Episode 167 | Brianna Tosswill

Published November 22, 2022

Transcript

Miranda Metcalf  00:21

Hi, Brianna. How's it going?

Brianna Tosswill  01:54

It's going great! How are you doing?

Miranda Metcalf  01:56

I'm good. Thank you so much for braving technical difficulties and timezones to be with me here today.

Brianna Tosswill  02:06

Yes, when I was emailing you yesterday, and I was like, we have a meeting tomorrow - I was like, 'I don't even want to say tomorrow morning. I know it's my 11am. I have no idea what time it is for you.' - We have a meeting tomorrow. I'm sure you have it in your calendar.

Miranda Metcalf  02:18

Yeah! We're gonna have a meeting! It'll be fine! Yeah, it's always a little bit complicated. And this, honestly, this recording session has been just totally crazy for me, because I'm doing it on the heels of basically camping for 10 days. And so I got back, and I had no idea what day it was. I was just completely in off-grid mode. And so there are many email correspondences with people in this recording session of me being like, 'Tomorrow - not tomorrow. I'm sorry, Saturday. It's Saturday. But can we do it at 11? But not 11 your time - 11 my time -' It's been a little bit of chaos dust already. So we're all in good company.

Brianna Tosswill  02:56

Amazing. I think that we're all very understanding about each other. So that's good. A good place to start.

Miranda Metcalf  03:01

Yeah, and the post-COVID, in-COVID world of Zoom, it's just... yeah, we're all there. We're all there. I was really happy that you reached out to me and introduced yourself via email, because I think I'd known you and Penrose Press just in a vague internet sort of way.

Brianna Tosswill  03:03

That's kind of amazing.

Miranda Metcalf  03:08

Yeah! The vague printmaking internet universe, where things flow in and out of the boundaries of your consciousness. And so it was really great to get the invitation to look more at your work and speak with you in person - or... in real time. So before we get into things, would you just introduce yourself and let people know who you are, where you are, what you do?

Brianna Tosswill  03:55

Sure thing. Hi, I'm Brianna Tosswill, and my internet presence is Penrose Press. It's, I guess you would call it my imprint, or my business name. So I am both Brianna Tosswill and Penrose Press, and Penrose Press is not anybody else. It's just me. So that can be confusing sometimes. And I'm based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I am a linocut artist, bookbinder, letterpress artist, printmaker.

Miranda Metcalf  04:29

Yeah, I feel like you're in a grand tradition of single print people naming themselves a press. Because it's actually - I think I was talking to, maybe, someone I'm going to be talking to a little later on in this session, Bill Fick - and I think he was talking about the first time he realized that he could just name himself a press, and then apply for things that are only open to publishers, or only open to collaborators in some way. And it's a kind of printmaking jiujitsu, I feel like, to be able to open yourself up to more opportunities and that kind of thing.

Brianna Tosswill  05:06

Yes. Well, when I first started using Penrose Press, I literally was making books with a team of people. And then, slowly, that's dropped off. And I'm still Penrose Press. Penrose Press was always me. So I keep it.

Miranda Metcalf  05:20

Definitely. And so you're in Edmonton now, but where did you grow up? And what role did art play in that part of your life?

Brianna Tosswill  05:29

I grew up in St. Thomas, Ontario, which is a smallish city of 30,000. And I'm in the category of 'I was always an artsy type.' And always... I had a very robust sketchbook practice from a very young age. I would draw all of my friends, I was a portrait artist, and I would make people sit down while I drew them. And one of the things that would often happen in that scenario, and you can sort of tell what my social circle was [like], my friends would say, 'Okay, you can draw me. I'll sit still for you for 10 minutes. But can I read my book while you do it?' And that'll come into play a little bit later. But also, at the same time, when adults in my life would ask me, 'Are you going to be an artist when you grew up?' I would be like, 'No. That's impractical. That's not a career. I am going to be something prestigious that matches my academic achievements.' I was really sad that I didn't have any aptitude. I really wanted to be a woman in STEM, for feminism. But that wasn't really where any of my interests lay. And then, again, all through high school, art was really important. I did a lot of it, and I was getting ready to apply for university. I was going to be a criminal Crown Attorney. That was my path. I had decided I was gonna study political science. And I was getting ready to apply for school. And I was sitting in a room with my mom, again, staring at a computer, and I just broke down. I was like, 'I can't do this!' I can't be a lawyer. I am way too emotional. I am way too invested in everything - anybody who's in a room with me, I'm 110% invested with them. So I just don't think that I have the emotional discipline or distancing required to put myself in that kind of position. And - not that I really know what being a lawyer is like.

Miranda Metcalf  07:30

And if you were working on the Crown side, you'd be a prosecutor, is that correct?

Brianna Tosswill  07:36

Yes.

Miranda Metcalf  07:36

Yeah. So that would even be, I feel like - I mean, again, never been a lawyer. I have watched a lot of true crime documentaries, though, so I think I know a thing or two. But it looks like that would be almost the most kind of...

Brianna Tosswill  07:52

Intense, maybe?

