Lockdown with Jiro Bevis
For most collections we reach out to creatives new and some some not so new (firm favourites), to brief and develop creative and artwork to use within our collections. Jiro Bevis is always a go to and an artist we always find inspiring and can’t wait to see how he has interpreted the brief and what we get to play with. Not to mention Working with Jiro is always a pleasure. We asked Jiro for a lockdown life update, how he finds working with us oafs and some tips on keeping sane. Also Jiro has put together for us a playlist to draw too, treat your ears to it.
Can you sum up your lockdown experience so far in three words?
Baby, knackered, walks.
Has working in lockdown meant a change up for you and how you work?
It’s been quite different for me as I had a baby a few months before lockdown and took quite a bit of time off to be with her and also moved home which needed renovating. My plan was to get her into nursery in March and get back to working like I had been before the baby but then lockdown happened which meant me and my partner have had to spend pretty much all our time looking after the baby. Which has strangely meant lockdown has been quite nice for us in that it’s given us so much more quality time with our baby that we didn’t think we’d have. But the other side of that is that I’ve hardly had any time to work (also because we didn’t actually finish renovating the flat before lockdown) which is a little frustrating as drawing is always such a nice outlet. Hopefully though when we can get the baby to nursery and the flat is a bit more organised then I can get back to working normally.
We love working with you and always find your work really inspiring to work with, how have you found working with us oafs? has there been any artworks or briefs that have been a favourite?
It’s been really fun and such a nice easy experience. You guys have clear ideas of what you want which is always so helpful, but also allow me to express those ideas in my own way, so it’s been a great combination.
I loved creating the Lazy Oaf character (left), hopefully he can be expanded on in some way, being lazy in other ways.
How has your downtime been, any new hobbies or new creative ventures good or bad?
Like I said it’s been pretty full on with the baby, it’s funny hearing friends who have been so bored over lockdown with nothing to do. I’ve basically had to wake up at 6am every morning and look after the baby. As we’ve moved to a new area we’ve had time to explore and luckily we live not too far from a lot of natural spaces which has been so nice to walk to most days as the weathers been so good. Then from 8-11pm is the only downtime we get from the baby and we’re usually so shattered we just stick a movie on.
What are your tips for keeping it sane? We know you are into music, what are you listening to? Can we get some tips for tunes to draw to?
Usually I would say make sure you have your own space and time to relax but that’s completely gone out the window for me since having the baby. Music is usually great for that, I’m playing a variety of stuff at the moment for the baby to see what she likes, she seems to have varied taste so far. For drawing more mellow stuff seems to work for me, I recently got the complete works of Debussy which is lovely. Also my friend Diego (Suzanne Kraft) always makes the nicest music to work to, he recently released a new album with Johnny Nash called 'A Heart So White' which is I can imagine will be great to work to if I get the time.
