In my 7th interview in this series, I had an enlightening and lovely conversation with Mel Rye.  She’s a full-time working artist and teacher, based in Nottingham, UK.

Shelley Skail: Hello!  Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, it’s so lovely to chat with you.  

Mel Rye: Thank you for asking me. It’s always nice to chat and I was thinking, I don’t think we’ve actually spoken in real life. We’re still on Zoom, but close enough!

Oh you’re welcome! I had a look through your Instagram to remind myself about the sort of illustration and art that you make, because so much of my knowledge of you is from your Skillshare classes and that’s not the fullness of what you do. It’s so pleasing looking over your illustrations; I was wondering, where do you get your ideas from?

Oh, that’s a good question. I think it depends on the project – if there are any strict parameters for what I’m doing. The biggest project I’ve worked on this year is an arts trail which is launching at Easter, and that was a community-based project where I was running workshops with different community groups and then had to come up with two trails for the town informed by the workshops.

And with a project like that there’s just so much, it’s huge! One of the trails had to be a history trail: It was commissioned by The Workhouse which is a National Trust property with an incredibly rich history connected with the town. The other trail we called the “Children’s Trail” to start with, but I changed the name of it to the “Activity Trail” because you don’t necessarily have to be a child to want to do a certain type of activity, and that trail has a mix of historical and contemporary interest points and has a more interactive, inclusive feel to it. With a project like that, there are so many moving parts and people involved, and the brief is quite particular.

It’s not the first project I’ve done like that – it’s the second arts trail I’ve designed which has been co-created, so it’s designed in such a way where what we do together in the group workshops informs the design of the thing, so the ideas and inspiration are coming from everyone involved, and it’s my task to synthesize them into the end result.

Oh wow.

So sometimes my work is like that where it’s quite an organic process and it’s very collaborative – it has to be by its very nature. Some of that comes through the creative work the participants make in the workshops, but also it’s just through talking to them that a lot of the ideas come through into the design work. 

With self-initiated work – I think a lot of the ideas still come through this concept of collaboration, but maybe in a different way.

I like to make stuff which has some element of interaction within it or some aspects of there being a kind of collaboration with the viewer. I’ve made some pieces, for example, children’s books where you turn a page and the story changes a little bit.

A lot of my work has an interactive element, and that was something that started quite early on when I was at university. I was making things like that and then my work changed in some ways and in some ways it stayed quite constant. If there’s a way of bringing in some interaction with people, then I will try and do it.

For example, I did another project with the National Trust where I designed the visitor interpretation for an exhibition and I made this giant sensory book. It was massive and you could fold the pages out and there were QR codes that you could scan and it would give you the audio version of what was written in text. It was all designed to be really accessible and interactive. 

So there’s always, where possible, some element of having a relationship with the audience, but sometimes that’s very intrinsic if it’s a community-based project. 

The other thing that really inspires a lot of my work is colour. I’m not really sure where that comes from in terms of the initial inspiration, but over time I’m noticing that there are particular patterns in the colours that I choose, and there’s a palette which I’m very drawn to. 

I’m getting more and more interested in what colours mean and the psychology behind them as well, which I started reading about when I got really interested in art-making for self-care and mindfulness. I started reading a lot about what different colours mean and how they can affect us physically and emotionally and I just find the whole thing very fascinating. 

So I would say that my main inspirations probably would be colour and collaboration if you could define it in that way.

That’s really interesting because the bold colours really come through in everything that I’ve seen of yours – you’ve got quite a recognisable, graphic style. It’s really bold and lovely.

What you’ve said about nature walks sounds like a lot of fun. Hard work for sure, managing different groups and striking a balance, but it’s quite different from just sitting alone in a room making stuff.

Yeah, and I mean there’s a lot of that as well (sitting alone in a room making stuff), especially when it comes to making classes; you’re chained to the computer for weeks and months on end. But this aspect of there being other people involved; it just makes everything have so much more value. It’s not just you making something and then showing it to people, it’s them having more of an investment in what it is, it feels more reciprocal. 

