Episode 70: Class of 2022 - Levi, MA English Literature

Episode 70 brings us to Levi, who talks taking art into a career, being part of a community, and going home

Multi Story Edinburgh brings you voices and experiences from the University of Edinburgh community.

In this season we talk to graduates from the Class of 2022. How are things going? What did they learn? What helped and are we back to normal yet? We also ask our guests to tell us where they go when they need to get away from it all and what do they do when things get a bit too much.

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All opinions expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Edinburgh.

Multi Story Edinburgh has been created and produced by the Alumni Relations team at the University of Edinburgh. If you are interested in telling your story, please get in touch and let's talk.

Music from freemusicarchive.org: Since When by Mise Darling and Gentle Chase by Podington Bear

Artwork: Vector created by upklyak / Freepik 

Transcript

[Theme music]  

Voiceover 00:13 

Welcome to Multi Story Edinburgh, bringing you voices and experiences from the University of Edinburgh community. 

Levi 00:25 

Yeah, so I'm Levi, my pronouns are he / they, I'm 22 and I studied English Literature. I'm in Edinburgh, I moved out of the flat that I stayed in during uni and into a different place in a different part of town, but I'm staying in Edinburgh. And at the moment, I'm kind of doing a bit of freelance type stuff, including running a small business that is putting a book out on Thursday, which is pretty exciting.  

Levi 00:56 

I've always done a lot of kind of illustration, and art and stuff. And that's always been something I sort of did on the side, like between my degree, within my degree, sometimes like drawing during lectures and things to make my brain pay attention. I had never really turned it into like a big comics thing until I met my partner, August, who is a writer, and writes comics and has been within comics as an industry for like ten years, like she writes comics criticism. And so, after we met, she kind of pitched this idea of this comic that she had to me. And I started making it, we started making it together. It's called 'When I dream, it feels like drowning'. It was a kind of haunted house horror, 12 pages, it was a big, like, definitely the biggest thing, like, that I'd worked on. I had a really great time doing it. And then we sort of, we started our kind of little press, it was basically us finishing the comic, and then deciding to get it printed and then being like, oh, man, we better like come up with something to call ourselves. This is like a business now, I guess a little. So that's Door Ajar Comics. And then we went to some conventions, started making some new work. People started buying it and saying nice things about it, which was very exciting. And then, as we were kind of working on the big next project, our second comic, which was over twice the length, it's called 'The beast in the woods' is sort of haunted forest, coming of age, fairy tale type story, I was also writing my dissertation at the time, and using any free time I had to apply to every grant, every funding opportunity, every small press funding thing that I could find, including the Creative Scotland Create Inclusion grant for sort of early career artists, particularly kind of underrepresented early career artists. So we pitched them this idea of doing a collection of Gothic stories inspired by like trans experiences, I was absolutely not expecting to be successful in that, because it was the first year we'd been doing anything at all, you know, we'd had friends who had kind of been successful with stuff like that, but they'd always been people who were like, super established in their own right, and like, we're just expanding and things like that. We did eventually get the email being like, we've got it and I was like, this is insane, I can't believe it. So what was initially going to be, you know, maybe a handful of zines, that we were going to, like, print out of our own pocket, turned into like a fully-fledged book, we commissioned guest artists to do spot illustrations within the book, like people who we've been fans of for a while as well, which was really exciting. We've like gone to like 10 different conventions in all different cities, with doing radio spots, and getting endorsements from other authors and artists that we're huge fans of and running these, like launch events and things and it's been mental to be doing it just the two of us. Like I get why there are whole businesses, of teams of people who do this, because it's so much work. It's kind of scary now that it's kind of coming to a head, but it's also kind of big, big moment.  

Levi 04:14 

Because I feel like grant applications is a lot like applying for a job or applying for a house or anything, where like with university type work, you know that if you kind of work your butt off, then there will be a level of success probably, like, you're more likely to have some kind of success, and there will be a benefit to it. Whereas you can spend like eight hours on a grant application and you might get an automated email in three months being like, “no sorry”. And so it can be quite demoralising to do, probably not as bad as applying for flats in Edinburgh at the moment but so-- so getting a grant, like having an organisation be like, “we think that you are worthy of this”, is not only validation of like your project and that your project is, and obviously, I don't think you necessarily need some, some random other person to decide that the art that you're doing is like worth existing, but like having someone else feel that what you're doing is not only important, but also like practical, like it's gonna work, enough to put money behind it, is the really brilliant thing to feel. But also just feeling like, very validating for the amount of work that you've spent trying to get funding. And I think when you do get a little like, “yes”, then it makes it makes it so much easier to then be like, “oh, well, then I'll apply for these other things. as well”. It was a big deal. It was very exciting. There was definitely lots of shouting and maybe some crying as well [laugh]. 

