Sally Booth - Semi-Structured Interview. Transcript January 20 2020
Interview Transcription.
Artist participant: Sally Booth
Interviewer: Andrea McSwan
Date: Jan 20 2020
Location: Sally Booth’s Studio. The
Potting Sheds, Cannizzaro Park, Wimbledon, London
Audio recordings: R07-0004 &
R07-0005
Transcript timecode start time: [00:00:09.28]
[00:00:09.28] Sally Booth: So, I've been doing a series of London
Underground drawings and they're all done on a concertina sketch book, in fact
they're only about 9 inches tall but I take them out on the tube and draw on
the tube. So, each line is coloured according to the tube line; dark blue for
Piccadilly, silver for Jubilee and black and white for Northern and red for
Central. So, before I set off I paint whole books of one colour. If I think I
am going on the Piccadilly, I will come in here and do a whole book of blue
wash in acrylic, so I can draw straight on. And I have to draw very fast as I
don't know what's happening, or what's going to happen. So, I go at all
different times of day, so at rush hour when it's packed or sometimes when it's
empty. Sometimes I draw people and sometimes I draw the architecture, you know,
the escalators and the stairs and the entrances and erm...style of stairs, the
outside of it the inside of the tube, the rounded arches, that kind of thing.
[00:01:41.16] Interviewer: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:41.16] Sally Booth: So, I have to use, I use all different
sorts of pens. So it actually tends to be whatever I've got on me at the time.
So I use these thick paint brush type, black pens. So rather than having than
having a dipping pen, which is what I like to do when I am out and about or in
the studio, so that's not very practical when I'm on the underground. So I use
more of a fibre one, so you can sort of get a quick, thick line. So for example,
there was a day when it was so packed at Piccadilly Circus, that I just sort of
got off the train and sat on the seat to wait and then the next train came in
and there were just all these feet that went past me. You know, so sort of in a
scramble, queue but in a scramble, so just drew them...I just drew the legs.
[00:02:43.29] Interviewer: So, this is what I can see here?
[00:02:46.08] Sally Booth: Yes, there all going in that direction.
So that sort of thing happened. And err, the same...each tube has got it's own
flavour
[00:02:58.00] Interviewer: Oooh
[00:02:58.17] Sally Booth: I
don't mean a flavour by taste, I mean it's got it's own sort of mood, because
of what places it goes through. So the Piccadilly goes off to Heathrow, so
there are always people getting on at Green Parkk, or wherever, and they've got
these cases and it's quite packed and everyone's got too many bags and they're
all in a hurry about getting their plane and all that and that kind of thing.
And the intersection at Oxford Circus, and you get a number of tubes coming
together, so there's this criss-crossing. I like it because it's almost like a
city underground, it's a mirror of the map above but in a different way
[00:03:54.08] Interviewer: Yes
[00:03:54.08] Sally Booth: And we've all got these rules, but we
don't say what they are, but everyone tries to abide by those rules. So even if
it's crowded and you're scrunched up against each other, but you're trying to
keep your own personal space and all that sort of stuff. And I started just by
drawing people's feet, because I wanted to have a project that I could do by
myself, that I could do at any time and err, I suppose that sort of distance
for my vision, five feet away-ish, I wanted to draw people, but I was a bit
worried about erm, worried about being intrusive and also I am not trying to do
a likeness, I'm not trying to do a portrait and actually I don't get enough
definition myself to do a facial likeness. You know, someone sitting across
from me anyway. I am just trying more to get people's gait. How people move.
Their behaviour. And something that I quite like about London, in a way, is the
anonymit of it and there's so many people and it's so anonymous, that in a way
on the tube, it's like that too. So, I'm not drawing portraits, I'm drawing
people, but they're not really individuals, they're just what it's like. So,
there might be someone who's nodding off and you don't know how long someone's
going to be there for and you're not having a conversation, so I was just drawing people's feet, because
that's really anonymous and I can have my head down and I've got these little
tiny books and nobody needs to know what I'm doing anyway. And no-ones going to
be offended if I'm drawing somebody's feet. But then I realised that people
don't take a blind bit of notice. They're all on their phones, they're all on
their devices. It used to be that they read the paper or smoked. You know,
people always had to do something with their hands and their mouth. Almost an
anxiety. And now it's not the newspaper and the fag, then it was the kindle and
now it's the phone. And people have now got their head down and they're not
even doing that uncomfortable thing, which was people staring ahead, not
wanting to have eye contact with the person on the tube. I mean this is a
particular London thing. If you go on the tube in Glasgow it's not like that at
all. It's a London thing, but actually it's worked to my advantage in a way. So
I gradually got a bit more confident and started working and going up the body.
[00:07:20.23] Interviewer: Okay
[00:07:20.23] Sally Booth: So they're not just feet and legs now,
they sometimes...I sometimes do a whole person. But they're still anonymised. I
might see people and think 'ooh, they're good' those two people with headphones,
or in their own world next to each other. They look very similar but probably
don't know each other and then I'll just try and remember it and get off and
draw it...
[00:07:50.06] Interviewer: Oh, okay
[00:07:50.06] Sally Booth: Draw it how it's in my head. So a mixture
of that.
[00:07:57.20] Interviewer: Yes. I was just looking at that one there
'Headphone on the night train' and this one
[00:08:00.26] Sally Booth: Yes, yes.
