Meet The Maker: Polly Marix Evans
Hello, I’m Polly, and I’m a linocut printmaker based in the Eden Valley in rural Cumbria. Much of my work features a character known as Bun-Head, a feisty woman who has come to hold a special place in the hearts of her many followers. My prints are simplistic, using contrasting areas of predominantly black and white, with bold lines and angles, and the small figure of Bun-Head. I like to think that my work can be empowering, edgy, sensitive or plain quirky in the depiction of the ups and downs of daily life.
Loafing around - the importance of doing fuck-all
Describe your printmaking process.
Sometimes the sketch comes first, sometimes the title of the work comes before the sketch. But I can see the image in my mind. Often the ideas don’t appear at the most convenient moments. Quite often my best ideas come in the middle of the night, then I’m up with a scratchy pencil trying to jot things down before I forget them. Then I sketch. Not always straight away. I have numerous sketchbooks with pages that just have a word or two on them. I flit backwards and forwards through the books gathering things up like a magpie and putting them together. I like it best when an idea works instantly, not too much rubbings out and redrawing. Some never work at all. Some I come back to months later. Some are just me letting off steam and will never move out of that sketchbook and onto the lino. Once I’m happy with my sketch I trace it in order to transfer it to the block. Then I carve the block. Some blocks are really simplistic and quick, but others – especially with lots of lettering take much longer – or a tangled scribble, who knew a scribble could be so tricky to carve? Once I think I’m done with the lino cutting I often do a rubbing – just so I can get a rough idea of how it might look in print. The printing, the inking is the really fun part. I mainly use black ink on white paper. There are some coloured prints, sometimes I apply the colour after the black – with a finger or a mini stamp-block – some I use registration pins and might have a jigsaw of coloured blocks printed first with the black ink block pulling it all together when that’s printed on top of the colour. I live in an old, cold stone house – it can take weeks for a layered colour print to dry fully in winter. I much prefer being a printmaker in summer when it’s warmer and things dry swiftly and the lino is warmed by the sun and so much easier to cut. But all said, I get so excited seeing the first print reveal, it’s like magic and you never quite know whether it will hit the spot or not.
VPL - visible pencil lines - the artist wears a see-through skirt
Still waving, not drowning
How and where did you learn to print?
I was given a second-hand John Bull printing set for my 6th birthday which lived in an old powdered milk tin in the playroom cupboard – this was the beginning of my obsession with printmaking and ink. I loved those little rubbery letters and spent hours playing and experimenting. Though, really, I guess I learnt to print properly on my Foundation Art course at Northbrook College in Horsham, West Sussex. It was an old house converted to a college and there was a tiny weeny print room with just about enough space for 2 people. I was nearly always one of those 2 people. The bonus was that the vending machine was right outside the print room door so Andrew (the other one-of-two printmakers) and I could always pounce of people who’d gone to buy a sneaky bar of chocolate. Then I went to Manchester when it was still the Polytechnic, though it morphed into Manchester Metropolitan University soon after I started. It was the only university I’d visited where printmaking wasn’t hidden down 27 long corridors, with half a dusty old press on its own in a room looking all neglected. And you didn’t have to spend your first year on painting or sculpture, I knew I wanted to print. So I spent the best part of four years printing and that was me hooked.
My lover says my tomatoes taste the best
Why printmaking?
Oo, that’s a tricky one. I love drawing – I have endless sketch books full of ideas and mini drawings. I don’t mind painting, unless it’s oils which are so slow to dry that it’s like a toddler doing a painting and you have to be careful it doesn’t go all brown and look like a giant poo! But painting is still slow-ish, and I’ve always worked quickly, once I’ve carved that lino block the prints just reel off. I can’t do 3D and that’s final – even kids’ birthday cakes, I have these amazing ideas and then it all goes hideously wrong and I remember why I’m a printmaker and not a baker, and I can’t even get clay to hit the wheel if I try pottery, let alone the centre of the wheel. Why printmaking? I love ALL of it. I love every single bit of the process. I love the sketching, the ideas. Transferring them to the block – working out how best to carve – what to leave, what to take away. And you never know what it’s really going to look like until you pull a proof – and yes, there are occasions where I literally clap my hands and jump up and down with delight because it’s really worked! It’s come out exactly how I saw it in my mind’s eye. Why printmaking? I can make more than one. I love seeing those editions. I love the multiples all hanging in rows in the print racks. And I love the ink! When I haven’t printed for a while I take the lid off the box my inks live in and I inhale. I breathe it all in. It’s amazing. Words can’t describe how it makes me feel. It’s the same when I’ve got a ceiling full of racks with prints drying – I walk into my studio and I smell that ink. I adore the darkness I can get with that black. Those great blocks of colour. It’s so intense. And you can say so much just with a line, or that contrast between the black of the ink and the white of the paper. It makes me buzz. It literally sends tingles down my spine.
sketch- Swallowed by The Overwhelm
Flomp - snooze time
where do you work?
