An interview with May

My friend May has just finished her first year studying Illustration at Leeds Beckett University. Her experience of starting university took place during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. I decided to interview her on the way this has affected her first year studying for an arts degree. 

Portrait of May (by me) 

You started university in the midst of a global pandemic, how did that affect your learning?

It’s very strange, no one saw this coming and there was no plan in place. I feel like the arts are the least important to the government. Usually, I would have 8 hour days in uni and we could go in and out. Art is a very collaborative subject, we had to do a group activity by ourselves. The class sizes had to be so small too, there were only 4 people in mine, and teachers had to view our work online in order to carry out social distancing. We can’t do collaborative projects or help one another work, which was so different to GCSE and A-Level art. It was not what I expected when I imagined my first year at uni.

What inspires your art the most? Has the pandemic influenced any of your pieces?

In lower school, I did a lot of portraiture – my chosen artist was Frida Kahlo. I like her as a person and what her art stands for, she was an icon, obviously! When I did that project I was trying to make my work represent who I am as a person and my sexuality as a lesbian. I like fucking around. I like Junji Ito, that creepy kinda stuff and I’m influenced by a lot by cartoons I watch and Instagram artists I come across. I love Moomin too. I love cartoons, sometimes I draw shots from films or shows I like. As a lesbian, as someone not white, and not a man, I want to portray that through my art in some way, like Frida did. The pandemic has influenced the way I work -I have less access to materials and space which affects the outcome of my art. I feel like my work would be very different if we were not living under these circumstances.

Pynk Portrait

Do you think your uni (Leeds Beckett) is well equipped with dealing with teaching a creative, practical degree during this period?

Absolutely not, but I feel for a lot for arts unis at the moment because the government have provided no support. They don’t have the funding and the government giving a fuck about them to be well equipped enough. They’re doing their best with the guidance they’ve been given, but of course this has never happened before. It is much harder to teach art online because you need the studio space that you’re paying for. 

Is there anything more you think schools should be doing to provide a desirable learning experience?

Make Covid go away [laughs]. I don’t know, there’s not much they can do. Another group in my year was way bigger than ours, so I didn’t get to meet many people on my course till the end of the year when we started hanging out outside of class. It’s hard for the uni to arrange the meeting of each other safely. Hopefully there’ll be more measures in place next year to make up for what we missed this year. In an ideal world it would be nicer to be able to meet more people. At the beginning I only saw about four people on my whole course. 

Monochrome Ink Self-Portrait 

What do you think of the government’s handling of the pandemic towards university students?

Horrible, horrible, horrible! The arts have really suffered since its so collaborative. My girlfriend is a film student and she was only able to have one person on screen at a time, which obviously limits the creative vision. The government want to cut 50% of funding towards the arts, it’s awful. And those adverts they put out… they literally needed artists to be created. It’s so poor. And the government just blame students for anything. When clubs inevitably shut students will get the blame. They just see us as money and don’t reimburse us for lost time. In many uni accommodations, they would only reimburse students that didn’t come back to their accommodation after Christmas, despite many students not having a choice – its classist because only privileged students were able to be reimbursed, for many they have no choice but to stay in their uni accommodation. 

Where can we view your art?

I have an art Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr: @kaboolarts

Website:https://lilmissmay.wixsite.com/mayrothwell-1 

Amity from Owl House