Dare to doubt and keep going - Frances Yeoland
Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Host Radim Malinic interviews Frances Yeoland about the intersection of her dual identities as a commercial creative director and an abstract
Key takeaways
- Frances Yeoland uses fragments of language and poetry as the foundational emotional basis for her abstract paintings.
- Yeoland describes a period of keeping her commercial branding career and fine art practice strictly separate before eventually embracing their crossover.
Main topics
- Creative identity and duality
- Poetry as a catalyst for visual art
Notable quotes
Art galleries were my home.
Conclusion
The episode provides an inspiring look at how integrating different fa
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:08) It's like, where does anyone's art come from? But for me, as I said, it comes from an emotional place and it's usually with language. So I also write poetry and those sort of fragments of language become the basis for the piece. So I am very interested in the momentum of language. Something that has meaning that you can take out of that context and put it in a new context and it takes on new meaning. So usually it starts with the language and there's a lot of feeling in that writing and then I will make an artwork based on a line from one of those poems. And recently I've been exploring how you can create rhythm visually that parallels the rhythm of the language itself. Speaker 1 (0:57) Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that look us under and the strange, stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Rado Malinic. I'm an author, creative and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call Forever Daring Humans. Those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value, and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October. Speaker 1 (1:42) My guest today used to keep her two lives completely separate. Commercial creative director by day, artist by night, never letting Speaker 2 (1:49) the two Speaker 1 (1:50) touch. Frances Yorland is a Sydney-born, New York-based creative director and artist whose abstract paintings begin as poetry, fragments of language turned into colour and rhythm on the page. In this conversation, we talk about art galleries as home, the tension between making a living and making art, and why she resists the urge to retouch the past. brushstroke that stayed outside the lines. We get into living eulogies, sitting comfortably with ambiguity and why doubt never really has to leave the room. This is my conversation with Frances Yoland. Hey Frances, welcome to Daring Forever. It's great to have you here. How are you doing? Speaker 2 (2:30) I'm doing very well. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1 (2:33) The work that you do, the way you do it, and how you do it, and for the purpose that you do it, really fascinates me. And I use these interviews almost selfishly to find out more about people that I like their work and ask them questions I would like to ask them. So welcome to Daring Forever. If anyone heard of Frances Yoland, how would you introduce yourself? Speaker 2 (2:55) Well, I am a creative director. I'm based in New York. I've been doing it for about... 15 and something years, but I'm also an artist. I have a studio in Brooklyn where I do a range of different work, but some works on paper. And I think to describe myself is, it's a complicated question. I think that as creatives, we do many different things. We have many different skills, whether it's writing or design or photography. For me, it's across all of those different things. And I think there's real joy in that sort of mixture of all the different skills. Speaker 1 (3:33) You said creative director first and artist second. So if you tell someone in Brooklyn that you're a creative director, they'll ask you, so what sort of work do you do? Speaker 2 (3:43) Yeah, they usually say, well, what do you creative direct? Which I think is an interesting angle because creative director as a title applies to many different industries and it means something different. You could be a creative director of a fashion label. You could be a creative director of the ballet. But for me, it's working in branding, brand building and brand storytelling. So that encompasses campaign work, design systems and other kind of expressions or sort of brand challenges that we're trying to solve. Speaker 1 (4:12) Excellent. So how did you find yourself in a position of creative director in branding systems? What was the path to that position now? Speaker 2 (4:20) Yeah, it's a good question. It's a bit of a windy one, which I think. A lot of people have a different way to getting there. But I studied a Bachelor of Design in Sydney, Australia, which is where I'm from. And I didn't really know that graphic design existed. When I did that course, I wished that I was doing fine art, but I had some grown-ups in my life that recommended I do design so that I could get paid for my work. And I actually loved it. I think it was such a great place for me to understand my own skills. And it was a mixture of language and... delivering a message through visuals which was a really exciting combination for me. Speaker 1 (4:59) You're one of those people who didn't know that graphic design existed when they started in graphic design. I think that's the