Miranda Metcalf  07:53

Yeah, and emotionally taxing, of those sort of options. Because at least... I don't know, I feel like at least as a defense attorney, I'd kind of be able to be like, 'Well, even if they're guilty, they deserve a fair trial.' And I can be kind of on the side of justice, in a way.

Brianna Tosswill  08:09

Right. I don't think I had any of that nuance at 17. I just thought that there were certain kinds of impressive careers, and I wanted to do one of them.

Miranda Metcalf  08:22

Right.

Brianna Tosswill  08:23

Thankfully, I've grown a lot since then. But as I was having this breakdown with my mom, she was like, 'Well, you've always been good at art. You've always liked art. Why don't you go to this art high school in the next town over for a year and do some art, and then you can figure out what you want to do after that?' And I was like, 'Okay, Mom, you're so weird.' So weird and wonderfully supportive. So that's what I did. And then I didn't really look back, ever, at my political science degree of hypothetical.

Miranda Metcalf  08:56

Yeah. So was it once you were in that artistic environment that it [started] to feel ripe?

Brianna Tosswill  09:04

It did. It was the first place that I was ever taught that art should be about something, which seems like something that we always take for granted. But as a young person who didn't have any artists in my life, I thought that art was supposed to be beautiful. I didn't know that it was supposed to be about something. So that was really important.

Miranda Metcalf  09:26

And do you think that kind of contributed to this feeling for you that art wasn't an impressive career? You know, you're saying, 'I needed to do something impressive,' and art for the young Brianna did not fall under that umbrella, it sounds like.

Brianna Tosswill  09:43

Yeah, and I am a little bit embarrassed on her behalf. Yeah, I don't know. I've had this preoccupation with doing something important or doing something impressive, and I don't really know where that comes from, unless it comes from standardized schooling... but yeah, I'm glad that it's something that I've processed and let go of. There are other things that matter.

Miranda Metcalf  10:17

And, you know, I think I remember having kind of similar ambitions at 17. And for me, I think it had something to do with that sense of your whole life being in front of you, and that you've got agency over it. And so you need to figure out what you're going to do. And if I'm totally honest, I think there's something in there, too, about the kind of facing of your own mortality that you're doing at that age. Or at least I was. And kind of being like, 'Oh, my gosh, I have one life. And it's going to end sometime. I need to do something huge.' You know? Almost a reaction to that understanding of a path that life is, and the fact that it's going to have a beginning, a middle, and end, and a legacy. And... almost as a reaction against that, I was like, 'I have to be the first female baseball player in the Major League!' You know, or something just insane. You know, really, truly unachievable. Yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  11:27

Well, I mean, maybe it's a very direct response to this - although it hasn't felt - it's felt more roundabout. My current body of work is made for teenagers and made to remind them that there are other things that are not their future career that they can be thinking about, and that they don't have to make any hard decisions. That's what my work is about right now.

Miranda Metcalf  11:51

Interesting. So how does that manifest in the work, that message?

Brianna Tosswill  11:58

So my current project is this series of rooms that are all individual prints, but they will all eventually fit together into one sort of greater composition, where all the perspective matches, and it'll be like you're looking into the open side of a dollhouse, kind of.

Miranda Metcalf  12:16

It's like Durer's Triumphal Arch. That's a great tradition in printmaking.

Brianna Tosswill  12:22

Yes. And the theme is comfort. And so I've been interviewing people, specific, real humans, about how they seek comfort, why they need to seek comfort - what's causing them stress or anxiety - and do they think they deserve comfort? Those are my three interview questions. And then I make a room, I design an image with them in it, that is a space that embodies their deepest comfort, their most joyful inspiration.  And so the idea is... I read somewhere that we develop our coping mechanisms when we're teenagers, and that we keep them for our whole lives. And I don't know if that's true, but based on that premise, I was thinking about how the coping mechanism that I started when I was a teenager is I read a lot of books. And now, whenever I'm stressed or tired or mad at the world, I descend into a book. I go for the escapism. And on the spectrum of coping mechanisms, that's probably one of the healthier options.

Miranda Metcalf  12:55

Wow. I would say so. Yeah, that's not a bad one.

Brianna Tosswill  13:43

So I guess I want to, using these real people's actual coping strategies, demonstrate to teenagers who might not have those examples in their lives that there are so many different ways to seek comfort, and there are so many ways to seek a true, deep comfort. Not surface level, I-feel-better-for-ten-seconds comfort, scrolling on Instagram. But something that will actually make you feel better about your whole life.

Miranda Metcalf  14:17

Yeah, like that really important distinction between distraction and avoidance, and comfort. And I feel like people get those confused, because there's this sense of, 'Well, I'm not feeling my bad thing in this moment, so I'm comforting myself.'

Brianna Tosswill  14:35

Right.

Miranda Metcalf  14:36

But it reminds me a little bit of this - I can't remember exactly what the distinction was being made - but it was something along the lines of... having to do with brain chemicals, and whether or not you're kind of accessing them in the right way. And it had to do with this idea of, do you feel better or worse after you've done the thing? Right?

Brianna Tosswill  15:04

Right.