[00:08:00.26] Interviewer: And this one. Enormous sets of headphones
(ACTIVITY) Laughter
[00:08:05.09] Interviewer: Two of them next to each other
[00:08:05.09] Sally Booth: So you do see...things just happen. So I
have a book in my bag all of the time, because I'm on the tube a lot. So I try
to have a book in my bag, in case something might happen. Or I'll go out and
I'll say 'today I'm doing the central line' and I'll do the whole of the
central line and I'll get out at the other end and have a walk. Epping Forrest
is a prize!
[00:08:39.02] Interviewer: Oh this one? Epping? End of the Line?
(Laughter)
[00:08:37.25] Sally Booth: Yes. Or I'll get out at Uxbridge, you
know the other way and have a wander about. So you try to get the flavour of
where, something about where you're going to. So they're places I wouldn't
usually go to erm, like Central Line goes off to Hainault and it's got a branch
bit and there wouldn't be any reason to go, unless you...
[00:09:05.04] Interviewer: You can't go via it?
[00:09:05.04] Sally Booth: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at other times I'll
just actually stand outside the station and do the architecture. Because I do
really love the architecture of the underground and the signage and the circular
motif; the roundness of it. And all this 1920's and 1930's lighting. I think
it's a really amazing design so I'm interested in that as well. So, some of
them, like drawings on the escalator, you can't...it's dangerous to draw on the
escaltor. So that's more of a memory.
[00:09:50.29] Interviewer: Okay
[00:09:50.29] Sally Booth: You know, or you just clock something and
just think 'right, I've just got to get the feeling of that' going down into
the abyss. Or these uprights or something
[00:10:02.04] Interviewer: These colours are incredible.
[00:10:05.15] Sally Booth: So those two there are the Glasgow
underground. The clockwork orange
[00:10:12.26] Interviewer: Oh
how wierd! I mean these really struck me. So bright chrome yellow, brilliant
orange and dark brown.
[00:10:18.24] Sally Booth: So drawing on the Glasgow underground was
very intimidating
(ACTIVITY) Laughter
[00:10:26.26] Sally Booth: Because it's very round and very tiny and
you're actually closer than you are...that little bit closer...
[00:10:38.05] Interviewer: Not as anonymous?
[00:10:38.05] Sally Booth: Not anonymous. And also people are more
naturally inquisitive and will ask you what the heck you are doing! So there'll
be much more coming from the person in front of you. So I found that harder,
drawing there, just to get on with it. But I did really the whole orange thing
of the clockwork orange. It's really garish lighting there. And that was an up
and a down.
[00:11:19.06] Interviewer: The perspective, stood at the top of the
escalator, because it's curvy like that art deco.
[00:11:26.08] Sally Booth: Yes, yes
[00:11:26.08] Interviewer: It's interesting what you were talking
about the Glasgow one, compared to the London one with what we were talking
about earlier.
[00:11:37.15] Sally Booth: Yes, about who approaches you and
anonymity.
[00:11:39.28] Interviewer: Yes, human connection. Because, I found
that in Scotland. People were straight in and asking. It's interesting, I love
it.
[00:11:45.29] Sally Booth: So in a way, yes it's a very different
experience there because in a way the London underground is three million
people you know, going about their business, going to work and it's not silent,
but people are not talking. They're just needing to get to where they're
getting to. And there's this inbulit map that we have in our head, that we go
down this escalator, then we turn right down to that tunnel, then we go down
those stairs and then get on the northbound and we need a certain one that goes
to there, not to there and we've got to try and get a seat and you've got to go
and get on the right bit of the platform to get a seat. So it's all in-built
map in your head.
[00:12:42.28] Interviewer: And timed?
[00:12:43.08] Interviewer: Yes and a timed route
[00:12:46.03] Interviewer: Precise?
[00:12:46.03] Sally Booth: Exactly. But it's not about...it's silent
it's non-verbal communication. You're all going like ants and we're trying to
not crash into anybody and anybody who causes an obstruction, causes a delay to
the group and all that sort of stuff. So the anonymity of it, I like. And,
err..and yet you'll get somebody who, you'll get three guys on the Central Line
who clearly all know each other, because they're all sat close together and
echoing each other in the way they sit. You don't know anything about them but
you get an idea of them, so I try to capture something about that in five
minutes, two minutes, whatever that might be, in line. Yes, so sometimes it works and sometimes it
doesn't. And sometimes you're so squashed that you just see different bits of
people, between sort of suits. You see this little tired head in between, two
strap hanging people.
(Laughter)
[00:14:11.25] Interviewer: It is exactly like that. I love those
pictures. I remember taking my daughter to London. She was five. And afterwards
I said 'what do you think?' and she said 'it's so quiet'. And I was quite taken
aback and I said 'what do you mean', exactly what you've just said, she said
'oh, no-one was talking to each other'.
[00:14:29.26] Sally Booth: Yes, yes. It's partly the architecture as
well. When people are face to face...the only time I've had people talking to
me was on the Bakerloo line where the seats are designed differently. Some of
the coaches are side by side and some are two seats together.
[00:14:53.29] Interviewer: Okay
[00:14:53.29] Sally Booth: In front of another two seats together
and much closer. So the way the architecture is, sort of defines the behaviour.
[00:15:06.17] Interviewer: Yes
[00:15:06.17] Sally Booth: Well, has an influence on the behaviour.
And just seems to make it more informal somehow.
[00:15:17.04] Interviewer: Yes, I suppose it will group maybe four
people together, rather than a whole bank facing each other either side.
[00:15:23.15] Sally Booth: Yes, exactly
[00:15:24.17] Interviewer: I think it was Australia, and the seats
were as you described, where you could flip the backs so they could face one
way or the other, so you could change the groupings. Yes, that was designed to
really encourage social interaction and grouping on the change.
