Makers Mixtapes - Marion Elliot
Marion has worked with paper for many years. After a Fine Art and Ceramics degree, she began to make large-scale papier-mache platters and urns that she sold through a variety of outlets including Liberty in London and Bergdorf Goodman in New York.
At the same time, she designed and wrote more than 25 craft books with an emphasis on papier-mache, and paper engineering. She recently produced two books with Joe Pearson, publisher at Design For Today. She worked extensively as a stylist and art director for books and magazines and now teaches on the Illustration BA course at Hereford College of Art. She also works at her local 6th form collegeas the Art Tech.
Fun Facts about Marion
I love rabbits and we had a pair until very recently. The last one, Maggie, died on Christmas Eve aged 11. They lived in their own purpose-built shed with curtains.
We’ve always had cats. Our latest one BlackCat turned up about five years ago and decided to stay.
I enjoy Kung-fu films and I used to watch a lot of Sumo wrestling.
I love watching old episodes of The Sweeney, and vintage British and French films and spy thrillers such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
I love 1930s-1940s clothes and workwear.
I am a big fan of soul music, so a lot of my playlists are 60s/70s soul.
I have a large collection of vintage craft books that I’ve found over the years.
“I’ve always loved music and it has always been a big part of my life. When I was growing up I used to write down my Top Ten all the time, it changed every day, and I’m still making playlists now, I’ve got loads! I have an eclectic taste and I really like discovering new stuff, my daughter has great taste so she shares music with me. The playlist I’m sharing is one that I listen to when I’m working. It’s a mixture of lounge music, plus film scores from the 60s and 70s, plus the odd chanson.”
Words by Marion Elliot
My Early Life
I was born in Bath in the United Kingdom and spent my early years living in Wiltshire. My Dad was in the RAF, so we lived on and off airbases until he left the Air Force and my parents started a bookshop. We were lucky enough to live near chalk hill figures like the Uffington White Horse and ancient monuments like Silbury Hill and Avebury. We visited these all the time and they still inspire me now.
Growing up, we didn’t have a television but we read a lot and I always had a book on the go. I think this fostered my imagination because I was so wrapped up in stories and narratives and could see the action vividly in my head whilst I was reading. I was (and still am) a great daydreamer and I have always loved observing people and imagining what their lives are like, so I suppose creating stuff grew out of living in my own world as a child. My parents didn’t really care about academic achievement but were very keen that we should be as creative as possible.
My Mum is very creative and eventually became a printmaker. When we were children she encouraged us to draw and paint and taught us how to sew. We made lots of fabric pictures! When I was about five, I made myself a skirt (mostly pinned together) and refused to go to school unless I could wear it. I was very strong-minded - even then - about my view of the world! One of my earliest memories is of going to Jolly’s department store in Bath to buy fabric to make clothes for my toys. I chose some really psychedelic striped seersucker and made my teddy bear a dressing gown and a red felt fez!
“The thing I think I’ve learned throughout my life is that you should have the confidence to plough on with your own particular vision, no matter what.
Observing the world around you and making sense of it visually is a very subjective thing and if no one else shares your vision it doesn’t matter. It takes a very long time, a lifetime in fact, to refine your sensibilities and learn ways of communicating them, so accept that you’re in it for the long haul and just keep going! ”
Later on in life
I’ve never wanted to do anything else except make things, and so the challenge has been to keep it going whilst earning a living! I wrote design books and did styling and art direction as well as making my own work before I had my daughter. I also started teaching part-time when she was little and so I’ve been lucky enough to have a really wide range of enjoyable work, alongside my own practice.
I’d say my creative style is eclectic, pretty much anything can inspire me, but mostly I have a great love of folk and vernacular/popular art. I love shop fronts, fairgrounds, hand-painted signage, advertising imagery and typography, tattoos, workers guild banners, mottos, religious iconography and paper ephemera. I have a particular soft spot for commemorative mugs too.
I always have an idea of what each piece of work will be about but I don’t really plan the design much before I begin. I cut everything freehand, I never draw anything out before I start cutting the paper, so I suppose my favourite thing is piecing the elements together in a way that satisfies me. I like everything to be flat, I never bother with perspective or foreshortening or anything like that. I really enjoy creating patterned and textured papers to use in my collage, a lot of them start life as offcuts from printmaking and I integrate them into my designs. I absolutely love cutting shapes out of paper with tiny scissors, so satisfying to cut out a hand, for example!
The thing I think I’ve learned throughout my life is that you should have the confidence to plough on with your own particular vision, no matter what. Observing the world around you and making sense of it visually is a very subjective thing and if no one else shares your vision it doesn’t matter. It takes a very long time, a lifetime in fact, to refine your sensibilities and learn ways of communicating them, so accept that you’re in it for the long haul and just keep going!
When I’m not creating, I like to visit car boot fairs, flea markets and charity shops, I’m
completely addicted! My partner Neil and I have many, many collections, hundreds
of books, LPs, fabric, china etc, we probably need to open a museum…
You can find out more about Marion Elliot and her work on Instagram or check out her Etsy shop.
And in case you missed out on our other FAIRE playlists - we created ‘The end and the beginning’, slowdown sounds to mark both an end and a new beginning.
“To be true to myself, to be the person that was on the inside of me, and not play games. That’s what I’m trying to do mostly in the whole world, is to not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else.”
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