Miranda Metcalf  15:05

So I lost my temper at the internet this morning, because I need to take this international trip next year. And the tickets had been one price, and I couldn't buy them, because I didn't have good enough reception. And then I went to buy them and they'd gone up $300. And I was like, 'God damn fucking internet!' You know, and it's like, in that moment, I could scroll on Instagram, or eat something that makes me feel bad, or whatever it is. But it's that choice that's like, well, or you could go walk the dogs. And so it's like, would I feel better actually just staring at Instagram for 10 minutes? I wouldn't be feeling that anger, but I probably wouldn't feel better on the other side. Whereas, if I just got up and walked the dogs, it would actually provide comfort. And that's just such an important distinction. And I really think that I've never heard anyone talk about actually trying to tell this to adolescents! And it's so important! And I don't think they know the difference.

Brianna Tosswill  16:14

I don't think they do. And one of the other things that's become apparent in my research, and in these conversations that I've been having with people, is - because I've asked lots of people. I've had formal interviews for each print in this series that I've done, and I've done three finished prints, I have one in progress, and I have one more interview that I've done that's going to be a print. So I'm up to five formal interviews. But I've asked this question to a lot more people in my life, just to try and get a baseline. What do people want to talk about?

Miranda Metcalf  16:44

Well, they're interesting questions, too. Yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  16:47

Thank you, thank you. They seem really basic, but also interesting. They spark fun conversations and vulnerable conversations. But the thing that I'm learning, the overarching pattern, is that in general, the more privileged a person is, the more likely they are to think about comfort as a perk. A bonus. Something that is good, but not a luxury. The more intersecting aspects of oppression or difficulty that a person has in their life, the more likely they are to consider comfort something absolutely [necessary] for their well being, for their identity, for their still-being-alive-ness. And that was one of the things I didn't see coming in this project that feels like one of the most important things that I've learned. Even after I let go of this idea of doing an important career or whatever, and I embraced art school, and I embraced wholeheartedly the fact that I was going to be an artist, a practicing artist who was going to support herself with her art... I thought that I had to make art about important things. You know? And I didn't think that comfort was an important thing. So if I look back on the work that I was making 10 years ago, when I was 19, it was about comfort! It was so explicitly about comfort! But I would never admit it. I would say that it was a... oh, god, I don't know what I would have said. But I would have tried to make it about something else. And it was about comfort. And even as I was coming out of university - I went to OCAD University in Toronto - and even as I was coming out of that, I thought that I was a very talented printmaker, drawer... illustrator, right? I could do beautiful things. I had a really good eye for construction and structure. But I didn't think that I had important enough ideas to make work that was about my ideas, which is part of the reason I started doing so many collaborative projects. And I don't regret them at all. They were hugely formative and amazing to work on. But I think the reason that I wanted to work with authors was because I didn't think I had anything important to add to the conversation, beyond my technical skills. And now, I really, truly believe that comfort is one of the most important things that you can talk about. I don't know. Maybe I need to let go of this idea of importance, but it matters. Comfort matters. And it's taken me a long time to get there.

Miranda Metcalf  19:51

Yeah. Wow, there's so much in there. And I'm thinking a little bit about the trope of the tortured artist, and maybe this idea that if you're not making work that comes from that place, it's not - again, inverted commas - "important." Right?And that if you are taking care of yourself and your mental and emotional well being, that you're kind of betraying the tortured genius that you need to be to make "important" art. I don't know.

Brianna Tosswill  20:31

And you know what? Do you know when I absolutely make garbage art? Is when I'm mad or sad. I am not a person who can channel my emotions that [way]. I have to make... I make good art from a place of peace.

Miranda Metcalf  20:43

Yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting. And I've thought about this a lot, as someone who's interested in art and interested in the human experience, and I think this idea that somehow, pain creates good creativity... I don't think that's necessarily not true. But I do believe it's not sustainable.

Brianna Tosswill  21:14

Have you seen the Hannah Gadsby... her second skit, I can't remember what it's called. "Douglas." Have you seen "Douglas?"

Miranda Metcalf  21:21

No, I haven't! I really want to. I -

Brianna Tosswill  21:24

She has a - sorry -

Miranda Metcalf  21:26

No, go ahead! I just got all excited about Hannah Gadsby, because I love "Nanette," and I read her book recently. And it was just heartbreaking and beautiful.

Brianna Tosswill  21:35

Oh, I didn't know there was a book.

Miranda Metcalf  21:36

Yeah, but I haven't gotten a chance to see her new one yet.

Brianna Tosswill  21:40

Well, because she does a wonderful bit in the middle - the whole thing is about art history, frankly -  but she has this wonderful bit in the middle where she talks about Van Gogh, and why we think about Van Gogh when we think about "the tortured artist," and how the only productive times in his life was when he was taking medication, and talking to his brother, and that's where the art comes from. The art doesn't come from the tortured places, the art comes from the spaces between that.

Miranda Metcalf  22:11

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think part of the problem is that it doesn't make as good enough a story... we love tragic figures in narrative. And so the guy who just works really hard at painting, and takes his meds on time, and focuses on human connections, and makes some of the most beautiful beloved paintings this world has ever seen... it doesn't have the same drama as the guy who cuts off his ear and is a genius. That kind of narrative, and there's something in here too, for me, I think, about... gender dynamics. And what we're told is important. And softness and comfort, and these things that are tropes of traditional femininity, just automatically being pushed to the side. And it's like, what's important? Suffering and fighting and making and wrestling, and all of that gets forefronted.

