This Wednesday's Interview With a Vaulter is with Leo Boyd

How's it going, Leo?

Yeah, I think it is mostly going well but it is hard to tell sometimes. This whole lockdown has been quite dreamlike in many ways and the whole Yes, No, Good & Bad binaries have been somewhat turned on their heads so a question like ‘how’s it going?’ is a little harder to answer than it once might have been.

What is your living situation? Do you have an outside space or are you living in an underground bunker?

We have a nice but quite dinky house full of art and colour and eccentric clutter. There is just about enough room for all of us and the two cats to live and eat and sleep and get on without driving each other up the metaphorical wall.

I am missing out the garden here. The garden (and the clement weather) have been a pretty amazing oasis of calm during this pandemic and I am so glad that we had this outside space to just exist and work in whilst the world turned on its head.

How has the pandemic affected your arts practice?

Cor, this is going to be hard to answer and I honestly don’t know where to start.

Before lockdown it seemed to me that all of us were working and producing pretty much relentlessly. Being busy was almost a virtue and if you were busy you knew at some point you were going to get paid.

I work as a screen printer and painter and sometime street artist but most of my work is self generated by sales of screen prints and this involves a lot of time self promoting on the internet. I try to do this as creatively as possible but there is a part of this that feeds into the busyness as a virtue machine that is quite hard to escape.

When everyone physically moved inside the internet lit up like a 24hr firework display and I was already pretty well versed in the ‘spolsions that make people go ooooooo.

Pre pandemic I had been working on a new website with fellow Vaulter Neil Hainsworth and I had an idea to structure the new site around a print on demand digital service.

Honestly this was a bit of a gamble and a bit of a head beeeep but I am happy with how it has panned out.

I have to give a shout out here to the people who helped and made this whole venture possible and bearable along the way, from my partner to my brother, Neil for all the coding and everyone else who has supported and bought my work as this weird journey progresses.

How are you coping with the temporary closing of Vault?

Actually quite well. When the Vault closed I thought ‘Ah, fuck this is going to suck’ and it did for a bit but it was nice, in some ways, as the lockdown made me reevaluate the way that I work in a manner that I would never had if the building had stayed open.

I love paint. And I love printing. I love making pictures in general but there is something to be said for not having to do the things that you love. There is a freedom in not doing something you love that is quite liberating.

That being said, I am quite looking forward to going back in and throwing paint around and getting messy again.

I do miss the people and the life of the place but I am happier knowing that everyone is safe and well and that we will emerge from this weird cocoon as a stronger and more creative organization.

What do you appreciate during lockdown?

Everything. Honestly this whole world turned upside down process has made me appreciate the world and my place in it in some profound ways that I can’t really describe.

In normal times I dream a lot. There are a lot of anxiety dreams where I am trying to figure out how imaginary colours will print on equally imaginary surfaces but there are also dreams where I am exploring giant wooden cities and trying to find the best way through the maze down to the surf at the bottom of the hill.

During these abnormal times I have hardly dreamt at all and I put this down to the real world having taken place of the dream. Space has become more personal and time holds less meaning. For the first time since being a child, time has uncoupled from money and time is just time again.

How do you imagine the future after lockdown? For yourself and for the wider art world in general?

If you would have asked me this question a few months ago I would have told you that the future is fucked. I have always been quite apocalyptic in my thinking and have expressed this in my art practice (generally in a humorous way) throughout the years.

I’d always believed that we were on a one way journey to ruin, whether that be by ecological collapse, some egotistical war or giant laser kittens. Now I am not so sure.

For a brief moment there the cars stopped, the sky was empty of planes and full of bird song and people smiled at each other on the streets. There was talk of solidarity and higher pay for the workers who actually keep the baseline systems running.

The air smelt good.

I think if we can uncouple time from money we can do the same with the arts. We can change our practice so that it isn’t simply being busy for the likes from the like machine. Art can become a process that isn’t just beautifying the cracks in our crap civilization.

But this is me talking from the dream logic of the lockdown and I know at some point that I am going to have to wake up.

I might just have another wee snooze first.

Where can people find you online?

This is the new website that me and Neil worked on: http://leoboyd.com/

And my instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/leoboydprints/

And Neil’s website too: https://neilorangepeel.com/