Interview with artist Tom Hickman
In an old Croft house in a small hamlet in the Outer Hebrides, Tom Hickman quietly produces artwork of astounding beauty and detail with an eclectic flair. He embroiders, paints, and whittles wood, following his inspiration wherever it leads him. Amongst his treasured materials you will find local Harris Tweed fabric, bird feathers, minuscule shells and other tactile, found-objects. With no television or WiFi, Tom devotes his time to honing these crafts, creating spell-binding pieces of art. Working with an enviable authenticity, Tom said his secret was ‘to do exactly what I like’. This is a refreshing motto in a world that often seems to reward conformity. I asked Tom if he would share some thoughts on his creative process, and he kindly agreed.
It would be great to know more about your creative process. Would you please describe how it typically works for you?
I have since childhood always been a very visual person and still have my first sketchbook from the age of four. There are drawings of my first garden with crocuses - one of me swimming, or rather caught in a large wave at Machrihanish, and another of Princes Margaret marrying Lord Snowdon. The inspiration for the latter came from the first newsreel film I saw in Campbeltown cinema. Having spent many years in the fine art and antique trade, as well as interior design, I have a keen sense of three-dimensional space. I have acquired an ability to remain in the creative side of my brain most of the time and therefore ideas are only a problem because there are so many. My process of working is somewhat of a trance-like state, in that I find it so relaxing that often I have no recollection of doing the work. When I look back at a picture, I have no memory of mixing the colours or applying the paint. I have a great fascination with nature and enjoy working in natural material. I also like to use reclaimed materials and hoard all sorts of things because I think one day they might just come in useful. So, there are times when the material itself is enough to inspire me. Mostly it’s through observation, the light hitting the surface of the loch or the way the scudding clouds form shadows across the hills. Sketching comes first for nearly all my work whether it is an oil painting or a stumpwork embroidery piece. Having had no formal training I have learnt through playing with various mediums and, to a great extent, my work is still play.
Do you generally have a clear visualisation of the outcome when you begin working on a piece of art, or does the finished piece emerge organically through the process of being created?
When painting, the image is usually in front of me - either en plein air or from sketch books and photographs. The image is my own interpretation. Knowing when to stop is an art in itself. With embroidering, the process is similar and friends have often commented that I seem to paint with wool. Although I do draw some parts of the image onto the support, I often don’t know what the finished image will be. There is little thought to individual stitches and I never undo work, it’s a mystery, but somehow there are no mistakes. I like the words of Sir Francis Bacon:
The contemplation of things as they are,
Without error or confusion,
Without substitution or imposture,
Is in itself a nobler thing
Than a whole harvest of invention.
You mentioned that your creativity has helped to keep you sane, especially while living in isolation. Would you speak more about that?
OK, I’ll try not to write a book. I’ve lived most of my life as a single man and am therefore for the most part content with my own company. I do, however, enjoy the company of others and am not put off by being watched as I work. When I look around my house, I realise that most of the space also serves as a studio. With my background in interior design and decoration, my little croft house is crammed with beauty, much of it of my own making. When a television film crew came to look at the outside of the house and barn last week, they also wanted a quick look inside. I heard one comment, “We should write another script with all that this could inspire”.
When it got really cold this winter I came in from the studio to work from the warmth of the kitchen table. The lack of space meant I found myself making miniature furniture for a doll’s house. One of my neighbours thought that at 67 years old I should have stopped playing with such things. He was speechless when I open the facade of the house. The all-important word here is play, and if you’re playing all day surely you can’t go mad. It is because I find creativity so relaxing and therapeutic that it keeps me sane. When one's hands are occupied in creating something it opens up your brain to so much else. I’ve often thought that we would get far more sense out of politicians if they all took up knitting during their debates. When creating, I can also be holding imaginary conversations with anybody or anything on the face of the planet. So, although I live alone, I never feel lonely. My sketch pad is my travelling companion and when I stop to sketch something it is my way of saying “just look at that”. Thirty years ago, I lived in the Somerset town of Frome and found myself in the local paper almost every week. When I moved to Brittany I became equally well known locally, to the point where you could address a letter to “Tom artist 29690” and it would find me. The expression “it’s a mad mad world” seems more relevant today than ever, and I think my lifestyle of living without a television, telephone or internet connection enables me to stay on the outside and look in. I have come to realise there is nothing I can do to change things, and yet being able to see the inevitably tragic comedy of it all without being caught up in it does help. We are all in some way oppressed by the society we have created, and it is only when forced to join in with that madness that I feel I might just be going insane.
Many artists and craftspeople seem to have ‘restless hands’. When they are not working on their art, they find themselves cooking, gardening, making music, building things, or otherwise expressing their creativity in everyday life. Do you find your hands need to be active, as if they have an autonomous need to create?