Brianna Tosswill  23:19

There's a really beautiful line in one of the new Florence and the Machine songs, and I'm gonna butcher it, but she's - I think it's King - and she's talking to her male partner, or whatever, and she says, 'You need to go to war to find something to write about...' the idea was that men need angst in order to make art, and women... it's, either we don't need angst, or we're already living in enough angst that we're good.

Miranda Metcalf  23:50

Yeah, yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  23:52

I don't know. I don't know if I want to put any hard gender norms on that. But yeah, I do think that it is an interesting kind of thing. And when you think about the tortured genius artist, you always picture a man.

Miranda Metcalf  24:05

Yeah. And there's definitely a point of... the fact that there's so few women in art history, in general. And so right now, we're contemporary artists, we're making contemporary work. But that whole narrative that you're given, particularly if you've been given a traditional university education, is so male dominated. So white dominated. So European dominated. And so this idea of [what you said] - I think Van Gogh is the perfect archetype of that - it's such a dominant force in the way we picture what being an artist is, but if you were to look at how other people make, who aren't the white cis guy tortured genius, that's a whole 'nother narrative that, again, as you speak to, we're not exposed to.

Brianna Tosswill  25:02

Definitely. So one of my influences - I can't find the name of the woman who is behind it - but the Instagram handle handle is @thenapministry. And their thing is "Rest is Resistance."

Miranda Metcalf  25:16

Uh huh. I've seen this before! Yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  25:20

Everything that they do is brilliant. I think the founder's a Black woman, and it's just, it's this thing that the opposite of capitalism is resting. The solution to this is to take time for yourself, to heal yourself. So that's a big thing for me.

Miranda Metcalf  25:47

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just thinking about it now, and that inherent sense of lack that capitalism instills, that you feel like you constantly need to be moving, and working, to try and just survive - to try and just get that basic level of safety - and, of course, when you're doing that -

Brianna Tosswill  26:11

But it's beyond that -

Miranda Metcalf  26:12

Oh, go ahead, yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  26:13

Sorry, it's just, it's even beyond that, where you do need to work to survive, to put food on your table, to pay your rent. But it's so ingrained in us that we don't know how to take breaks without feeling guilty anymore. I think it was 2018 - I spent the entirety of 2018, the only time I've ever followed through on a New Year's resolution - and I decided that I was going to forgive myself for not being productive. And a whole lot of my identity was tied up in being prolific and working hard and working long studio hours. And so I decided that if I needed to take an afternoon to just read a book for four hours - or six hours, let's be real - I would not judge myself for that. I would not be disappointed in myself. I would not feel guilty about it. And by the end of the year, my whole attitude had changed. But it took a year of practicing that consciously.

Miranda Metcalf  27:17

Gosh, that's really impressive. And I say this as someone who... I have such a hard time with it. I just have such a hard time with it. I will literally turn to my husband, Tim, and be like, 'Is it okay if I just sit on the sofa?' And it doesn't have to do with him being my husband. It just happens to be - I would ask any other human in the room. I just need another person to tell me it's okay that I just stop moving.

Brianna Tosswill  27:43

Permission has to be external.

Miranda Metcalf  27:45

Yes! Yes, exactly. That I'm just feeling tired and just feeling like I need this isn't enough. I need validation from someone else. Yeah, I totally get that.

Brianna Tosswill  27:56

I don't know if logic is helpful to you in this situation, but I will say that one of the things that's helped me - and hopefully it's helped other people - is I have this thing where I say, 'You can't rest accidentally.' If you have a day where you just can't do the work that you're supposed to be doing in that moment, and you still sit at your computer or at your drawing table or wherever it is that you're sitting, and you slog through it and you don't accomplish anything, or you have to throw out what you did, and you're like, 'I didn't accomplish anything today, and I still worked, and it was awful!' You don't get to count that not-accomplishing as rest. That doesn't count. You have to rest on purpose. So my thing is that if you're having an unproductive day, and you can feel that, rest on purpose, and then come back to it! So that you don't have that nothing space where it's not rest, and it's not accomplishing anything.

Miranda Metcalf  28:54

Yeah, that's the worst. That's the worst kind of purgatory. A self-induced hell, because you're the only one who can change.

Brianna Tosswill  29:04

Yes.

Miranda Metcalf  29:05

I was thinking, to that end, can you remind me again what the three questions were about comfort that you were asking? I remember the one about deserving it. But what were the first two?

Brianna Tosswill  29:16

So it starts off, how do you seek comfort? What do you do? And then sometimes I expand to say, what do you do when you've had a bad day to make yourself feel better? And then my second question is... what was my second question? My second question is, what is causing you discomfort? Why do you need to seek comfort? What are the things that are stressing you out? And my third question is, do you think you deserve comfort?

Miranda Metcalf  29:50

So... I'm just like... I kind of want you to answer those questions. Would you be willing to? Because in the context of this conversation, I'd be really curious to hear what you think.

