feet under, puppet theatres, pornography, and countless other exciting and inspiring conversation explored through rounds of tea and toast.
Jacky Fleming is a joy to spend time with, and we’re so pleased that we were able to capture some of that time in words, as Jacky has A LOT of important things to say, and to draw.
Huge Thanks to the wonderful Jacky for being so encouraging to both Melanie and I, and for making us cups of tea!