[00:15:49.19] Sally Booth: So the materials I am using are things
that I can use very quick that aren't too
messy. So I might even just have felt tip or sharpie pens, permanent
pens and the ones that I work on, some I work on when I get back so I might use
Indian ink, so they're more worked into. Like the ones I am using out are
whatever you can put in your rucksack that isn't going to make a mess. That you
can get out quickly and put away quickly.
[00:16:33.27] Interviewer: So when you were saying about the
concertina book....the background colours that I can see, is that ink or
acrylic?
[00:16:38.06] Sally Booth: Acrylic. So, a wash in acrylic so that
you can draw on top of it, so that, if later, I want to add ink or something
it's not going to run.
[00:16:51.13] Interviewer: Okay
[00:16:51.13] Sally Booth: So they have to be light enough to still
see the image over the top when you draw. I've tried some of them and they've
been a bit too dark and I've had to make them a bit paler, so that you can tell
what's going on. And, also for me, for drawing it as well. But I kind of like
the urgency of the project. I have to gear up to do it, like sometimes I won't
go on the tube for a while and then I just feel quite nervous about starting a
drawing. Sort of like warming up for exercises. Your hands being supple and
knowing that if you're self-conscious, you don't do a good drawing. So I need
to get past that so, often I have quite a lot of rubbishy drawings and then I
just have to get over my nerves and then it's ok. Sometimes, you'll go out and
you'll see absolutely nothing and do a hopeless drawing and then other times,
one after the other after the other..
[00:18:10.00] Interviewer: And it will flow?
[00:18:10.00] Sally Booth: Yes, fantastic. You have whole feeling of
a day.
[00:18:15.19] Interviewer: When I was first taught life drawing,
this was at school at an after school club and we were given some felt tips and
then a different type of felt-tip that would remove the ink from the first and
we had to draw people running round the room. And that was my first experience
of life drawing. They would just keep running so it was just a series of quick
little lines and circles and it reminds me, as you're talking about these legs
here, you've got to be fast.
[00:18:46.02] Sally Booth: Yes, fast. And I do like life drawing as
well. I think knowing the body does help. A 10 minute situation, where you've
got to get something done...
[00:19:06.12] Interviewer: Yes, the key lines
[00:19:06.12] Sally Booth: Yes. So I think it does help me, even
though it's can be a struggle at the time, it's still helpful. I'm trying to
pair things down as well. So part of that suits me, because if you've got
difficulty with central vision, the things you will miss, will be the details,
the eyes, the features, shoe-laces. I can't really see the shoe-laces but I
know what shoe-laces are like. So actually, just trying to get the essence of
something, that you see. So, that if I
am sat a Paddington and I just watch people getting off the tube and rushing
for the trains, so there's that trying to get the movement and everyone
carrying those wheelies that crash into people, you know the angle of those and
the rushing and that sort of half walking half running thing. I saw a chap who
was elderly. And he was in amongst all this rushing. And he seemed so crinkly
and crumpled that he was almost like a crumpled paper bag (laughter) so that's
how I drew him. So he almost looked like he might disintegrate at any moment,
in amongst all this rushing. So to try to get somebody's gait, their posture,
how they move around, that kind of thing. And yet, it's not a person you know.
If it was your grandad, you might...'oh yes, that's how grandad stands' but you
wouldn't know...it's not a person. It's an archetype in a way.
[00:21:26.20] Interviewer: Yes, yes. They're lovely. Loads of
movement
[00:21:26.20] Sally Booth: Movement is something I'm interested in
really. And then, here we've just walked through the park. It's warmer outside
than it is inside, as you may have gathered (laughter). So, I'll put these up
(moving lightboxes into postion) and I'm experimenting with how to display
these, because it's a tricky one.
Those I've
been doing at night. When in the winter and I don't know what to do, I think
I'll just go and draw some trees down the lane and also the other thing about,
when it's cold, it affects your drawing. So you have to draw faster, because
you know you're going to get cold in a minute. So, I've moved away from using
pencil, because of my vision. Because pencil is just too delicate and fine and
grey and it's not enough contrast for me and also when I take the pencil off
the paper, it's hard to find exactly where I was. So I've moved from that to
darker drawing utensils. But also with that, you have to learn more skills if
you're...so I'm going to ink, not pencil. And with ink, I love ink, but there's
jeopardy that comes with it (laughter) because you can do a lovely drawing and
then at the last minute you can end up with this splodge. So there's that kind
of anxiety aswell with ink, so trying to master...you're trying to get down
something that's in front of you, you're also trying to master the medium and
not fight against the medium, but let it do it's thing. But you're also the one
that has to be in charge. So, these ones....so I've been drawing trees in
winter, because you can see how they're made better. It's harder to see with
leaves and things, but in winter the skeleton is left and often you'll have, up
here we've got lime trees that are pollarded, so they're very stunted and
knarled and quite interesting. So I just go up and do those, so for however
long I can last. I kind of naturally work sketch book size, which is up to A3.
And these ones are sort of, they're not A2, they're more squarish. Working
outdoors gets more challenging when it's big. So I have to do them A2 maxium or
in a roll and it works like that. Also, this thing about not being able to see
to put the pencil back on the paper, lead me to drawing on acetate, which is
actually a really lovely smooth material, especially to draw on with permanent
pen. Really nice. Although it's a plasticky substance, I actually find it very...I
really like the fluidity that you can get. So I've developed this way of
working into a continuous line, so not taking the pen off the paper, so instead
of doing this looking up looking down, I might still be looking up looking down
but I haven't moved my hand. With ink you can get a sort of dot-to-dot,
inadvertently dot-to-dot, type effect where you've got a splodge appearing as
you've left your pen on the paper, but I've found with acetate that it flows
really nicely.