Brianna Tosswill  30:06

Absolutely, absolutely. Usually when I have this conversation with people, and they give me all of their answers, and we talk about it for a bit, they're like, 'Okay, now you!'

Miranda Metcalf  30:13

Okay, good. So how do you seek comfort?

Brianna Tosswill  30:20

I seek comfort through reading and escapism. And my reading is, again, not what you would call "important" books. I don't read classics. I don't read anything that's won an award. I read a lot of romance and sci-fi and fantasy. And my other thing is, I'm highly social. And so I love a good phone call. I'm the kind of person who could just talk forever. And the nature of COVID being that if... even if we socialize the same amount, we socialize differently. We've had a lot more opportunity for one-on-one conversation than we have for group hangouts in the last three years. So that's kind of perfect for me. Not that I want to be grateful about COVID - I'm really not - but I love a long phone call. With my mom, with any number of my friends who don't live in the same city as me, which is a good half of them. And I could just... the thing where I forgive myself for not being productive, sometimes my Tuesday looks like an hour and a half long conversation with a friend in Toronto, and then a half hour chat with my mom where I called to ask her one question, and then we just caught up, and then another hour and a half long - I'll pop into the studio, and instead of accomplishing anything, I'll just chat with somebody for another hour and a half. And that doesn't feel like wasted time to me. That feels integral, that feels necessary. So that's how I seek comfort. I need people, and/or fictional people, and I'm a big romantic. So I have this - I have a lot of theories, you will learn this - the theory between capital R "Romance" and lowercase r "romance." Lowercase r "romance" is, it's pretty heteronormative, and it's like, chocolates and flowers on Valentine's Day. And capital R "Romance" is, you're a woman standing alone in the middle of the moors, and the wind is blowing you, and you're having a moment with the universe. That's capital R "Romance." So I'm more into capital R "Romance."

Miranda Metcalf  32:44

Yeah, that's such a good way of explaining that. Sorry, not to interrupt, but I've tried to use the word "romantic" before with people to not describe, as you say, heteronormative Hallmark cards. And they're just like, 'What do you mean?' I'm like, 'No, it's just such a romantic idea!' You know, like, I'll talk about space. I love space, and I love everything to do with space. And I'm like, 'This photo is from NASA! The star nursery! And it's so beautiful, it's so romantic!' And they're like, 'What?' You know? So I love that distinction.

Brianna Tosswill  33:18

I feel like you can explain it to people, but they either get it or they don't get it.

Miranda Metcalf  33:23

Yeah, for sure.

Brianna Tosswill  33:24

Anyway, so those are some of the ways that I seek comfort. The things that stress me out are... the world. War, the environment, poverty, racism, bigotry, just being sad that the way that I hope for people to behave, in terms of empathy, and always considering their fellow humans, isn't always at the forefront of our decision making as a collective species. And that makes me sad. And so I'm always... I kind of measure my level of hope about the world - maybe this is too personal. We'll see if I want to leave it in after - but I measure my feelings of hope about the world when I think about whether or not I want to have a child in the future. So if I've been on Instagram too much, and I'm following too many people that I think are important, but are giving me devastating news on a daily basis, I'm like, 'I can't bring a child into the world. That would be bad.' And then if I spend some time with my parents, or if I am having good conversations with people, or reading good books, or being outside, or petting a dog, I'm like, 'Yeah, I could have a kid. I could have a kid in the future.'

Miranda Metcalf  35:07

The feeling of looking into a dog's eyes to just... you feel like...

Brianna Tosswill  35:12

To make you feel better about the world.

Miranda Metcalf  35:14

Yes, exactly. To make you feel very good about the world. Yeah, I definitely connect with that, for sure.

Brianna Tosswill  35:23

And then, do I think I deserve comfort? Absolutely. I think everybody deserves comfort.

Miranda Metcalf  35:27

Mm-hmm. Do you - and maybe this is connected to what we talked a little bit about the top of the hour - but, you know, with that question for other people, the deserving of comfort, do most people say yes? Do most people say no? I mean, is it related, as we've kind of spoke to, to sort of societal comfort - your baseline of comfort - at all?

Brianna Tosswill  35:56

Again, it depends on the person. I usually have people who say, 'Yes, I believe in my depths of my soul that I deserve comfort. And if I didn't believe that, I don't think I would be alive today.' And then I have people who say - who, again, who think about comfort as a privilege - and who say, 'Well, if I'm on the subway, I don't deserve the comfort of sitting if there's a grandmother or something who needs my seat.' And I'm like, 'That's not the same kind of comfort!' That's not really the comfort I'm talking about. And I actually interviewed my teenage cousins during a long car ride a couple of months ago, which was freaking cool, because I hadn't actually talked to any teenagers about it.

Miranda Metcalf  36:48

Yeah.  Yeah. I think that's really significant. Because I have noticed, the ways in which I don't extend grace to myself, I tend not to extend it to other people. And I like to think that I'm above that, or that I can kind of transcend that in some way, where I'm like, no, no, I can be hard on myself in this way, and I can be really understanding for everyone else. [But] it doesn't work that way.

Brianna Tosswill  36:49

So they were all 15 or 16. Three of them. And... they kind of looked at comfort as similar to free will, where it was like, that again, it was always their comfort versus somebody else's comfort. And certain people's comfort in certain situations were more important than others. Which is true, and also, I think that knowing in your soul that you deserve comfort is a really good foundation to build yourself on, but also to build your relationships on. If you don't think you deserve comfort... if you don't think you deserve that, I think it's hard for you to believe that everybody else deserves comfort, too. I don't think it does, yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  38:24

I want to make sure, in the time we've got left here, that we get to talk a little bit about your journey to being a full time artist. Someone who's supporting herself on her art. Because there's a lot of students who listen to this podcast, and a lot of people who are maybe in that very beginning, little wobbly-Bambi-legs phases of their art career, who I'm sure would love to be in that position. So you said that once you knew you were going to be an artist, you were like, 'Okay, I'm gonna do this, no holds barred. I'm gonna go make a living on the things that I create.' How did you get from that moment to now? Where you sell work online, you've got an Instagram, you've got patrons through Patreon. But what was that arc like?

Brianna Tosswill  39:18

Okay, so coming out of school, I started a micro-publishing company with a good friend of mine, who had an English degree, and she wanted to be an editor. And so we worked with several authors. And so I think I've worked... I think I've quote-unquote - I don't always use this language - but "published" the work of maybe 16 people, ish, now. And I thought I was going to be a publisher. I was delighted to tell my grandparents that I was going to be a publisher, because I thought they would respect that more than me being an artist. Again, other things I still needed to let go of. And so that was successful in terms of, it got my name out. And when we launched a book project, our first book project, it was an edition of 100. And we sold out in two days, which was amazing and crazy. But we sold these books for $30 each. And they had sixteen two-layer linocut illustrations in them. And marbled covers, and letterpress printed covers, and linocut details in the covers. And they were all hand-bound, the edition of 100. And I [was] looking back on that, and I was like, 'Oh, my god.' And yeah, I think I made about 10 cents an hour on that project. Hypothetically. But in actuality, I didn't make any money, because I just fed it into the next project. So my art didn't start paying me until... probably a couple of years into that. At first, I was just feeding everything I had into future projects, funding materials for the next project and the next project and the next project. And using it, again, to develop a good rapport, and a reputation, and to collaborate with cool people. And my work was collected by a couple of - now it's been collected by four - library collections, which is very cool. And I had a couple of shows in Toronto around it, and had book launches, and learned to talk to people about them and how to organize events. And that was really huge. How to promote an event, how to run a preorder sale. That was all very, very important. And then I moved to Edmonton with my then-partner in 2019. And during 2019, into 2020, that school year - I still think of things in school years, and I haven't been a student in forever - that year was a big transition for me. I started doing more two-dimensional works that were completely self-directed and independent. And my business partner sort of started having other priorities. And we were working on a project that ended up being cancelled due to COVID complications and other things. And then my business partner and I decided to part ways. And I started doing... still some of the book works, but a lot more independent printmaking. And about six months after that, I quit my day job. I'd had my website set up for a number of years. I started doing markets as well. There's a wonderful local market here in Edmonton called the Royal Bison, which is a very cool market. It runs once in May, right before Mother's Day, a couple weekends in late November, early December. And then sometimes they do a fall one, but they're not doing it this year. And they switched to online during the pandemic, and it was great. They're just amazing. And then the other market that I started doing in the first year that I was fully self-employed by my art was, it's called 124 Grand Market, in Edmonton. And it's an outdoor market that is a block or two blocks of the city, where they close down the street and everyone puts up their tents. And it's a farmers' market, so there's a lot of people - literal farmers - people selling veggies. There's a lot of local brewers, there's a number of people who have jewelry for sale, bakers, food trucks. There's a gelato guy. It's pretty great. And there's not a lot of art there. And so in some ways, it's not the perfect target audience. First of all, I hate the rhetoric around target audiences. That might be a personal preference. I don't know. If it's working for you, keep doing it. But yeah, that's something that I've been doing twice a week all summer. And I was telling you in my email - where I was like, 'Please let me come talk to you on your podcast!' - that I get to and from the market pulling a cart. Because I don't have a car.

Miranda Metcalf  44:27

Yeah!

Brianna Tosswill  44:29

I've decided to be a pedestrian/cyclist in the city, and that makes it somewhat difficult. But I chose my current apartment based on its proximity to this market. And all the decisions are all layered and built in. And I have this cart, and it looks like... it kind of looks like a giant, shallow milk crate. It's bright green. There's pictures of it on my Instagram. And it has these big inflatable tires, and it could probably hold 1000 pounds or something. It's a lot. And so I load it up with my tent, my table, my market essentials, and I'm required to have a fire extinguisher. And, oh, I have concrete weights to hold down the corners of my tent. And all of my art. And display furniture and stuff. And I've actually started bringing a chair, because I decided I deserve to sit if I want to.

Miranda Metcalf  45:21

A little comfort, if you will!

Brianna Tosswill  45:22

Yeah. Because I don't have a folding chair or anything, so it's just a dining table chair. It's fine. It works. And yeah, so I load it all up into my cart, and I walk five blocks on Thursday, and a block and a half on Sunday. And then I set everything up, and then I sell my wares for four hours, and then I take everything down, and then I go home. And that's my summer market routine. And it's pretty amazing.