A couple of weeks ago I ran some workshops for a Town Council who hold an annual memory lantern walk and the lanterns are designed to celebrate happy memories. They hadn’t done it for a couple of years due to the pandemic and when they’d done it previously, they constructed the lanterns in a way which looked quite amazing, but I thought it was not very accessible for children (the workshops were aimed at primary school age children) so I redesigned how they were constructed to make it more accessible. Some of the kids who came were pre-school age and it was so interesting that the children just completely took ownership of the whole thing and they were amazing!  The parents were coming in, some a bit worried, asking, “you are going to help aren’t you? And you are going to show them what to do?” And I was like, “Yeah! But I think they’ll be fine.” And then the children started making these lanterns and the parents were like, “I’m not sure what he’s doing, but he knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s making this thing.” And I think if you can tap into ways of bringing people into the process more, giving them the tools to make it their own, it’s just more fun, isn’t it?

For sure! Am I remembering right that you used to be a teacher?

Yes, for 15 years! I worked in a sixth-form college and I was Head of Art for some of that. We used to teach A-level Art, Photography, Textiles, BTECS in Art & Design and they were that really exciting age group where you’re getting them ready to apply for university.

It’s a brilliant age to be teaching because it’s so broad. I’d get students that would say, “I want to be a fashion photographer” and we didn’t have a course in that, so we worked together to design a project that could make them a great portfolio. So I think that thread of collaboration is also there in that part of my work too – it all kind of connects together.

I was thinking I could see a thread of working with others and helping support people wherever they’re at to get something good for them in what you’ve described.

Whenever people ask me about my work and what I do, I find it quite difficult to distil it into a sentence or even a couple of sentences. I really need to try and work on that and have some kind of elevator pitch for exactly what it is, but I think the thing that it all has in common: inviting other people in, in whatever capacity that is, even if it’s just something that I’m making but sharing with other people, hopefully there’s an element of inviting them in, in some way.

That’s lovely. I’m glad that this has been helpful for you.

Yeah, it’s really helpful! I suppose it’s just in the world that we’re in now, we all work in these quite separate spaces. I don’t really often just chat to people that I don’t know about what I do. It’s really nice to have a chat!

It really is! So speaking of other people, who are your favourite artists? Could you give me a top three?

Yeah, gosh, that’s a really tough question, but I do have some favourites. I suppose it depends on what I’m interested in at the time but I’d say definitely one of my top favourite artists would be Grayson Perry. 

I love his work. I only came across his work when he was nominated for the Turner Prize (2003).

I went to see the exhibition and I was blown away by his work. And then I started reading about him and finding out about the textile side of his work – my degree was in textiles and I used to do performance art collaboratively in my degree, exploring identity through how we visually present ourselves so maybe that gives more context as to why I found him so inspiring. I just thought it was the bee’s knees. 

Me and my friend that worked collaboratively used to dress identically and wear wigs, sometimes with a bunch of other people too.

And in other pieces we would both wear one dress with two of us in it and we’d go around Norwich where we were studying and engage with the public. We even had a few TV and radio appearances, it was such a lot of fun!

So this possibly explains a bit of context around why I love Grayson Perry so much. I love the performative side of what he does, the textiles work, the colour, just the way that he records and tells stories in his work, and I also just love hearing him talk as well. I could listen to him talk for ages and I think he’s very accessible. My Sixth Form students loved his work too. 

I also love Yayoi Kusama and I’ve been lucky enough to see quite a lot of her work in person. She started out doing performance art in the sixties but is probably most famous for her mirrored infinity rooms.

Her paintings are really beautiful as well, and her sculptures.  I think she inspires quite a lot of the colour and patterns that I use in my work – we both have a thing for dots! I think her work is just fantastic and she’s also really, really interesting. She’s used her art throughout her life as a way of managing her mental health and she’s talked about the fact that she sees the world in these dots – it’s quite fascinating. So I think there’s also a shared appreciation we both have of creating art, and specifically patterns, as a tool for self-care.

For number three… It’s a bit off the wall but the exhibition that has had the biggest impact on me – I still find it quite amazing that an exhibition could do this – was fashion designer Alexander McQueen at the V&A. I’ve never experienced this before, but that exhibition made me cry. It was so good, I went back and saw it 3 times. And although his work and his style really has nothing to do with my work, it’s really more about the kind of storytelling and the theatre that I’m drawn to.

I guess there’s that element of performance and it being interactive as well. As an artist, he was unbelievably talented and there’s so much pure creativity not just in how he made clothes, but also how he showed them: they weren’t just fashion shows, they were immersive experiences. Although he isn’t someone I would say who directly informs my work visually, he’s someone that’s really left an impression on me.