Levi 05:51 

I had this a little bit when I worked at the Book Festival, obviously there are a lot of like wildly famous authors around and there were a couple of times where I like got into conversations with people, and people were like, “how did you-- how?” And I was like, well, there's kind of no reason for me not like, I'll just chat to anyone kind of like going up to someone and being like, “could you do this thing for me?” For absolutely no benefit to you sometimes like, I feel like you want to be quite sensitive about that, and not kind of take advantage of anyone's time. But like, if you're going up to someone being like, “can I send you a copy of the book, my book that I've made with a bunch of like art and nice bits and pieces for you to like, say something nice about it”. Or if you'd like have a press, like have-- had a lovely interaction with someone where like, you've bought something of theirs, and they've bought something of yours. And then maybe you want to collaborate in the future and then be aware of what you can offer someone as well, I guess. Make sure that it's a sort of reciprocal thing rather than just you kind of asking someone to do stuff for you, I guess. 

Levi 07:04 

I think I've always had the idea of like wanting to do something arty. Throughout school, I was like selling art commissions on Etsy, that was something that I was kind of doing through like the first few years of my degree and stuff like that. So I think I always had a sense that that was something that I wanted to do. But obviously like, that's quite scary, or like it takes a lot of work. And it's very difficult to make that work in order to like, get it to the point where you can support yourself. I feel like there was a point in second or third year where I like, was talking to my partner about potentially moving to a different city to do a Master's. And she was like, “oh, well, if you wanted to do that, and then I would move with you”. And I remember just having that moment of like, “oh my goodness, I have like a thing that's going to go beyond university like I have like a commitment in my life that is not just going to be done at the end of this four years. Like I have another thing that will continue beyond that”. And I feel like that was a really kind of like, a big-- and again, it could-- it's not really a career thing, or it wasn't at that point, because we weren't doing any comics together at that point. I really think that before thenit was just kind of like, “whatever happens will happen”. Which maybe it's not the most practical. But anyway. 

Levi 08:17 

I feel like I've been quite lucky to have a bit of a varied support network and a support network that kind of goes outside of the university, because within my first first second year, it will have been, I got really, really involved with the Edinburgh drag scene like local drag scene. And like, I'm still very involved with the local drag scene. It's brilliant, and I love it to bits. And I can't--  I can't evangelise about it enough to people. It's not just people within the university who are doing a four year long degree or you know, however long of a degree you know, it's people from who have been settled here in work for years, people who their job is that they are a drag queen in Edinburgh who are settled here because of that, people who like go to different universities within Edinburgh. And so it's this whole network that exists completely outside the university. And I think that, from that, a lot of the people now who I'm closest to are people who I met through that. I think it made me feel so much more confident in finishing my degree knowing that I have a community of people that I'm a part of that are based in this city that that isn't contingent on the University and my-- me being a student. And obviously, like I have a lot of friends who were studying at the same time as I do, and they're all wonderful. And I'm really like grateful to have them within-- within that, you know, working together and going to the library together and stuff. So it's always very, very good. But I think that getting-- getting grounded in a city beyond just a degree that you know, it's going to finish, has made such a huge difference as to how confident I felt in graduating. 

[Theme music]  

Voiceover 10:05 

We also asked our guests to tell us where they go when they need to get away from it all. And what do they do when things get a bit too much? 

Levi 10:15 

I feel like I'm generally someone who's a bit like, revels in in the chaos a little bit, of having 20 million things going on at once and being a little fidgety. And I don't, but I think that I'm probably going home to be honest, like going to see like, stay with my parents. Go and see the dog, my brother and his girlfriend and my sister and my cousins, just being able to go home and have at least a little bit of like distance from all of the everything [laugh] that's happening. I feel like this is the funny thing with like ADHD, is that even stuff that's fun is still a task that is hard. So like, even the things that I do that I really enjoy, that I find like restful, are still like things that I have to fit in my schedule and motivate myself to do. So it's like a tricky, tricky one. But that and like, sitting on the sofa playing video games with my girlfriend for an entire like day is kind of the dream as well.

[Theme music]  

Voiceover 11:23 

Join us again soon for more voices from your Edinburgh community. 

[Theme music] 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai