phone a friend: a conversation with canvas magazine's issy carr

It seems that the most commonly advised lockdown activity has been to “phone a friend” - to keep both parties sane, one can assume. So, I rang up Issy Carr to talk about her recent role as editor-in-chief of Canvas, the Edinburgh College of Art funded magazine. We discussed the magazine’s new issue and working with Scotland’s brilliant creatives, being quarantined in the countryside, and the effects of your surroundings on fostering creativity.  

D: First of all, I wanted to say well done for Canvas! I know how hard yourself and the team worked and it has clearly paid off. In your editor’s letter, you stress that you wanted to bring attention to the creative talent of Edinburgh whilst widening reach to the art scene across Scotland too - Leith, Nairn, Glasgow. What were your intentions behind the magazine in light of that?   

I: Thank you! Scotland has always produced incredible creative talent, but I don’t think creatives here have always felt that voiced by the media, particularly in Edinburgh. My intention with Canvas was to build a small, unique print magazine that took a whole new perspective on the creative arts scene in Scotland. Canvas was previously just the Edinburgh College of Art magazine, but I really wanted to get away from that and build outwards.  

D: Is that because you wanted to move away from a very specific kind of middle-class voice?  

I: I wanted to move away from it being an institutionalised publication. An “Edinburgh University” magazine had no appeal to me, it sounds a bit school-y. Even though the magazine was funded by the ECA, I tried to brand it more as a creative arts magazine focusing on Scotland's unique creative voice, in collaboration with the ECA rather than ‘the ECA journal’. 

 D: Can you tell me a bit more about the ‘Wish You Were Here’ theme, and why nostalgia was an important focal point for you? I read that you got inspiration from Tim Walker and from certain bits of your childhood nostalgia. 

I: With ‘Wish You Were Here’, it was predominantly a creative decision.  When I thought about how I wanted the magazine to look, it was often in dreams. So I just translated that into a visual code.  I think that a theme can really effectively be a huge part of a magazine, but I thought of this magazine like a little picnic, a mishmash of quaint deliciousness. My visual mood board included things like postcards, childhood, countryside and growing up. Themes that the magazine had previously used felt restrictive, and I wanted to get away from that.  

D: It’s so much more interesting that Canvas doesn't adhere so structurally to a specific theme. The contributors have taken the theme and ran with it – and like you said, it's strewn together, there are so many different mediums. 

I: Similarly, people would message me and say “Congratulations on your magazine, it's so amazing”, and this would really annoy me because it's definitely not my magazine at all. I've overseen the publication – that's what you do as an editor, you curate and you commission people to write stuff, you have a team, you get different people on two different parts of the magazine. It was 100% the work of lots of hands. There's no way you could create a magazine on your own.  

D: That leads nicely onto my next question – how did you go about getting in touch with such a wide variety of contributors? You've got things from photography to fashion to embroidery, even a personal essay. 

I: I would distribute different components of the magazine to different editors. I would do a lot of scrolling through Instagram, messaging people non-stop. Quite a lot of the content is from commissions, for example, Dan Hall, Murray Orr, Cordelia Ostler and so on. A lot of people were hesitant to get involved because it was unpaid. We didn’t have a lot of finances to work with, but you can definitely produce a magazine without any finances - when printing costs come in, that gets a bit more tricky.   

D: Let’s talk about being a woman in publishing and editorial. There's a lot of stigma around women in leadership roles; they are often labelled as ‘bossy’ or ‘bitchy’ - do you think that this label is still attached to women in the industry or do you think it's kind of an outdated idea? 

I: I think there's definitely an element of control that you have to have to be in charge of a publication. I would classify myself as a control freak, and I do think you have to have a certain level of power, because you can't always be worrying away because someone is upset about one thing or another, otherwise you'll never get anywhere. You have to feel comfortable about decisions you're making - which takes leadership skills.  

D: In your letter, you said that you’ve always loved landscapes and that you feel blessed that your childhood wasn't dominated by technology. Does our current situation feel like a return to childhood, or are you feeling more reliant on technology now than ever? 

I: I feel like I've gone back in time to being a teenager during the holidays, but it's really special to go back to that. I really think not having social pressures is nice, because all you know is that you have to get up tomorrow. You don't need to do anything else - you’re not making a plan, you just know you have to get through your day.  

This is such a privileged position to be in during these times, though. I’m so lucky to be in a rural area and to be able to work from home. I can’t express how grateful I am to be fortunate enough to isolate. We are totally in debt to the extraordinary people getting this country through the pandemic. I think in the long term, this understanding of a slower and simpler life will be beneficial. It will also make us rethink our relationship with nature and the outdoors, which certainly needed to happen.  

D: Do you think that the English countryside drove your imagination?  

 I: I was so creative when I was a child growing up in the countryside. Obviously we didn't have tablets or iPads or computers, and I used to do so many things. I would teach myself to play the piano,  paint, build dens,  rollerblade and cycle. That's kind of what I'm doing at the moment; cycling, reading, writing and thinking a lot. I definitely think there is something about being in rural places that influences creativity. Stuff you create in the city can be fast-paced and energetic. I find the work I create in the countryside more relaxed, slower, intimate, and emotional. 

 D: There's a massive push on the productivity side of things right now. A lot of people have been bringing up the important point that this is not the time for productivity; you don't have to focus on starting your own business from home or writing a novel. In lieu of that, some activities are really helpful in managing anxiety and stress. So, what have you been reading or watching in lockdown that helps you manage the stress and anxiety that everyone is feeling right now? 

 I: So, I kind of went through an oscillation. In the first week when I came home I felt like I've got to start something, I've got to create something. Canvas got delivered, but the day after Canvas was over, I was like “I've got to start something new!” I'm such a control freak. So I started an Instagram account which was promoting people who are doing creative things in quarantine. The account got taken down by Instagram and it was kind of like a calling from fate. Is it right to encourage people to be really creative when, really, this is a time when people just need to be back home with their thoughts, without pressures?  

 I have been reading a lot of journalism online, especially long reads (linked below), Audre Lorde’s biomythography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, John Preston’s A Very English Scandal on the Jeremy Thorpe scandal. Then Kate Elizabeth Russell’s controversial new novel My Dark Vanessa. On the film side of things I’ve been watching all the Merchant Ivory films, Howard’s End, Maurice and Room with a View, they’re so beautifully done and I would recommend them to anyone.  

 D: So all the classics. 

I: And I'm going to start Killing Eve today!  

Issy’s lockdown recommendations for the stuck-at-home-and-bored: 

Books: 

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell  

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde 

A Very English Scandal, John Preston  

Sticky Fingers, Joe Hagan  

Television:  

Unorthodox, Netflix  

Quiz, ITV  

This Life, Amazon  

Films:  

Pretty Woman 

Erin Brockovich  

Howard’s End  

Maurice  

Long Reads: 

The Prince, the Flash and the Forger /Vanity Fair  

Bye-bye, Fomo, Hadley Freeman / The Guardian  

Dinner with Jack Monroe: Marina O’Loughlin dines with the Tin Can Cook / The Times  

Listening to:  

Howard’s End, Audible