I think people see fashion as more of a design discipline than an art discipline. But I feel as though there’s so much that he’s done, which is completely new and original. And I enjoy that element where he does something a bit different for the audience and makes it more than just a fashion show. It’s something else.

I love hearing people’s top three because I usually discover artists who I’ve not heard of before, or people that I’ve not considered in that way because I’ve seen McQueen’s clothes and they’re beautiful. But I hadn’t considered it as a sort of performance art.

Yeah, I think that’s maybe what the exhibition really brought which was so impactful, because I had seen photos of some of these quite performative fashion shows that he’d created but seeing it all together at this exhibition you could just see this incredibly creative brain at work. It was so inspiring and it kind of blew my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt that impacted by an art show before or since.

So if those are your most influential or inspiring artists, what about the work you’ve made? Do you have a favourite thing or piece that you’ve created?

I think the piece I’m most proud of and reflects a lot about how I like to work would be this big commissioned project called ‘Do It Different’ I did for the National Trust. For context, there was a lead artist (Morgan Tipping) working with young people to create an art school in a workhouse. And she asked me to collaborate on the project.

One strand of it was an arts trail and the other strand of it was visitor interpretation. It was co-created with all the young people involved, and there’s just so much within that project that I feel worked really well.

I loved the fact that it came from working with those people quite directly. For example, the colour scheme ended up being a rainbow palette because one of the artists who was a really integral member of the group was using that colour palette predominantly at that time to express himself, and he was really flourishing creatively. I also worked with him and a couple of others quite closely to either draw elements, create a hand drawn font or cut out shapes in paper which I could scan and incorporate into the design work, like the logo for the project which became an enamel badge for the arts trail.

The fact that it was a rainbow palette meant that on the arts trail there were seven stops, one for each colour of the rainbow, and that was then brought into the visitor interpretation. That’s where that big felt book was from.

It was all designed around accessibility because the young people involved had unique communication, learning and movement styles.

Through the project, there was a development of an inclusive language through all these different kinds of sensory explorations. There was a movement project, for example, a sound project, and they did lots of different tactile activities as well, so there were a variety of ways for the artists to express themselves creatively.

My task was to find ways of communicating what the project was to the public in a really accessible and inclusive way. On the arts trail, I used a lot of visual imagery that the artists had made, and it was designed to tell the story of what had happened in the project and each of the colours explained one of the cornerstones of the language that was developed, so for example red was ‘free movement’ and one of the other cornerstones was ‘collaboration’. It was lovely that the arts trail not only connected to the exhibition at The Workhouse, but it provided an opportunity for a wider audience to hear about the project and see the artists’ work.

Another favourite part of the visitor interpretation was a rainbow ribbon installation in the stairwell, to direct people to the exhibition on the top floor. It was an alternative way of directing people without using text and signage, so it felt much more tactile and inclusive, and visually it really reflected the vibrancy and energy of the project against the stark stone of the building. It was also a helpful practical solution because one of the challenges with the project was that you cannot put up anything at all which damages the walls – no nails and nothing sticky, because it’s a protected building.

It was quite an interesting and challenging project and I would say that that is probably the bit of work I’ve done that I’m most proud of.

That’s so incredible. 

Now, the tragic thing about it is it was due to launch on the 4th of April 2020, and so it never actually got seen by the public, unfortunately.

So it’s not been seen?

No, not really. 

I was working on it for about eight months through 2019 and installed everything through Jan/Feb 2020 and we had the press launch in early March 2020. It was due to launch to the public on the 4th of April 2020, and we know what happened then…

So it was all there, but it never got seen. I really felt for the artists, as they had an incredible exhibition of work in a really great venue. And they (Morgan Tipping and Tommy Chavannes) made the film “Casual Terms” as a result of the project, which was incredible. The film did get seen as it was screened at some film festivals but it was just a shame it didn’t get seen within the actual exhibition.

That’s so sad.

Yeah. But it was great to do it and I’m glad that at least the artists got to see it at the press launch.

For sure. Do you have any big projects on the go just now or a current kind of labour of love? I think you mentioned a trail that you’re working on just now?

Yeah, that’s actually for the same town and it’s commissioned by the National Trust again but it’s slightly different. It’s a much smaller project and it’s maps this time. There’s no physical work installed anywhere. That will be launching around Easter this year (2023). 

