INTERVIEW #79 IAN BERRY
Name: Ian Berry
Based in: East London
Occupation: Artist using jeans as his medium
Get inspired by: The fading fabric or urban contemporary life
Instagram: @ianberry.art
Why we love him: A true change maker! Never have we ever seen such wonderful creations made out of denim? It’s amazing. We’ve already booked ourselves a visit to Borås and Textilmuseet to see Ian’s exhibition and we honestly can’t wait. Go see it before May 1st 2022. And, if you have some old jeans and scraps of denim laying around, Ian would be more than happy to use it as material for his upcoming works. You can bring it to Textilmuseet and leave it there. Let Ian turn your non-usable denim into art!
Tell us about yourself and your life as a textile artist?
First when I started I don't think I even really knew what a textile artist was, and the whole big community and great work that comes with it. I was really into street art and it was that that got me back into creating art in the early 2000's. I don't know if I consider myself a textile artist, I just say artist, and I straddle many worlds, including textile. It's my medium, but I don't really have skills as one like stitching, crocheting or quilting.
I grew up in Huddersfield in the north of England, it played a very central role in the industrial revolution and especially with textiles and engineering. But it was wool, not cotton, so I always feel a bit of a fraud with the denim. Perhaps the post industrial decline influenced me. Seeing the town decline due to the industries going to foreign lands, however, much smaller innovative companies lead the world in sustainable technologies.
I have been working with denim for over 15 years, and have shown my work around the world in galleries, museums and art fairs - I've lived in Australia, Sweden, Amsterdam and now my studio is in East London, in Poplar.
What’s your relationship with clothes?
It's a good question. Many people expect me to be totally into fashion. I never was, and would choose clothes I felt good in rather than knowing the label on it or if it was on trend. Now I come across a lot more naturally, and within denim know a lot more. I probably know and think about what to wear now more than I did before. I can be around some serious fashion or denim people and I look back at errors of the past, especially around the Raw Denim folks! In some ways I now know too much, it can take some enjoyment out of it, ignorance may be bliss but it's still ignorant and there are too many brands out there now I would be ashamed to be seen in. Mainly on sustainability and ethical reasons.
I'm from the north of England, and let's say we're known to be a bit more thrifty. Since becoming an artist though I have grown to appreciate other hand made and special things and that goes from fashion to cuisine so I don't mind paying more for something I know that was made by hand within a studio in the UK or say there in Sweden and supporting small business or good designers. I think people have a totally warped view of the cost of things... let’s not forget mass produced fashion from the very early days always relied on slavery or sweat shop conditions, so the starting point left a lot to try and claw back from. So if I feel like I like the person I am buying from a small studio and knowing it is made well, and can last me a lifetime then I think it is a good buy; buy well, buy less.
How would you describe your closet?
Blue.
Denim.
Workwear.
I've been known to rock the triple denim look. But have got more into the rugged workwear wardrobe.
What do you think about the fashion industry in general?
Honestly. It seems like a lot of the emperor's new clothes, with some amazing things glossing over the mundane. Yes there are creative and skilled people but many, and many I come across I don't understand how they are in any job and should be grateful of where they were born. It seems many in the west are designing on a computer now with no idea how to make a garment, never mind being able to do it themselves. Looking at trend guides and Pinterest and regurgitating and copying. Creativity is an overblown word but in this industry away from the top, it leaves a lot to be desired. Like all industries there are different sides to it. I used to work in advertising and I think it can be similar, you remember the great ads, but a lot of it is just noise and meh.
There's so many people and so many sectors within the fashion industry I can't make sweeping statements on all of it, I know. Do I trust it as a whole? Hell no! Do I trust some people who are making such innovations with sustainable technologies yes, but then the mass is still made behind closed doors around the world. Sometimes in factories behind 'show' factories and I have been told many of the lies by the people telling them, which is odd isn't it? Or how they have bent the truth. I'm no expert though, I just haven't really ever used the word sustainable around my work as, well, one, I don't think it is enough to call it so, but, two, it's such a tainted word for me. It means so little. It feels quite empty and no substance, everything is sustainable now. But is it really? Look I know many people are doing well and making an effort and that is to be celebrated, but I'm just tired of those that have greenwashed the way though. Yes.. many of you denim people.. I'm looking at you.
Was there a pivotal moment when you decided to follow your path as an artist?
Yes! I got fired. OK, officially made redundant. I was working out in Australia and making the art on the side, I didn't have the guts to go full time, or to say, I quit. I really didn't like that job. I got sick after coming back from Fiji and was then 'released'. I celebrated on the street that day knowing it was the best turning point of my life. The next day I realised I had 30 days to leave Australia. But I dedicated the next year to making a collection and then showed in a new gallery and I've not had a day off since! This was all during the financial crisis time too, so it's mad even now that it was a success to think I was going to quit and become an artist. I dread to think that had I not had that decision made for me, I may still have been doing that job or similar. I know a lot of people lost their jobs during COVID which is of course terrible but i tell people especially creative people that now is the time to do the next thing and make the change.
Tell us about the process of making your work of art?