[00:26:46.10] Interviewer: I've found that and there's a real
delicacy to drawing on acetate
[00:26:49.08] Sally Booth: Yes. Well you have to err...yes, a
mixture. It's a hard one to master, to get delicacy, because the permanent pens
are not delicate in themselves.
[00:26:59.14] Interviewer: There's not really a line variation
[00:27:01.00] Sally Booth: Yes, there's a medium, bold or fine, or
super-fine at best, you know, so there's not much choice there. These are
drawings that I did on the bus in Liverpool, when I was on residency. Same sort
of idea. So I'd go out drawing and then I'd come back on the bus and so that I
was doing these in acetate and they kind of make a layering idea. They are done
individually but can be seen together.
[00:27:53.21] Interviewer: Yes. Similar to the layers that you would
get in compositing in animation or old...
[00:27:58.10] Sally Booth: Yes, like the cells
[00:28:03.09] Interviewer: Yes, an old rostrum camera
[00:28:03.24] Sally Booth: Old fashioned animation, where you're
drawing on the cells
[00:28:07.08] Interviewer: Yes. And quite often if I'm talking to
students about visual effects I will talk about transparent layers, one on top
of the other.
[00:28:19.04] Sally Booth: So, I've done quite a lot of drawings,
looking at this idea of layers and transparency.
[00:28:36.14] Interviewer: I
love the observations and just how fluid the lines are it reminds me a bit of
Shirley Hughes, just some touches here and there. All those backs of head in
perspective.
[00:28:50.11] Sally Booth: Again they're kind of anonymous.
[00:29:01.23] Interviewer: Wow it's quite something when you see
them layered together. That must have been thirty layers or something.
[00:29:06.10] Sally Booth: Yes, I guess so. I was there for three
months, so just did whatever, one a day or something. So, I've done quite a lot
of drawing with the idea of transparency. I'll explain that with these
(arranging lightboxes), I'm just going to turn the lights off so you can see
them better.
[00:29:50.15] Sally Booth: This is erm...so I did a project quite
some time ago which was the first time I've ever really done anything explicit
about my vision. I think usually people don't talk about their vision, just
sort of get on with your work and you find a way of doing it. Sitting closer or
finding a good pair of binoculars (laughing) you know, just there are ways of
making things a bit easier. But I wanted to do something that (turns on
lightbox)...I was partially sighted from birth although nobody would have said
it was that at the time. And I didn't see it as that at the time. But then when
I was twenty-five, twenty-six I got a cateract in, what was my good eye at the
time. So I was gradually losing my vision in that eye and also what I didn't
realise was that I was losing the colours one by one.
[00:31:31.20] Interviewer: Wow. So which colour went first?
[00:31:33.17] Sally Booth: Violet. So when I was cooking my dinner I
realised that I couldn't see the gas. I could see the yellow flecks but not the
purple, it was invisible. Obviously, I knew it was there and that was never
something that was discussed at the hospital or anything, they're just
interested in how far you can...how many letters you can see on the board.
[00:32:05.16] Interviewer: That acuity?
[00:32:05.16] Sally Booth: Yes. But for me sight is not about
getting from A to B or..yes, it was difficult not being able to see the road
sign at the end of my road, you know obviously, but they're functional things.
But for me it was a sensory thing, so it was violets, blues, greens through to
yellows and reds at the end. So I could see yellows and reds and then finally
that went and it was just a grey static. So, I made some work kind of based on
that, quite some years afterwards, the sort of experience of that. It was like
looking through a dirty window or looking through fog, looking through a veil.
[00:33:07.29] Interviewer: So this was the good eye with the
cateract?
[00:33:07.29] Sally Booth: Yes. And then it became not my good eye.
So, I've always painted still life, so I thought I like to try and make
something about that experience, using still life. And in my window I've always
had these glass bottles that were all different colours because the light comes
through them really beautifully and I had a blue blind and I noticed that if I
had the blind down, you could see different effects through...you could still
see the bottles through the blind but they were obscured. They were more foggy
or they were degraded and I thought this is quite like what happened to me!
It's quite like looking through a screen and things being changed and more
fuzzy. Or more silhouetty. So I just took pictures, lots and lots of pictures,
just snaps really and they were on a film and I chose the ones that seemed to
more evoke what I felt was more to the type of situations of my vision. So the
bottles have got the violets and the colours that I was talking about. And
because I've enlarged them, I used to like old slides. You know the luminosity
of them like stained glass windows. Often I preferred them than my real work,
they are sometimes more jewel like than the reproductions, than your actual
work. And then when you...a bit like projection now, digitally, you know if you
project, you can project huge and it really changes the scale that you see
something, it really changes it. I made them on film and I just enlarged them
so that the grain of the blind, evoked this static quality that I was seeing.
So some of them are about the fuzziness of losing clarity and then others about
looking into the light and seeing people or things as silhouettes. And also
about detail disappearing so things becoming just shapes, rather than what's in
the shape. Things becoming more abstracted as well.
[00:36:02.16] Interviewer: So these are light boxes?
[00:36:02.16] Sally Booth: Yes.
[00:36:02.16] Interviewer: They're really stunning. So when you did
these, did anybody help with the cateract?