I work from a room at the back of my house. It was the everything room. It’s still the spare bedroom at times; guests get to sleep amongst my artwork. It was a bit of a playroom too – I’ve had prints accidentally shot out of drying racks by Nerf guns (but Nerf gun bullets also make really good Pfeil tool cover guards) The guinea pig spends her days with me in the winter when it’s too cold for her to be outside. Sometimes I share with racks of drying laundry. But now the kids are older and only one still lives at home full-time, it's really become my studio properly.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
There’s not really a typical day. A lot of people romanticise being an artist, but there’s a lot more to it than just pulling prints – there’s a lot of admin work, accounts, selling fairs, etc. -the duller bits of running a business. But a ‘favourite’ day would be a creative day. I tend to gather flocks of sketches and ideas in my sketchbooks and then have sessions of doing a certain part of the process – so I’ll cut a lot of blocks, 5 or so, for a few days, then I’ll spend a week printing. I print until the drying racks are full. And when the drying racks are full, I balance on furniture and tie bits of string to things so I can use clothes pegs to hang up even more prints. I try to work ‘sensible’ working hours and, as a single parent of 3 children, this used to be dictated more by school runs or people needing to be fed. But it’s very easy to get totally lost in my work, or just think I’ll finish cutting this block, or using up this ink, or pulling the remainder of this edition, that suddenly I’ve missed lunch or it’s far later than I thought, or it’s dark and I should probably be in bed. Also working from home means you can stray back in to the studio when you’ve really only gone to check the back door was locked – I’ve been caught before, by the middle daughter, cutting lino at midnight after saying I was shattered ‘What exactly do you think you are doing, mother’ – talk about being ticked off by a teenager!
How long have you been printmaking?
I’ve been printmaking on and off since I was 19, or maybe 6. I’ve been full-time printmaking for about 7 years now. Before that I had various breaks from printmaking, or art in general – some forced.
The Story Of Bun-Head
What inspires you?
My inspiration comes from life. The good bits, the dull bits, the really gritty unpleasant bits. Or things that just pop into my head. So I never quite know what’s going to happen next. And sometimes I’m surprised with what I come up with – a friend related my work to ‘taking a walk through Polly’s mind’ – which is what it really is. But a lot is from me and my emotions. Viewers don’t need to know my exact reason for making a print, my work can speak to people on an individual level. My prints show how life has affected my art and, in turn, my art then affects the viewer’s life. If people come away feeling some sort of emotion then my job is done. Though there are always some who only see the quirky, comical side of my work. There are some prints that are just this, like ‘The overwhelming joy of stripy tights’ but others tackle issues like mental health, domestic and sexual abuse, feminism and equality. Basically they can be light and funny or an expression of the thick, dark and scary soup of life that laps at the feet of so many. And surviving! They are about getting through that stuff and coming out the other side.
The Overwhelming Joy Of Stripy Tights
What is your favourite printmaking product?
Caligo safewash inks have revolutionised my printmaking from home. When I was at university everything was solvent based, or the water-based products really didn’t hit the mark. Now I can just put my rollers and blocks under the tap at the end of the day. Japanese vinyl is my favourite surface to work with – I can get such a crisp line and so much detail. When it’s too cold to cut easily I sit on it for a while or, in the depths of winter, I alternate having a hot water bottle on my lap or on the block. My really favourite printmaking product is my little Albion press. It used to belong to my ancestors and was discovered in a garage in 2019. My dad arranged to have it restored for me, but sadly he died of covid in June 2020 before he saw it in use in my studio.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I sell on Etsy - that’s my ticking over sales. I also have galleries that stock my work on a regular basis – a fair few in Cumbria, as well as The Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge, The Craft Centre at Leeds City Art Gallery. I’m currently working on expanding this list across the country.
I’ve been invited to exhibit at The Great Print Exhibition at Rheged for the past six years, and for Great Print 9 they had a major feature on Bun-Head, and me!
This year I took part in Printfest in Ulverston for the first time and won The Founders’ Award. I’ll be at Art in The Pen at Skipton in August 2025, and GNCCF in Manchester in October. I have work in The Derby Print Open this year, which runs for the month of June. And I’ve just had a print accepted for the RA Summer Exhibition.
What will we be seeing from you next?
Your guess is as good as mine! There will always be Bun-Head, even when her hair is chopped off or in a ponytail. Maybe a bit more colour? Though black is still a colour I’m never retiring, that’s for sure!
The second I turned off the lights all these thoughts came swishing around my head
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
There is no wrong way. You don’t need to follow the rules, or the crowd. Keep experimenting. Keep doing what you do. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, comparison is the thief of joy. The second you stop experimenting and playing and pushing the boundaries, you lose yourself and your individuality.
A fork in the road
Whore skin - damn, woman, put that ankle away
To see more of Polly, follow her on Instagram, Facebook and her Website!