magical mix because everyone who didn't know graphic design existed discovered graphic design is still graphic designer today and I knew a bunch of students who were graphic designers and they're like none of them is graphic none of them are graphic designers today they work in insurance and music business and that kind of stuff. That's Speaker 2 (5:19) funny. Speaker 1 (5:20) It's one of those things but When you said people told me I should do graphic design over fine art so I get paid. I can understand that now from a neuroscientific perspective that people are looking out for our safety. It's not because they don't want to succeed. They're looking out for our safety. And that's the kind of way that we need to almost understand it. Because you say, oh, my parents didn't want me to do it. Maybe because of their perception. But actually, it's the fear of the unknown for them that they want to project onto us. What was your relationship with Fine Art at that point? Because it sounded like you wanted to do it, but graphic design was something that took charge. Speaker 2 (5:53) Yeah, I love that we're touching on this theme so early in the podcast because it's very prevalent in my work, this sort of tension between... needing to exist under capitalism and making art. I think for me, art has always been a real solace. It's always been a place to go for me to be able to survive different things, survive understanding myself. And no matter where you are in the world, you can go to a museum or a gallery and you can find a kind of home there and connect with other people through art. So it's always been that place for me. And my parents were not particularly interested in visual art. But I think being in Sydney, I had access to different museums that I would go to as a teenager. And that has been something that I've continued to do throughout my life in a pretty voracious way, I would say. Speaker 1 (6:42) I think you may have said the most succinct way of describing an artist's feel or artist's life by saying art galleries were my home. This is a place where you can always find your home. I never thought of it that way. Maybe I was hoping that sort of existed to someone and you just said that because you mentioned about tension when it comes to money and making careers. When you said art is your solace and when you said artists are solace and art galleries are your home, I was like, oh. You don't have to tell me that you're an artist because you just told me you're an artist before necessarily telling me you're an artist, if that still makes sense. Because it's a beautifully put together. I'm joining these dots together. Like, do you remember the feeling when art entered your life? And you're like, oh, this connects with me. Speaker 2 (7:27) Yeah, I think Australia is such a fascinating place. And there's a bunch of different amazing art being made there. But it is essentially quite a new country. I mean, not the indigenous cultures that have been there for many, many years. was colonized fairly recently. And I think it became at that point, this sort of a Western outpost in Asia. And so its geographic position allows these amazing influences to come in. And, but there's also this very strong connection in terms of aesthetics and visuals to Europe and America. And Speaker 1 (8:01) I Speaker 2 (8:02) find that really fascinating. And I think I was trying to understand that as a teenager, and I still don't totally understand it. It's complex, but I think. It was something that I had access to through an art class at school. You know, I was lucky enough to have an amazing art teacher that exposed me to lots of different artists, including Yayo Kusama, who just died very sadly. So I think that was a lifeline for me at that point. I'm also a queer woman and I was understanding that in quite a conservative upbringing and trying to navigate that. And art became this place that told different stories for me. allowed me to access different ways of living. And I think that was super powerful for me at that point in my life. Speaker 1 (8:44) You said art told stories to you. How did you connect with it? Because storytelling is, I think, one of the hardest things to really crack to actually get it across in art itself. Because when you said, and I've realized I'm not an artist, when you said galleries are my home or museums are my home, I was like, I like those places, but they're not my home. I'm not an artist. I'm a creator. I'm a designer. My home is in bookstores, actually. Speaker 1 (9:12) It's very much bookstores. I'm an author. I'm becoming more of an author than I'm becoming a creative. And that's my home. That's where I remember when I moved to England 26 years ago, walked into a place called Waterstones. And I'm like, oh my God, tell me when you close it because I'll be here for a while. It just was the place which showed me the way of what I can become. But I have as a creative, as a designer, as a CD myself, I've been learning how to tell stories through visual storytelling. for a very long time because it can feel quite confusing to really understand the formula of what you're trying to say. What are the nuances of storytelling when it comes to art? It's such, to me, like a place where I can only work on a feeling. Sometimes I find it hard to decipher the story. But how was it for you that, as you said, as a queer woman, obviously there