We recently connected with Elise Hurst and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Elise, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
‘The Storyteller’s Handbook” is a book full of creative narrative illustrations that we have just released into the world. Although I have been working on images like this for over a decade, and have found a wonderful following for them online and through markets and exhibitions, it is the first time I have been able to merge them with my publishing career. This is such a different and interactive way of storytelling that really gets to the heart of what I love most about illustration – the way people put a part of themselves into what they read.
Elise, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m an Australian illustrator, artist and writer. My work is very old-fashioned – I use fine pen and ink, watercolour and paint some books as oil paintings. I began as a fine artist first, finding my way into illustration by accident and then realising that what I really love is to tell stories with my art. For a long time, I had two different parts to my career. There was the publishing side where I wrote and illustrated traditional picture books. And then there was my other art – paintings and drawings that were like a tiny fragment of story all by themselves. The more I created these other works, and them more I showed them to people (selling them at art markets, exhibitions, online and through card companies) the more I realised that people engaged with this work incredibly strongly and seemed compelled to spontaneously tell me the stories they saw. So strong was the response, especially from adults, that I gradually made my picture books more universal. Art is such a strong way to engage in storytelling – why should is only be for children?
A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to fully illustrate the novel ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ by Neil Gaiman (Headline). This was a wonderful fusion of illustration with adult storytelling. I created more than 100 images for it, seeking to make it an immersive reading experience. He has now written a beautiful fable introduction to my new book ‘The Storyteller’s Handbook’. This book, thanks to the publisher Compendium, brings everything together and shows us that there are many ways to find your way into stories.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
There is sometimes a strange perception that art is a gift, a skill that you are born with, or not. While genetics probably play a role as to how physically suited you are to doing something – the skill is something you learn the hard way, like everyone else. What I think really is a gift, is the drive to do it, and the obsession to think about it enough that you can work through problems and continue to grow.
That journey is a hard one. You don’t really know where you are going, nor how to get there. In reality, there is no destination at all. There is just the doing. Once you understand that, it really helps because you realise that you had better find joy in the journey itself, and find meaningful moments and projects that will help you feel you are moving forward. People also sometimes don’t understand that time to experiment and play is just as important as completing the projects that earn you money. That experimentation, and a place where it is safe to make mistakes, is where you will make strides forward, discovering what you love, new areas to explore and developing a style that makes you unique.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Twins. Before I fell pregnant I had been working for 13 years without a break. I had rolling deadlines with overlapping projects that often had me working every day of the year, with a different project in the evenings so I could feel like I was taking a break. Illustration doesn’t always.
pay well when you think of how long it takes, and most people have more than one job to support it. I got to a point where I didn’t say no to any illustration job and so the years passed in a blur of work.
Then I found I was having twins. My life went from everything being about work, to a complete stop. And as I slowly began to claw back a little time to think, I realised that I couldn’t go back to how I was doing things. Couldn’t and shouldn’t. So I made a decision. It was going to be so hard to find time to work, so the work had to be worth doing. That was momentous. It changed everything. I stopped taking jobs that were not going to do anything but pay the rent. I invested more time in developing solid ideas and putting my best work into them. It was hard financially at first, but it was an investment in my future that I had neglected. I grew as an artist. I grew as a writer. I connected better with my work and understood better what I wanted to be doing. My goals shifted and I was able to make choices that would take me toward them, rather than floundering in a tight circle.
Part of that decision was to realise that I should make decisions based on what gave me joy, too. I would always need to temper that with how to make a living, but I wanted to make a future using what made me unique. There is a lot of repetition in the world and it seemed like the best chance I had was to forge my own path, honouring my own voice and ideas.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elisehurst.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elise.hurst/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EliseHurstArtistIllustrator/
- Twitter: @elise_hurst_art
- Other: www.thestorytellershandbook.com This is a whole website devoted to the book, filled with resources to promote creativity and spark storytelling.