[00:36:07.21] Sally Booth: I had surgery, yes. But it was always
going to be a very complicated surgery because of the anatomy of my eye. So it
wasn't...I had to have it done but it was only after that, that I went down the
road of...you know, once you can no longer read your post...you know, you've
moved into a different area. Before it had been an invisible disability that
you could find a way round. But it came a point where I had to say no. I need
help with all my reading, I need to arrange my job that I could do, if I am
going to make art I need to change art. So, everything changed as a result.
[00:37:11.04] Interviewer: And did the colour ever come back?
[00:37:12.05] Sally Booth: Well, some colour came back. The first
time you have a cateract operation it's amazing, it's a bit like being on acid
(laughter), well if you knew what that's like? Not that I do. But it the
colours were so clean and bright. Almost painful, but that dissipates after
time. So now, I wouldn't say I see true colour now, out of that eye. I can see
a little bit but not much. So I am using the other one as my colour....I see
colour totally differently out of each eye. And I see distance totally
differently out of each eye. And one eye's got bits missing and the other eye's
got other bits missing, so it's a constant...it's as much to do with the brain
working out what you can see and what that actually is. So they're not
stereoscopic at all. I've always seen quite shallow space, I think, which in a
way makes it quite natural to do 2D drawing and painting, because you see
things quite flat anyway because everthing is quite flatenned. So, I was
hopeless at sculpture, I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand even
needlework....you know like making things from 2D. I didn't understand how
these shapes made a jacket (laughter) I just couldn't understand it. I only see
things flat, or shallow in space. So, in a way, that's already done for you,
isn't it? If you're doing drawing.
[00:39:34.07] Interviewer: Yes. I think these are gorgeous. The
blind, where you've scaled it up looks like white noise.
[00:39:38.09] Sally Booth: Yes, it is exactly. Yes, because that's
exactly what it looked like..
[00:39:44.18] Interviewer: Like an old TV if it goes out of tune?
[00:39:44.02] Sally Booth: Yes, yes. And it was also....people have
this idea that blindness is 'black' and it just, maybe for a very few people.
[00:39:57.24] Interviewer: Yes, you were saying something like maybe
four percent?
[00:39:59.02] Sally Booth: Only four percent of people who are sight
impaired, can't see anything at all. So I was seeing a grey. It was an opaque,
grey fog, nothing. Literally no light was getting through. But it had this kind
of texture
[00:40:25.05] Interviewer: Yes, that pattern I can recognise from an
old TV
[00:40:30.09] Sally Booth: Yes, exactly. That's exactly what it felt
like
[00:40:36.10] Interviewer: I used to have dreams when I was young,
and I would hear the sound of white noise and see it in the dream.
[00:40:44.07] Sally Booth: Oh that's interesting. Because since I
was about four I had visual dreams of this static. And I always used to find
them really disturbing
[00:40:53.16] Interviewer: Yes, me too
[00:40:55.14] Sally Booth: And I couldn't really explain it to my
parents, that I found it fearful
[00:41:01.00] Interviewer: Yes, me too
[00:41:02.23] Sally Booth: And, erm...I don't think it's a
premonition or anything, but I always was...it was something about vision that
used to make me feel fearful. This sort of black and white texture.
[00:41:19.06] Interviewer: Absolutely. It's exactly what you've got
there. And that's what I saw, but it was moving
[00:41:18.12] Sally Booth: Yes.
[00:41:23.19] Interviewer: And the kind of (hissing) noise that went
with it and it was very claustrophobic and I couldn't wait to get out of that
dream
[00:41:30.02] Sally Booth: I've had it ocassionally even now, when
you get out of bed in the night. And I think maybe there' isn't enough oxygen
getting to the brain, I don't know what the reason is, but I sometimes just see
it in the floor, when I come to the bathroom, this black and white thingamy
again and I think 'ugh', so maybe actually it's physiological type of thing
that we don't understand, but erm, yes I always found it disturbing. So to
actually have it happen to me in real life later, was....I mean I was pleased
it wasn't black (laughter) I don't know why, so it wasn't 'nothing' but it was
still quite disturbing.
[00:42:19.25] Interviewer: How you describe it is exactly how I felt
in the dream and I didn't really talk about it to anybody at the time. I think
I might have mentioned it since I've been an adult, but certainly didn't
mention it to parents. I wouldn't have know what to articulate aged five anyway
[00:42:34.27] Sally Booth: No, it's hard to explain isn't it. I
thought I was the only person who had that!
[00:42:39.02] Interviewer: Nope! Welcome! (laughter) I had it too
and that's what I can see in that picture, these light boxes and the colours
and also the traces of the light in the bottles. Incredible and quite ethereal.
[00:42:57.12] Sally Booth: Because, also those colours are very
beautiful, you know glass. They're almost pure colour, coloured glass...light
coming through coloured glass.
[00:43:12.09] Interviewer: Absolutely and that's one of my favourite
things, back-lit glass or flowers or dew drops. All of those things and just
how you described an old colour transparency of a slide as a jewel, that's it.
And it's the same to me, the jewel colours that you got there and in the tube
drawings, and these ones, the Glasgow ones, to me it's that jewel element. And
yes, sunlight, I mean a lot of my work has this. And this circular...most of my
design work, whatever it's been 3D, buildings, set design, there will usually
be a circle in there, a sphere or something and some kind of light,
transparency, glass, back-lit. And I only became aware of that last year
really, beginning to see that I'm really drawn to that.
[00:44:11.10] Sally Booth: So for me, I'm interested...obviously,
I'm obsessed with light for obvious reasons err...because it's not something I
can take for granted. You know, everyday I get up I've got to decide whether or
not I'm going to wear sunglasses or not. How are the eyes today? And that sort
of thing. It's not an involantry thing like it is for most people 'seeing',
it's something that I'm aware of all the time. So, walking down a street I will
see quite well and then if I turn right and I'm into the sun then I can't see
anything. And it's just that ninety degree turn and the light conditions have
completely changed. So I'm aware of it all the time and yet I've always drawn
in line, so I've got this thing about light and line (laughter and turns off
light boxes).
