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In contrast to modern life’s often frenetic pace, Sonia Jackson takes a measured approach to creating art. ‘In an ever more digital world, I’m really drawn to the idea of slow art, taking time, working with physical materials and making pieces that feel considered and human,’ she explains.
A love of Lego and drawing as a child was to give her the creative building blocks later in life to become an artist. ‘Lego was one of my favourite toys, I loved making my own creations, I think I have always been a little bit creative.’
After taking a BTEC foundation course in art at Peterborough College, the 46-year-old studied graphic design at the University of Derby. However, rather than follow a design-led career, Sonia instead went down the route of marketing. After working in the marine industry, she now has a job in the charity sector working for Tools For Self-Reliance based at Netley Marsh, balancing this with her lino printing.
‘I’m currently a marketing and development manager. It’s a small international development charity, doing big things! It supports vocational training projects in Africa, helping people build sustainable livelihoods. We take in donated tools and haberdashery items, refurbish them and ship them out to support the trainees; we also have an on-site shop selling tools, crafts and fabrics.’
Sonia turned her attention back to her art in 2020, rediscovering lino cut during lockdown. Beginning with sea life and coastal subjects, these were soon combined with food themes. Before long friends were requesting designs and then one suggested she sell some of her work.
‘One of my passions is food and drink, so I created the Mermaid gin bottle, a crossover with the nautical theme. The bowl of noodles was for a food writer, Sean St John, who asked me to illustrate an eBook called A Guide to Beijing’s Food & Restaurants. I did about eight different prints for this publication.
‘You can find him on Instagram (@teaorangeschina) he produces beautiful photography as well as the food writing. I was really drawn to his work. We’d been following each other on Instagram for a while, and he messaged to see if I would be interested in illustrating his guide with lino prints, I loved the idea.’
A print featuring a packet of gram flour was inspired by her heritage, her parents came over from Kenya, and she uses the flour a lot in her cooking. ‘I love cookbooks but can’t follow a recipe to save my life,’ she says. ‘I’m vegetarian, but I cook pretty much anything. My favourite dish is bhajiyas. It’s thinly sliced potatoes in a mix of gram flour and water. I add a bit of garlic, spices and coriander, it’s quite thinly coated and then you fry it. It’s so good!’
Her kitchen where she lives in Ocean Village, Southampton, doubles as a studio and Sonia often finds her work taking over the kitchen table. Luckily her husband Stuart is understanding. ‘It’s a slightly unconventional setup, but it’s very much part of how I work – fitting printmaking around everyday life including my job, views of the marina, cooking and a love of creating slowly and by hand.’
An interest in history has seen her add Anne Boleyn to her portfolio. ‘I love history, visiting historical buildings that have so many stories to tell. My love for the Tudors began in my hometown of Peterborough, where I often visited the cathedral. It’s where Catherine of Aragon is buried and as a child, I used to pop in whenever I was passing by. Anne Boleyn became my favourite Tudor figure; I think she has been hugely misrepresented through history.’
Creating the lino cuts allows Sonia to immerse herself in her craft. She experiments with ideas through sketches with the final piece traced and the design transferred onto the lino. ‘You never know what it’s going be like; sometimes it’s better than what you imagine and sometimes when the print is revealed, it just hasn’t worked; then I just park it. The process includes lots of test prints and I will often carve a bit more.’
Sonia finds she is continually learning, practising with new tools and experimenting with different colour palettes, working with a water-based lino ink. ‘I love mixing new colours and seeing what they will look like. I might sell something in blue, but if someone has a different colour they prefer, I am happy to print it and not charge. There’s a lot of back and forth, but it’s just the process. I quite like the unknown of what it’s going to look like at the end. When it is revealed and you’re happy with it, it’s just such a lovely feeling and you just hope that other people will like it too.’
She finds the experience cathartic, a way of switching off and also describes it as an antidote to scrolling on a phone. ‘Spending time online or doom-scrolling, you don’t realise how long you’re doing it. Before you know it, you’ve been on Instagram for an hour and you think of all these wonderful things that you could be doing.’
While Sonia likes the routine of taking time to create art, there’s a growing movement that is encouraging people to take time when looking at it. Each year in April, people around the world are encouraged to visit their local museums and galleries to look at art in a more mindful way for Slow Art Day. The simple idea is that when you slow down and spend more time with an artwork, it will often reveal more details and emotion that can often be missed from a glance.
For her next project, she will be mixing her love of history with her love of the sea, inspired by a diver who carried out repairs to the foundations of a cathedral to stop it from sinking. ‘I was in Winchester last week and we were having a drink in The William Walker pub. William Walker was a diver that basically saved Winchester Cathedral. The story inspired me.’
When not creating prints, Sonia loves to travel; for her honeymoon she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. ‘It was incredible and I was lucky to get to the top, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We also like walking and are really lucky to live not too far from the New Forest and visit the area around Netley Abbey and Lymington.’
Sonia still loves the elation of selling a piece of work. ‘The first piece I sold was a starfish and I remember being so happy,’ she says. ‘Even now when I sell a print, I get that buzz that someone loves my work.’.
sundownerstudio.co.uk
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