was a different perspective to put it together. Speaker 2 (9:59) Yeah, I don't have an answer for how to tell a good story, I think. all art and even the commercial work that we do is just an attempt at cracking an understanding of things. And you can try to do it in many different ways. I think sometimes when you try to appeal to too many people and have too broad of a story, you connect with no one. So it's better to use a singular voice and a singular story to provide an example for people to connect to. So you can do it in lots of different ways and it can be feeling or rhythm. It can be music. It can be an energy. It doesn't have to be language, though I do love language. And I think that's what we're all trying to do is figure out a way to tell a story. And sometimes it's a corporate brand story and sometimes it's a personal story or sometimes it's both. And I think that is fun. It's interesting to me that you distinguish between art and books. Galleries and bookstores is different because I would think of that as books are art, both visual and... Speaker 2 (11:02) linguistically. Speaker 1 (11:03) I distinguish between them for my feeling because I can go to a gallery and appreciate the art but I can quite happily crack on and just to me it's not a place of ponder it's not a destination for me it's a attempt as you use the word attempt with storytelling for me it's an attempt to understand what it is but I get more feeling from the tactile world so of course I'm not discounting one or the other but for me like for example when you said galleries are my home. It's like, oh yeah, my home is in bookstores. This is where I really can spend a lot of time and feel like the time slows down and you can just disappear from the world for a bit. And I think everyone's got their little bit and everyone's got their something that they connect with. Some people go to football, some people go somewhere else. Speaker 2 (11:47) And what a gift that is. This is offered to us as humans, these different experiences through art and books and bookstores and sport, which... Less for me, but I do understand the power of that for other people. I think we're lucky to have those different ways of finding connection and finding peace in the world, especially now. Speaker 1 (12:06) Absolutely. Let's go back to the teenager who's discovered graphic design and living in Sydney, who doubles in art. Where does graphic design take you next? Speaker 2 (12:15) Well, I went to London actually right after I graduated and I was working at a sports management agency doing graphic design for protein powders, which if you know me, that's quite different from my lifestyle now. But I think it was an amazing time for me. I was there for under a year. It was very short, but I had no money. I worked in retail on the weekends and was earning barely anything. And Speaker 1 (12:42) I Speaker 2 (12:42) think. I had to fill my time and that's when I started drawing. That's when I started doing collage. I also learned to cook during that time. I had to make my food stretch out over the week. And so I was learning about flavors and how to make things tasty. And as they say, necessity is the mother of all invention. But I do think that was a big turning point for me in terms of using art as something to do and to understand what I was going through at that moment. And after that, I moved back to Australia and was working in publishing. I worked for a beautiful independent publishing house called InDesign Media, not related to Adobe InDesign, but it was three different titles that were all about architecture and design in Asia Pacific. So we were dealing with these gorgeous images of beautiful houses in that area and beautiful furniture design. And it was a pretty rigorous training in graphic design, understanding how to use a grid and preparing things for print. And it was a really wonderful place for me to learn really technical skills, but also about editorial and understanding photo shoots and art direction and how to combine that with the actual design itself. Speaker 1 (13:52) It sounded like a fantastic learning of a creative director who works in brand storytelling. Wait a minute. So you were in London, protein powder packaging, not making beans and toast stretch far. Lentils. And working in lentils. Now, of course, beans and toast is the classic joke, isn't it? How come London? All of a sudden, obviously, we're in Sydney now, we're in London and we're back in Australia. So what was the draw? Like, how come? Was it spur of the moment? Was it connection? How did you get to London that way? Speaker 2 (14:19) Yeah, it's a great question. I think it seems pretty obvious for Australians. I think, as I was saying before, The Australian perception is very much about the Western world and there's always this drive to leave Australia and go and study your work in the UK or the US and then take that knowledge back to Australia. But in terms of my family upbringing, my mum was one of five children and they grew up in Glasgow and they all left Glasgow and moved to different parts of the world. My mum to Tasmania in Australia, which... in hindsight, was a crazy choice. And London, I have cousins in Prague. I have an uncle in Hong Kong. My aunt married an Italian and lives in Florence. And I lived there for a year as well. So my family is very spread out. So this notion of moving overseas