[00:45:31.10] Interviewer: Interesting, similar themes that we're
both really interested in.
[00:45:37.03] Sally Booth: So this idea of drawing through a screen,
or seeing through a screen or film, so I starting drawing using voile
[00:46:00.10] Interviewer: Oh yes
[00:46:00.29] Sally Booth: Which is a semi-transparent...you've
probably come across it in your theatre
[00:46:04.24] Interviewer: I have
[00:46:07.02] Sally Booth: Used a lot in the theatre. So, I've been
using voile and stretching it like a canvas. Because that softens everything
that it's infront of, so it kind of makes it more difficult to see. I've been
building these drawing installations that I'm inside. Drawing outside. And
they're site spefiic. I've done one in Hastings, this one's outside the
National Theatre, Paine (?) Gallery, Trafalgar Square. So, I've either done
them as participative working with families and things or I've done my own
work. So the one I've got here, I worked with a sculptor called Tim, who's
nextdoor studio to me. And he built them for me, so this one echoes the
brutalist architecture of the National Theatre, that one you can see a bit
better where we were. Erm...and they were...so it's cut so it makes it
panoramic
[00:47:24.07] Interviewer: Like 360?
[00:47:27.28] Sally Booth: 360 degrees. So, I was drawing on the
inside looking out, so depending on the time of day I was having to move around
because, sometimes the sun's streaming in and you can't see a thing, so you
have to go the other side.
[00:47:44.11] Interviewer: So
will you be almost tracing what you can see?
[00:47:47.11] Sally Booth: Yes, it's a type of tracing. But you have
to keep your head really still because it's site-size, not life-size, so it's
thing about...it's this weird thing about when you see the moon and it's really
big and then when you get closer it's gone small...why would it get small if
you were closer? (laughter) that thing like you'll see a view from inside this
structure and you move closer to draw it and it's gone smaller. So you have to
keep your head really really still and draw from a certain distance.
[00:48:31.11] Interviewer: So you can keep the scale the same?
[00:48:31.11] Sally Booth: Yes, yes. Err...so for that one I did
some ones that took a bit longer, to prepare for it and the rest of them I did
live over a day. That was another one that we did at Brighton Pavillion
Gardens, so each place reflects the architecture of where we were.
[00:48:59.11] Interviewer: Wow, it's so theatrical
[00:49:04.26] Sally Booth: They're performative in a way, yes.
Because you are literally in a bubble
[00:49:08.02] Interviewer: So thinking about what we were talking
about earlier and anonymity on the tube, where you've got this I can see the
general public almost just standing on the other side of the gauze. Do they
talk to you?
[00:49:21.02] Sally Booth: Yes. They can come in aswell, there is a
door. I always make them sort of accessible, so there's an open door way so
they can come in and talk or just stare (laughter) or whatever they want to do.
So, err...yes, that does have a performative element because you are part of
the object, in a way. Whereas, on a tube I'm not performative, I'm trying to be
as discreet as possible, but that could be you know...
[00:50:00.11] Interviewer: Yes. Wow, they're absolutely gorgeous.
[00:50:08.19] Sally Booth: So there's this 360 theme, although we're
talking about things being flat, but I do like the idea of the 360 things sort
of doing bit by bit, so you actually go all the way round
[00:50:32.02] Interviewer: Panoramic.
(SALLY BOOTH SETS OUT HER CONCERTINA SKETCH BOOK)
[00:50:38.10] Interviewer: Oh, so this is your concertina style
sketch book?
[00:50:36.17] Sally Booth: Yes, I'll show you a long one. This one's
a bit earlier. This is one of the first panoramic ones that I did in Japan. So
these are calligraphy books that captures your writing, but they're really nice
to draw on. I went to Kyoto and I drew the tea houses and zen gardens. It's
autumn, and I started off with the tea bushes in the middle and a tea-house and
I tried to go all the way round. So I did a little bit every day. So I did the
ink first. This is Sumi ink which is a nice Japanese black, very lovely black
[00:51:51.13] Interviewer: And do you use like nib? A nibbed pen?
[00:51:53.15] Sally Booth: Yes or a brush. Yes, that one's got a nib
I think. So that's the view from the tea-house which is always very art
directed.
[00:52:08.02] Interviewer: Yes, yes
[00:52:08.02] Sally Booth: And then this is of the autumn
[00:52:10.15] Interviewer: Wow, look at the colours! It's the same
jewel
[00:52:14.27] Sally Booth: So it's changed. So it sort of gets more
and more abstract, florid and abundant (FOLDING OUT CONCERTINA BOOK). So that
would take you all around. So although I'm working flat I do like this idea of
space. And yet with virtual-reality things I find them difficult. That thing
where you're going.... they always do this thing where you're going through,
becuase they can
[00:53:09.29] Interviewer: Yes, they kind of fly the camera
[00:53:12.00] Sally Booth: And it makes me feel sick
[00:53:15.25] Interviewer: Yes, you can get motion sickness
[00:53:17.11] Sally Booth: (laughter) That is not how I see things
as planes or...and going into the distance is flattened out a little
for me. So I find it difficult to connect with that. And even the
going round...
[00:53:38.12] Interviewer: The 360?