It can be quite simple. It's me, my hands, scissors, glue. And of course jeans, only jeans and denim, no paint, no dye, no bleach. I cut up the jeans and layer them, sometimes they are 15 layers thick so quite three dimensional. I work from photography, my own, so the process can start then. I love to play with light, how to depict a shiny surface, water, reflections in what is seen as a matt material. I try to make denim shine.
Why Denim?
15 years ago it was because I thought it was cool, and would be fun to do, and happened after just a simple observation of seeing the pile of jeans with all the shades.
Soon after I realised my own connection to denim and the memories of wearing it, especially the ones in that pile, then when people started to see I saw their connection, there was something engaging with it. I started to love the history. Believe it or not I was starting to think of doing a different Uni degree, on climate change. I was really good at Geography at school and I also became interested in this, 15 years ago, soon Al Gore was to make Inconvenient Truth. It was a different time. 'Sustainable' in fashion wasn't the buzz word and the high street was full of high street fast fashion brands, and the out of town retail parks full of products that didn't care what they used. Interestingly two of the main companies in either had a blue and yellow flag. So, while I was so interested in this, when making my work out of recycled jeans then I didn't even really connect the two. Why? It would be BS to try and say look I'm changing the world by recycling one percent of one percent of jeans in the world. I'm ok with others being inspired to recycle from it, or to be spoken about in this context, but in no way do I think I'm doing enough to say, I'm a sustainability artist. I'd be embarrassed to try and use it in marketing. Now I turn down a denim brand every other day wanting to use me in their sustainability marketing.
Why?
As said I don't think I've done enough to make a difference so not going to jump on a bandwagon. The work may be recycled, but my themes and concepts have not focused on it - much of the work is just used as my medium, not the message. Perhaps when I do, I will.
Where do you source the material from?
First it was my old jeans, then my friends, their friends and neighbours, then it was charity shops and second hand shops.. when I was there in Sweden, loppis was good, in fact Swedes were great at bringing me their old jeans, much better than here in the UK. Now I get it from brands and mills too as well as people sending from all over the world. Yes, sometimes I open the studio door and there may be a bag outside. Many come from brands or mills that were samples, back in the day, not too long ago, they would be sent to landfill. They are damaged and not fit to wear but by getting many similar pairs it is like having a big pot of paint, rather than a small tube.
What's the story behind the famous #IClapFor animation?
An accident.
In hindsight too it seems crazy and our world horrible politics tainted, especially the UK's. I know there in Sweden it hit before the UK, where people said we don't want the clap we want money. In the UK the goodwill lasted several weeks however where people clapped for the care workers. The people did. The people choose. My son was really taken by it and would look forward to Thursday; when he saw NHS workers he saw them as superheros. Again, another thing people now do not like.
But then it was this feeling of goodwill and we were able to talk to him about what was going on, and who the clap was for and about family members and friends on the front line. I was happy he could look up to these people, I mean, I'd prefer that to the people celebrated in life today.
He drew a rainbow and sent it to my mum, but he wanted to make more art so he asked about making a clapping hand. But to really show clapping you need the action. So we made two, and animated them. I had no intention of 'showing the world' so it was going to be sent via Whatsapp to friends and family. One night he was watching a Disney show on the projector and when it was finished he asked about putting the clapping hands on there, the next minute we beamed it out of the balcony.
An idea was born. In London I live in a factory conversation and the roof could be seen from miles around. I got to the roof via a friend's place and the projector wasn't quite strong enough so I looked into it, and it led to a guy in Newcastle, UK, called Andrew Hall who dealt with projectors. I was looking to rent one to light the night sky in London like a batman beam but eventually I told him what I wanted to do, and he loved it and offered to do it in Newcastle, and then through his network, then mine, we got it all around the UK and then around the world. It was incredible and crazy, waking up to new photos and videos.
It was sober, quiet in the night sky, on the lonely empty streets for the people working late at night. But soon the negativity around the clap became a lot, and it was the media that made it all a bit sickly and too much. Politics crept in, it went from images of kids on cul de sacs with drawings clapping to films of Boris first, then Keir Starmer the leader of the opposition clapping. This isn't what it was about. It poisoned it. I was tense as it was something I did with my seven year old son, by this time too other artists were sending in their clapping hands in their style. I wont say my own project got any flack but I wanted to protect it. While a lot of projections went on and it went out of my control I stopped sharing them and talking about it.
I'd raised about $10,000 but it was more so extended that good will and thanks to those that were helping. The media made the whole thing too much, and now it went from that to.. nothing. Heading into the winter when things will get worse, will someone let a health worker in front of them in the line, are the shops giving them a discount? No. It's not popular and beneficial anymore to do so.
I hope one day in the future I can look back and be happy with what was achieved with it.
What's your greatest indulgence in life and where do you find inspiration?
I'm an artist. So probably myself. My own thoughts, self hate, spending time on my work. Inspiration comes from all around - but one of them is i love urban environments, denim was a rural material but now i see it as urban. I love the layers in cities, and the changing fabric of them. It is that that inspires me and evolving communities.
What's next and where can people see your art?
Well hopefully many of your readers are in Sweden, so at the National Textile Museum, Textil Museet in Borås and more good news, they have until May 1 to see. And the work is nothing unless seen in real life. 'Material World' is one of my largest shows to date. Watch out on www.ianberry.art for where I will be next year.
