Hello beautiful, creative people!
Here at Poems by Post we love all kinds of art – be it wordy, picture-y or something completely different-y! Our most recent interview was with Amii, a brilliant illustrator, whose online following seems to be doubling by the second. She was great fun to chat with; we hope you enjoy it!
Hi Amii! For those who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Hi! I’m Amii, and I'm an illustrator from North Devon. I make comics - sometimes satirical, sometimes just silly. The whole aim is to bring a bit of light-hearted, simple fun to people's news feed.
I think that you definitely do that! How long have you doing these drawings for?
These drawings... not actually that long. So, when I went to University I found I was looking a lot at other people's work in my class, and seeking validation by checking that it's really similar to what I was doing. And then during the first lockdown, I had less contact with the other students. So you don't have anyone's work to look at, so instead I had to make what I wanted to make, rather than what other people are doing.
At the time I only had a couple of hundred followers (who were all my friends!) but then it just started picking up and I was like, "oh God, people actually like this stuff!"
That's great, because I know you actually have a pretty large Instagram following now [about 26,000!!]. Do you have any artists that you draw inspiration from in your work?
A massive inspiration for me is Mr. Bingo. He kind of makes work surprises people, and can sometimes be a bit like, "well, I wouldn't expect someone to do that!". He would send hate mail to people, just insult people by post and they would just pay to receive these. I have a book of a collection of all of them. Things like that where it's mildly offensive, but also surprising and really tastefully done - it's tastefully offensive!
I think tastefully offensive is a beautiful phrase! Is there anything that you're consciously trying to say with your drawings?
I think I've always had really strong opinions on a lot of things. I grew up in a really small town and it's a lovely place to live but also it comes with a lot of small town mentality. So I would always educate myself on global issues, and the more I knew about things, the more annoyed it made me. So this is a way of sharing my opinions in a way that people don't find annoying.
A lot of the satirical work that works well is the stuff that's so simple it can't be confused. So it's super dry humour, but it gets the point across in a few lines, barely any text needed. I think that's the beauty of the things that work for me. It's just a nice outlet for me to be as gobby as I usually am but in a pretty way!
And I've seen recently that you do your good news of the week section, which I think is a great idea! Where are you sourcing your good news from?
There's so many websites! If you just Google ‘positive news from this week’ you’ll find websites dedicated to posting positive news. That's where people should be getting their news from! it's so refreshing to look at, and then having to whittle it down because there's so much good news.
And it's something I really look forward to doing.
I look forward them as well! Especially at the moment, and I don't want to dwell on Covid and lockdown… but how have you found the situation?
In a controversial way it's been good for me! Obviously it's awful, but it's been good for me in the sense that it's just give me a lot more time, it kind of keeps you in one place, doesn't it? You can't go out socialise, so it's allowing me to just focus on getting work done and managing to monetise it and start making a living out of it. Before the first lockdown I didn't sell my work, I didn't have an online shop, I didn't have an audience at all. I don't know if that's partly a result of people being on their phones a lot more, people are consuming a lot more on the screen. So they're seeing a lot more of what I'm doing, so yeah, it's really helped me in a lot of ways. I'm of the very lucky ones in lockdown I think!
It's great to hear that not only are you sharing good news, but you yourself are a good news story! If you had a message that you could give to the world, what would it be?
I think what I've learnt from all of this recent success of mine is that people are picking up a lot of their passions that they dropped before. I've been able to use this time to do what I love it would be lovely if people continue to pursue what they love to do! A lot of creative businesses started up in lockdown, because they realise people actually do want to buy what they're doing. So think about what's important to you and really embrace that!
Do you have a particular drawing of yours that's your favourite?
I like the 'Starving' one with Boris telling the kid to fuck off because that one did so well, we actually raised eight hundred pounds for my local food bank in 48 hours by selling prints of that one. It was chaos! I've never seen so many envelopes in my life! But it was so good to see so many people enjoyed it and it actually created so much good. I get a sense of pride about that.
And I love that something that's made so quickly, just a few lines on paper really, portrayed a message that went wild and raised loads of money. I think the way simplicity can become something massive... It fascinates me every time that it happens.
Thanks Amii! You can watch the full interview on our YouTube channel here, and if it's Amii you're looking for, she's on Instagram (@amii_illustrates) or online at www.amiiilustrates.com.
