Sheffield Based Artist Eva Juusola talks to Volta Creative

Sheffield Based Artist Eva Juusola

Eva has been a customer of ours for many, many years through Sheffield Parent Carer Forum, but we had no idea she was also a talented artist!

We obviously had to ask her to become our final fellow creative of 2021. Read on to find out just what Eva had to say about her creative side:

Volta: Who or what inspired you to do what you do?

Eva: A couple of years ago, Suzi Thompson ran a collagraph printmaking workshop at the Sheffield Art House that really inspired me. Until then, I had always imagined that you would need expensive equipment, a big studio and years of training to be a printmaker. Suzi showed us that it is possible to do printmaking at home, with some fairly basic equipment. I ordered ink, paper and a little “handbag press” the next day, and I haven’t stopped making prints since.

Volta: Were you self-taught or have you had formal training?

Eva: I’m self-taught. Most of what I know about printmaking, I’ve learnt through trial and error. Collagraphy is such a new printmaking method that everyone is just making it up as they go along anyway.

Volta: What did you do before you did what you do now?

Eva: I worked as a translator for Spanish, German and English for many years. I had a career change in 2010, when I started working for Sheffield Parent Carer Forum, an amazing local charity that supports families with disabled children. I absolutely love my work, but I also wish I had more time for art.

Volta: How would you describe what you do?

Eva: My approach to printmaking is very tonal. It’s based on the idea that manipulating the surface texture of a plate will cause it to hold more or less ink, and therefore print darker or lighter. Basically, the rougher the surface, the darker the tone – and the smoother the surface, the lighter the tone. To change the texture, I might paint PVA glue onto my plate to make the surface smoother, so it prints light, or apply a gritty paste to make the surface rough, so it prints dark. I’ve got some short process videos on my website that might help to explain it: www.juusola.co.uk/post/collagraphs-in-60-seconds

Volta: Have you ever made a mistake while creating a piece that you learned a lesson from?

Eva: I think that mistakes are an essential part of the creative process. I make most of my plates twice, because there is usually something wrong with the first attempt! I often cut out interesting areas from my failed prints, stick them in a notebook, and write down what happened. Then, when a print calls for it, I’ll try to produce that effect on purpose.

Volta: Can you remember the first piece of work you ever sold?

Eva: I can’t remember the piece, but I definitely remember the buyer – it would have been my grandfather. He used to buy watercolours off me when I was a teenager. They now hang in my parents’ house. I wish they’d let me swap them for some newer work, but they refuse!

Volta: What piece of your own work gives you the most satisfaction and why?

Eva: I guess it’s the breakthrough pieces; when something that I’ve been struggling with for ages suddenly falls into place, often through sheer luck. It usually takes me many further attempts to reach that level again – but these pieces keep me going, because I know that if I’ve done it once, I must be able to do it again.

Volta: Do other areas of creativity, such as music, have any influence on your work?

Eva: I often have fragments of poems playing in my head, like earworms without music. At the moment, I can’t seem to walk through an autumn woodland without hearing that line from W.B. Yeats’ poem Ephemera, “The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves / fell like faint meteors in the gloom”. I’d love to make a print of leaves falling like faint meteors.

Volta: If you could lay claim to one piece of creative work in any area what would it be and why?

Eva: So difficult to choose just one, but I think I’d go with John Singer Sargent’s Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. It’s such a magical depiction of that fleeting transition from evening into night, when anything white just seems to glow. Sargent painted this piece entirely outdoors, over two summers, for just a few minutes every evening. Apparently he called it “Damnation silly silly pose” in moments of frustration… It’s nice to know that even the great masters struggled. And I’m very glad that he stuck it out.

Volta: What is your favourite thing about Sheffield?

Eva: The Peak District. Sorry! Sheffield is a wonderful, vibrant city, and I love living here – but I’ve always preferred the countryside, and I’m happiest when I can roam the hills with my camera and my sketchbook.