[00:53:42.07] Sally Booth: The 360, I just don't....mostly because
the drawings just really bad (laughter) and I think 'don't believe it!' like
CGI 'don't believe it' (laughter) not interested because I don't believe it! So
even there was one of the Titanic and people getting in the Titanic and I don't
know if you've seen that one? The Titanic is sinking and you are in a life boat
and watching the Titanic and with these other people who are being rescued and
they're not screaming enough! (laughter)
[00:54:30.12] Interviewer: So do you see the huge scale of the
Titanic?
[00:54:32.01] Sally Booth: You do. But it's so...yeah, and? So
that's the difficulty I have. Maybe the artwork isn't good enough yet. I think
because I don't see as 3D as other people, like I can't see, if I look though
binoculars I just have to use one eye. They don't work together. So, maybe I'm
really missing something? The same as seeing a 3D film, it doesn't do anything
for me. It just makes me feel sick. So, there's a physiological, you know
there's a medical thing there I guess, but also it's disengaging...that bit of
it isn't engaging. I'm more interested in the potential of making a drawing
look 3D.
[00:55:38.05] Interviewer: yes
[00:55:40.05] Sally Booth: You know. Like did you see the Gormley
exhibition.
[00:55:40.21] Interviewer: I have seen some, I haven't seen any
recent ones.
[00:55:45.12] Sally Booth: The one he had at the Royal Academy, this
year, there was one room which was all wire and it took up the whole room, the
sculpture, and you could step into it. So, it was like being inside a scribble
drawing, like being inside a drawing. And I found that really exciting. That
although it was a sculpture, for me, I related to it like being in a line
drawing.
[00:56:22.25] Interviewer:
Yes. I had a similar experience last year using tilt-brush, which is
essentially a paint pallette in a virtual-reality environment. So you're
essentially stood in a big dome that's dark. And in one hand you can see a
paint pallette and in the other hand you've got a device that can pick the
colour and the pen. And I drew just some scribble lines of figure drawings that
I've done forever. And what was so surprising was I could walk round them. So
it was exactly that thing...being in my own drawing. I mean it really did blow
my mind.
[00:56:59.23] Sally Booth: Yes. The other thing with VR where
I'd...that other thing where sometimes with VR you've got these pretend hands,
haven't you? That are out here that are supposed to help you navigate around,
or find something you have to click on to go round. But I'm more interested in
that being the drawing hand.
[00:57:23.00] Interviewer: Yes
[00:57:24.13] Sally Booth: That that's the hand that draws. You
know, so when you're drawing it's hand to eye to brain, hand to eye to brain
subject. This sort of....that relationship isn't it. That the actual movement
of the hand, I think that's interesting. I'm not so...so these pretend hands
that were on the VR, I wasn't quite so interested in having to find something
written on a menu to click, I thought that could be the bit that you draw with.
[00:58:05.19] Interviewer: Yes, and that's what this particular software
'tilt brush', it was called. I mean, I could draw as I actually draw in real
life, only I was drawing in light and fire and I could walk underneath it and
round. I mean it was literally just a scribble and then you save it as a little
film, or you can save it in the actual environment and somebody else can go in
and be in your drawing.
[00:58:30.25] Sally Booth: And that can be seen in VR or flat, can
it?
[00:58:33.19] Interviewer: yes
[00:58:28.21] Sally Booth: sounds interesting
[00:58:36.15] Interviewer: So what I was seeing through the visor
and I was in the VR world, my supervisor was watching it on a monitor, so she
was looking at a flat screen. And I was able to save that as a little movie and
put that on another monitor or a blog, or whatever. So people could see the 2D
flat version, or put the visor on and go into the actual drawing. I've never
been inside my own drawing before.
[00:59:03.18] Sally Booth: That excites me. To do something like
that
[00:59:06.16] Interviewer: ok
[00:59:08.07] Sally Booth: I'd be interested in trying something
like that out.
[00:59:08.17] Interviewer: Presumably, if you can draw in light,
that would be more visible. I mean it's against a dark background
[00:59:18.17] Sally Booth: Yes it has to be against something, yes
there has to be contrast really, in the same way. And also, like I've found
drawing on an ipad, so far, I mean I haven't had expensive packages or
anything, I find it was a bit sterile erm...I like the physicality of the paper
and the ink. So to draw...it would need to be...you know like these sort of
brush pens, they've got something about them
[00:59:54.28] Interviewer: Yes, a texture to them
[00:59:55.06] Sally Booth: Yes, so there's something...to try to get
something that still feels physical that is in a VR world. That's something I'd
be interested in finding something that suits, you know
[01:00:11.13] Interviewer: yes. There was one brush that I selected
and it came out almost like toothpaste and I just did a cupcake in it.
[01:00:23.01] Sally Booth: Yes. So like these....I mean I go to
Cornwall a lot, so these are...just very red earth in Cornwall and down where I
go it's all iron oxide. But, so there's something about the physicalness about
doing the drawing outside, in the place where you're at and trying to get
something down quickly. We talked about the jeopardy of ink didn't we? But also
it has mistakes. So this is scrap pile in Cornwall, right on the coast and it's
Geevor Tin mine, which is now a museum. And so they've just dumped all their
iron and bits of old machinery in this heap, outside. All getting rusty and the
earth was all red rust anyway. So I sat in the middle of this scrap pile and
sort of drew the whole thing. It took me three days and I had to run in and out
when it started raining and it was in pen, so I had to 'oh gosh' (laughter) it
was, oh it was so nerve wracking. So they're just sort of outlines of buildings
and things and these strange machines, that I didn't know what they were for,
they were just like abstract shapes all in a heap. And then I met this chap
that works there and he said 'oh that's a thickening cone' or 'that's a mucker
bucket' and 'those are floatation cells', so they all have beautiful names,
these things. But he also told me what they were for, so I said 'I've got to
take you for a cup of tea' (laughter), so I did my drawing and I took him for a
cup of tea (laughter) and I said 'right what's that building for? what's that?
what's that?' so he helped me name them. So this is in brown ink, but you get
the splodges that are accidental, they're somehow part of the thing.