Miranda Metcalf  45:53

Yeah! I know a few people who are doing markets as a way to make their print practice sustainable. And it really seems like it's kind of a game changer, if you can figure out what's the right price point for the audience, and know what to bring, and then it really is a way to just sell directly, in person, to people... but without the crazy commitment and risk of, say, opening a storefront. You get a lot of the benefit. And so I would love it if more and more people did that. Because I think it's also a great way to help educate the public about what prints are, because they've gone there to buy some carrots, and all of a sudden they're looking at this beautiful image. And they say, 'Well, how did how did this happen?'

Brianna Tosswill  46:44

Yeah, I have a lot of people come up to me, and they're like, 'Oh, these are screenprints!' And I'm like, 'They are not, but you're close. And I appreciate your enthusiasm!'

Miranda Metcalf  46:54

Yep!

Brianna Tosswill  46:55

So teaching people about what lino is is about 40% of all the conversations that I have.

Miranda Metcalf  47:01

Mm-hmm, I can see that.

Brianna Tosswill  47:02

Yep. And I also meet people at the market, and have - because I am doing this work about comfort - I always ask people... I often ask people what kind of genre they like to read. If they pick up one of my prints that has somebody reading on it, which is 75% of all of my prints, then I ask them what kind of genres they like to read. And I talk to people about comfort. Shocker! So in this house that I've designed, there is a basement section, and all of the basement prints are printed on the dark green washi. And everything else is printed on white. And I'm putting all of my family members in the basement, because they're my foundation. And then the other rooms that I've decided, and the people that I've interviewed - the other three people - are all people that I have either met or forged a closer connection with by speaking to them at the market. So the market is how I meet people who aren't artists. Really my only avenue.

Miranda Metcalf  48:10

Yeah! Oh, that's... it must be nice, because it's something that can happen so organically. And considering the subject matter that you're you're working with, and you're wanting to be able to have access to the general public, if you were to put a call out or try to organize it in another fashion, it wouldn't just be this sense of people coming and spending time with you, and it kind of unfolding in a really natural way. Which is lovely!

Brianna Tosswill  48:44

Yeah, I feel really lucky to sort of have that... I guess you would call it a secondary benefit. One of the things that I'm always thinking about in terms of the market is, is it still worth it? Just from a logical point of view, are the hours and time and effort, physical sweat, that I'm putting into this paying off in terms of sales and other things? And if you look at it strictly in money, you're like, 'Okay, technically, yes. But just barely.' But then if you look at it in terms of other, softer, more amorphous benefits - in terms of meeting people, in terms of learning to talk about my work more eloquently, in terms of getting feedback - it becomes more and more valuable when you look at those factors.

Miranda Metcalf  49:39

Yeah. And there definitely is, I think, a connection between people that comes from the love of reading. And you're saying you can start this conversation with someone when you see they're drawn to an image of someone reading. And it's something that I've definitely observed in my 37 years on this planet, is that people who understand what that is, to get lost in that world, there's a kindred spirit there for sure. I spent...

Brianna Tosswill  50:13

The fact that you used the words 'kindred spirit' tells me that you're a reader.

Miranda Metcalf  50:17

Yeah, I spent a summer working at Barnes and Noble once, in between undergrad and graduate school. And you could just... there was something where you could see the difference between the people who came in because they're getting the... I don't know, just getting a book. The Idiot's Guide to Python, or something. And that's fine, but then there would be people who, they just had it. They had the "it" of being the reader, and knowing that. And it makes me wonder, are you familiar with anything [by] Susan Cain, her writing?

Brianna Tosswill  50:51

I don't think so.

Miranda Metcalf  50:52

It's nonfiction. It's "important" work. Yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  50:57

Now I'm gonna have to look it up, though.

Miranda Metcalf  50:59

She wrote her first book... it was, I don't know, quite a few years ago. Quite a few? Five, but COVID makes everything strange. And it was called "Quiet," and it was about introversion. And she's got a new one out that's called "Bittersweet." And it's about the power of, sort of, melancholia, and that feeling of the beauty and the pain of life together. And the work intersects a bit, as you can imagine, because she says that there are... in the book, she talks about how, in "Bittersweet," people who tend to be sensitive tend to be people who are more likely to love Leonard Cohen, to feel really deeply when they look at a sunset, all of this really deep feeling. And she says that there are babies that are born that actually - they can measure their heightened reaction to stimulus. In terms of, giving them sugar water, they'll salivate more, or they'll react more to loud noises. And those babies are more likely to grow up to be introverted people who need that escape time. And it's not a one-to-one correlation, but anyway, her work [gets] around the edges of this conversation for me, because there's that need to be quiet and still, and how that relates to comfort is huge for me. Because the opposite of quiet and still is the movement and the productivity.

Brianna Tosswill  52:35

Yeah, that sounds like a book that could stick in my brain forever once I read it. There's a couple of nonfiction books that I've read, and they stayed with me forever. "Walkable City..." and "Bullshit Jobs" and "Darling, You Can't Do Both." "This Is Your Brain On Birth Control." Those are all amazing nonfiction, will shift the way you think about the world, books.