I’ve also been working hard for the past few months on a new online class which I have just published on Skillshare which is called Learn To Draw (From Life!): 3 Approaches To Measuring + Proportion. It’s a class I wish I’d had when I was learning to draw which explains 3 different approaches to tackling measuring and proportion dependent on the type of reference you are working from, because that really does make such a HUGE difference. It’s a big step to start drawing from life, and I think it can feel very vulnerable because those first attempts can feel so daunting, a lot of people give up, or avoid it. I hope this class helps people have the confidence to give it a go, and hopefully understand how they can improve the accuracy of the proportions in their drawings to get closer to something they feel proud of. 

And my other big project currently is a lot of behind the scenes work on my business – I’m currently working on a new website as I’m expanding my offering in terms of how people can work with me which I’m really excited about. I’m hoping to have that launching in February, so watch this space!

Can you tell me about a day in your life?

I normally wake up (hopefully) no earlier than half-six, but you know, when you have a small child, who knows! And then the morning is just chaos because I’m trying to get us ready to leave the house usually at quarter to nine.

I’ll either be dropping Woody off at pre-school or his grandparents and then I usually come back home straight away and start working on whatever it is that I’m working on that day. I tend to find that my best, most creative time is in the morning. And when things go beyond about three in the afternoon, things start slowing down, that seems to be my creative rhythm.

So I try and be really super productive in the morning. I work from home – so I’m normally working away in the spare bedroom that doubles as an office/studio/whatever it needs to be that day.

A multipurpose room.

I feel very grateful to have it. It would be great if it was my own studio space and it never has to change – that’s the dream. But I’m not quite there yet. And I’ll be working on whatever it is: it could be filming, it could be drawing or designing, it could be editing, it could be that I’m writing; each day is different. And that’s what I love about this multidisciplinary way of working and multi stranded work life.

And then it depends on the day. If my little boy is at pre-school, then I have to go and pick him up at 3:00. So it’s quite a short work day, but it does play to my strengths in terms of when I’m most creative. When I’ve picked him up, then the rest of the day is parenting.

I try not to work at night if possible. I’ve had to do that quite a lot over the last couple of years in particular, through the pandemic and when I didn’t have much childcare in place. Before I had Woody I was a teacher and that was a very different kind of life and I worked really long hours. But I can’t do that now as a parent. So it’s a bit different. I think ultimately that’s a great thing.

More paced?

Yes. More paced. At the beginning of the pandemic, I had no childcare at all and I had a one-year-old and I had another big commission.  

But I had to work. I had to interview people, I had to be designing and drawing. So I was literally just working during nap times and at night, and I did that for about eight months. And I worked every night except Friday night and Saturday night until midnight or later. I found it really, really tough to work in that way, very late. So I’m not doing that at the moment, which is a good thing.

Yeah, for sure. I’ve been there and I’m glad I’m not there anymore.

For sure.

I have two more questions for you. The first one is can you finish this: “if you really knew me, you’d know…”

Hmm. If you really knew me, you’d know that I’m incredibly shy. A lot of people were very surprised that I went into teaching, including myself. I mean, I love teaching, and actually I’d always wanted to go into teaching – when I was at university, I remember talking to my lecturers about it, and they discouraged me.

I’ve always really struggled with standing in front of people and talking and found it really hard. And that has also extended to being in front of the camera – I find that paralysingly awful. So I think that’s something that surprises people because of what I’ve ended up doing.

I would always have that comment in my school report of “she’s very shy” or “very quiet.” It’s something I have found ways of managing.

I did not know that about you – I’ve learnt something! So now for my last question – what’s your favourite joke?

Oh well you know I’m one of those people that finds it very hard to remember jokes. There’s literally only one joke that I ever remember, and it’s purely because it’s one that is appropriate for children. And it’s also one of those jokes that’s so stupid and it’s not very offensive.

My favourite would be… What’s brown and sticky?

I don’t know.

A stick [laughs]

[Laughing] I love it!

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You can see more of Mel’s work on Instagram .

She’s also working on some brand new offerings coming soon to her website which you can be first to hear about by joining her mailing list

You can also find her on Skillshare where she teaches beginner friendly classes in drawing, art making for self-care and Adobe Photoshop

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If you enjoyed this interview with Mel Rye, you might enjoy my other artist interviews.