[01:03:26.18] Interviewer: yes
[01:03:28.05] Sally Booth: Bits of machinery like rigs, so again
that's made a panorama up to the head gear at Geevor, which is no longer
working. So it's sort of like an abstract panorama really. The ink is what I
like working with.
[01:03:58.25] Interviewer: wonderful. Wow, a lot of common themes
[01:04:03.02] Sally Booth: There are.
[01:04:08.11] Interviewer: Your things and also the things I've done
too. The style
[01:04:17.03] Sally Booth: These are balsa wood and kind of filmic.
They're from walks on the docs in winter and cold like this. So I found this
balsa wood in a bargain bin in an artshop and I thought, that'll be fantastic
for landscape. Because you can just take a bundle of it in a rubber band and it
wouldn't blow away and it was a lovely kind of buff colour and it wasn't too
bright and also it's got this lovely tooth, so when you draw on it there's
something...
[01:05:03.14] Interviewer: yes, it's because it's so soft, that's
what I found, drawing with pen on it, the pen will sink into it.
[01:05:09.02] Sally Booth: yes, so I really enjoy working using that
material on those. So, these are just buildings on the docks, quite similar in a
way. Strange structures. These are Napoleonic kind of gateways, Napoleonic wars
[01:05:26.03] Interviewer: Clarence Dry Docks
[01:05:29.06] Sally Booth: Yes, lots of cranes and old cafes that
have been closed for ages, sort of chimneys that you don't know what they
would've been for and then you get...one thing I love about Liverpool is that
you get these vistas, that you get there aswell. Being aware of the sky all the
time and space. Which you get, you get wide streets there and lots of space.
[01:06:09.14] Interviewer: Wonderful. That's tons of stuff.
[01:06:11.05] Sally Booth: Is that enough information?
[01:06:12.12] Interviewer: Oh that's just brilliant
[01:06:12.29] Sally Booth: I'll put the fire on now! (laughter)
Continued….
Interview-transcription – R07-0005
[00:00:01.12] Sally Booth: (looking a photographs of Sally's
Liverpool studio and window shadows). Then come back on the bus and do the
acetate ones. And then I'd come back in the evening and open the studio door
and there'd be this reflection happening. You know, and I thought 'ooh, I'll
start taking photos of these' this is interesting because it would be different
every day and I was there from Februrary and I realised that it was like a
sundial going round and I was going to be there three months. It's like going
to the cinema (laughter) you didn't know what it was going to do everyday, so
they were different. It's all sort of going round. I made some of those into
light boxes as well. That's a few in the studio. So I was doing these acetate
drawings
[00:00:55.29] Interviewer: Beautiful. I love it with the map pin
through it! Stunning. We have lovely sunlight in our home. It's south facing,
over-looking the river, so the back of the house is just flooded with sunlight,
but just seeing the low sun in winter. I didn't realise as well, it was only
when I was on the plane coming over, just then and I think we were over
Manchester and I thought 'the sun's quite high in the sky' and it struck me and
I realised being five hundred miles north, the sun's not coming up above the
horizon as high. And so you've got this blinding sunlight, almost at eve-level,
every day, straight in the back of the house, or when you're driving.
[00:01:45.01] Sally Booth:Yes, it's very different where you live,
isn't it.
[00:01:49.25] Interviewer: Yes, but just saying to my husband, oh
this will be fascintating whilst we're here, how the sun changes around the
house.
[00:01:59.14] Sally Booth:Yes. Is that ok there? (places a cup of
tea)
[00:02:04.26] Interviewer: Perfect. Lovely, thank you very much. Oh'
that's Hollyrood, the Scottish Parliament.
[00:02:10.20] Sally Booth: It is, yes. I had a show there.
[00:02:12.16] Interviewer: Did you?
[00:02:14.02] Sally Booth: Yes. We did...this is the project that I
did with the poet and we went to Shetland and Cornwall. It Shetland we met fish
processors and knitters and people from the fishing industry and then Cornwall
we met the mining and tin mining industry. We had an exhibition and called it
People, Places and Industry, so we had a touring exhibition. So, I did the
artwork and Evelyn did the poetry. So these kind of things are from there.
[00:03:03.18] Interviewer: These are the panoramic landscapes
[00:03:07.00] Sally Booth: Panoramic landscapes of Geevor and then
that line drawing is inside the locker room.
[00:03:15.12] Interviewer: Oh yes
[00:03:15.12] Sally Booth: But, yes, so we had a show at the
Scottish Parliament, the place where the big stairs are, we had a show and a
performance there and then we had one in Shetland museum and also one at the
Tate Modern.
[00:03:45.03] Interviewer: So when was that?
[00:03:47.19] Sally Booth: Well, we went to Shetland in 2012,
Cornwall in 2013 and we went back to make work again. So the shows were from
2014 to 2105 onwards. You can have those (brochures) I'll give you one of
those.
[00:04:20.24] Interviewer: Oh thank you
[00:04:27.00] Sally Booth: Yes, so I've got cups from where I've
done my exhibitions. I don't know where my tin mine one's gone.
[00:05:05.22] Interviewer: Thanks for your time Sally.
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