My hands are the tools of my trade. It is that hand, eye, and brain coordination that creates the work. So, yes, I carry my creativity into baking bread, cakes and biscuits as well as making all my own jam, pickles and chutney. This also means I grow as much as I can from my own garden, even with the challenges that come with weather conditions on the Outer Hebrides. The first year my cabbages literally blew out the ground and I knew I would need to plant some shelter. I learnt to play the didgeridoo while in Western Australia but these days I am increasingly comfortable with silence. I used to listen to radio 4, but find that too depressing now. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but if you look at old black and white photos of working people you often find they will take up a relaxed pose placing their massive hands out in front. I find hands equally as fascinating as faces.
You appear to be a very prolific creator. I am wondering if you ever come up against creative blocks, or struggle with inspiration.
Inspiration is rarely a problem and it is more often a dearth of it that is the problem. I have so many things that I want to be doing that I can’t settle or choose just one. Don’t panic, is perhaps what I tell myself. A change of air, go for a walk, or stay focused, finish what I’m working on, and stop trying to juggle too many plates in the air. I am constantly coming up with ideas even when working deep in concentration on something quite unrelated. There are many images that at some point I have wanted to paint, and realised afterwards it was just as well they remained in my head and not on canvas. When I was 25, I realised that when I retired I would have a good five years’ worth of things I wanted to create, then at 30 it was more like fifteen years of work. So, when I reached 35, I decided I better get on with it and become the artist I knew I was. Now I realise that the more you create the more there is to create.
How would you describe your state of consciousness when you are working on one of your intricate creative projects? How different is it from your everyday state?
Total relaxation. You could even say lost in the work. There is often no recollection of carrying out the work. Some of my pieces have taken nearly a year to complete. The series of six biblical embroidered scenes took two and a half years. When people ask me how much I want for something that has taken so long, I reply “Nothing. Money cannot compensate for that time and as long as you come and work for me for the same length of time then the item is yours”. I think I spend most of my day in that creative mode. Even if I am simply driving into Stornoway I am observing, seeing the world around me, and wondering what I can make of it or how to interpret it. When I see a tree silhouetted on the skyline, I am thinking about what brush I would use and I can feel my hand making the movement.
Is the wild landscape of the Hebrides inseparable from your work? If you lived somewhere completely different, do you think it would affect what you made, and your creative process?
I do think my surroundings affect my creativity. With the coastal wilderness of North East Lewis at my doorstep, it plays an integral part in my work. However, during the darker months when I might retreat to the kitchen then I may find myself drawing on my library of knowledge for inspiration. This applies most often with my embroidery work. If you are an artist living in the Outer Hebrides, surrounded by sheep, and with access to masses of free woollen yarn from local weavers, then it is only a matter of time before, in the age-old island tradition you wonder, “What can I create with all that?”
In the contemporary West, there is a tendency to think that inspiration and imagination are products of the brain. Looking back in history, creative ideas and inspiration were thought to be transmitted by an external force. Do you have any thoughts on this? What aligns with your experience?
I see inspiration and imagination as two quite different things. Inspiration is me researching and observing for something outside myself that will be placed in my library or brain. Imagination is me drawing on that reserve and manipulating it, most commonly in a dreamlike state. I have always dreamed vividly and there are nights when I wake exhausted as if from an all-night cinema showing. There is no external force, it seems to me only logical that having absorbed so much during observation it simply has to find a way out. When I see someone looking at something and make a comment, it sometimes becomes obvious that they are not seeing what I’m seeing. People often have to be encouraged to really use their eyes. When giving a heritage tour around my local village in Brittany, I commented on a tiny head carved into the cornerstone of a house. An elderly man stepped forward and said “I’ve lived here all my life and passed this house countless time and yet I’ve never noticed that”. Life today is very complex and the demands on our attention are colossal, so it is hardly surprising that even if we stare ahead our brains are otherwise occupied. Turn off the smartphone, or better yet throw it away.
Your work is eclectic yet there is an underlying thread that ties it all together. How would you describe this connection in a single word or phrase?
Truth and beauty, or at least searching for it.
If you were to give one essential piece of advice to emerging artists, what would it be?
That could depend on what you mean by emerging, and from what. When a butterfly emerges from the chrysalis it will patiently wait as its wings develop their extraordinary beauty before attempting to fly. Being an artist is not solely a job, it is a way of life, and can happen at any time of life. If you truly want to do it then it is easy. If you are unsure, don’t give up the day job. Going to Art College does not lead automatically to you becoming an artist. That learning process and discovery is never-ending. As a child, I wanted to be a ballet dancer, a hill sheep farmer, and an architect. I studied Agricultural Chemistry at University, then worked in Market Gardening, and for twelve years I worked in the antique and fine art trade. I realise now that whatever I chose to do, I would have always been an artist.