Miranda Metcalf  52:59

Yeah, yeah.

Brianna Tosswill  53:01

So I'm gonna have to check out "Quiet" and "Bittersweet." I like her titling scheme, too. It's good.

Miranda Metcalf  53:06

Yeah, I think you'll connect with her work... and a lot of it is about pushing against the status quo or the dominant narrative that's, 'You need to be loud, you need to be productive, you need to always be going!' And so I think it'll fit in nicely to what you do.

Brianna Tosswill  53:24

Thank you.

Miranda Metcalf  53:25

In the time that we have left, what are you looking forward to? Do you have anything on the horizon that's particularly giving you a little spring in your step, that you want to promote?

Brianna Tosswill  53:39

I'm looking forward to fall!

Miranda Metcalf  53:41

Yay!

Brianna Tosswill  53:42

It's the best season... fight me...

Miranda Metcalf  53:45

I feel like it's the ultimate season of comfort for me. I get it. It's coziness.

Brianna Tosswill  53:51

Right! It's coziness! Here, it's early September in Edmonton, and we do have leaves falling - not a ton, but a little bit - because of our slightly northern climate. And so fall will hit in full force in a week and a half, and last for two weeks past that, and then it will be done. So we really have to soak it in while it's happening. And so I'm really looking forward to that, and also letting it inform my practice. I am a person who will assign the label of "research" to all kinds of things, including going for a walk and smelling fall.

Miranda Metcalf  54:32

Aw! Yeah!

Brianna Tosswill  54:34

And so I guess I'm excited to ground myself again in that, and allow it to carry me through the winter. I always have the most time to work on things, creatively, January through April. There's really very few markets happening. It's just a quiet time, and so hypothetically, I would like to make a lot of work. But I need something to sustain me through that time. And so that'll be partly memories of fall vibes, and it will be partly pre-Christmas market sales.

Miranda Metcalf  55:16

Yeah. Wonderful! Well, where can -

Brianna Tosswill  55:21

Oh, and I forgot - sorry, if I can add -

Miranda Metcalf  55:22

Oh, please, yeah!

Brianna Tosswill  55:23

I'm installing my artwork in a library for the first time in November, which I'm really excited about. It's going to be a work-in-progress of this house project. And there's also going to be a feedback box, so that I'll let anybody who wants to answer my three comfort questions, just on paper.

Miranda Metcalf  55:42

Oh, nice!

Brianna Tosswill  55:42

And because I ultimately want to install this work in the teen section of public libraries, this feels like a really important early step. And so I'm really excited about that.

Miranda Metcalf  55:52

Wonderful. And then where can people find you and follow you?

Brianna Tosswill  55:57

Sure thing, I am at penrosepress.ca. That is both my website and my Instagram handle. The .ca is Canada, in case you're unfamiliar.

Miranda Metcalf  56:09

Our more cozy neighbors to the north, I think.

Brianna Tosswill  56:14

I hadn't thought of Canada as embodying coziness, but I will take it.

Miranda Metcalf  56:18

I think so! I think about it in terms of...

Brianna Tosswill  56:21

It's all our flannel.

Miranda Metcalf  56:23

...It's flannel, it's a little bit colder, you're not getting involved in international conflicts as often. It's a cozier vibe. Well, it's been really delightful, Brianna, to speak with you. I really mean that.

Brianna Tosswill  56:41

Oh, my gosh, likewise.

Miranda Metcalf  56:41

I feel like I'm gonna need to take some time to internalize why I think I don't deserve comfort and am constantly self-flagellating about productivity. I'll bring that one to the next therapy session with Dr. Nina, for me.

Brianna Tosswill  56:58

Well, if you find the time or the inclination, I would love to hear what your answers to the questions are.

Miranda Metcalf  57:04

Oh, yeah! I will. I'll give those some thought, for sure.

Brianna Tosswill  57:10

That would be awesome.

Miranda Metcalf  57:11

Yeah. So thank you for reaching out, and I'm glad we got to talk, and please stay in touch.

Brianna Tosswill  57:17

Thank you so much. This was so lovely. I really appreciate you having me on.

Miranda Metcalf  57:22

Oh, it was great. And I'm sure we'll talk soon. Okay, bye Brianna!

Brianna Tosswill  57:27

Bye!

Miranda Metcalf  57:29

If you liked today's episode, we have a Patreon where you can help us keep the lights on and get bonus content like Shoptalk Shorts, where our editor Timothy Pauszek digs deep on materials, processes, and techniques with past guests. Also, if monetary support isn't in the cards right now, you can leave a review for us on your podcast listening app of choice, or buy something from one of our sponsors and tell them Hello, Print Friend sent you. But as always, the very best way and the very best thing you can do to support this podcast is by listening and sharing with your fellow print friends around the world. And that's our show for this week. Join me again next week, where my guests will be Cammy York and Edie Overturf from the NewsPrint Podcast. We talk about how and why someone would want to start a printmaking podcast anyway, what it's like doing a roundup of the best print news around the world, how they fit their personal practices into all of this, and we do some scheming for future projects. You won't want to miss it. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing by Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you next week.