Beci Orpin

Interview by Madeleine Dore

Beci Orpin: designer, artist, and illustrator

Full transcript

“Sometimes I do take on a lot, but I’m so aware of what I’m capable of now, so I definitely know if there’s a really big time coming up, what that will involve for me and the things that I need to do to get me through.”
– Beci Orpin

Madeleine Dore: There’s a trend that I’ve noticed with the opening of many emails. Many go along the lines of, “Hi, I know that you’re really busy,” or, “Hello, you must be so busy.” 

It’s an interesting phenomenon because I think not only are we really quick to call ourselves busy when we’re asked how we are, we’re also really quick to assume busyness in other people, and it really perpetuates this busyness as a badge of honour.

In many ways, I don’t really consider myself that busy. I have a lot of time for procrastination, for faffing, and, in some ways, I could go with a little bit more busyness in order to make the most of the phenomenon called Parkinson’s Law, which is that you feel the time you have.

Often I’ll find myself with a whole day to do one tiny little task, so I take the whole day. Whereas if I only had an hour, or a short pocket of time, I would actually get the task done in that similar timeframe.

There’s no doubt that busyness can be a block for many people. We crowd our schedules with so much that we don’t have time for the things that are most important to us. We become afraid of blank space. We turn away from doing nothing, even at the times when it’s exactly what we need.

Sometimes we need busyness for our own momentum, but there’s this really fine line that many of us face. When do we need to resist that busyness, or question that productivity trap, and when do we need to shake our own complacency and do the work?

In many ways, I think we really need both. Someone recently described to me our working lives very much being like a sponge. Sometimes you need to be doing nothing, but taking it all in. Learning, absorbing the world like a giant sponge. That’s my comfort zone, definitely. Sponging.

But what I’ve learned is that you can’t sponge for too long. Sometimes you really need that squeeze. You need the doing, the action, the outpouring of inspiration.

This weeks’ guest, I think, seems to find that balance. Beci Orpin does her best work when she’s busy, when she can feel the squeeze. With a creative career spanning more than 20 years, the Melbourne designer, artist, and illustrator has left her colourful fingerprint on countless projects from books and homewares to regular art exhibitions and collaboration with celebrated brands.

While she does reflect on the busyness of her day-to-day and how it’s laid the foundations for her really impressive career, she’s also mindful not to prescribe to the cult of busyness. She sees the importance of sleep, downtime, and developing those close relationships with friends and family.

What Beci teaches us is that instead of being busy as a means of escape or a form of pride, our time, or our sponginess should be filled with, wherever possible, the things that we enjoy in order to flourish.

As career counsellor William James Reilly pinned in this essay How to Avoid Work all the way back in 1949, “Altogether too much emphasis, I think, is being placed on what we ought to do, rather than what we want to do.”

So it’s that question of are you doing something out of the ‘should’ or because you actually want to?

Filing our sponges, or filling our lives, with meaningful activity allows us to capitalise on the momentum and fulfilment action can bring, while also allowing space.

In this interview, we talk about the squeeze and how Beci gets so much done, personal projects, the precarity of freelancing, criticism, and resilience. Given the ebb and flow of our days, the times that we’re the sponge, and the times that we need the squeeze.

Here’s Beci Orpin on how she is today.

Beci Orpin: I am okay. I definitely haven’t achieved as much as I wanted to. I had a bit of a disruptive day when I was doing the judging for the Australian Book Designers Association, which took way longer than I thought. But I did get to write quite a lot, and that always makes me feel really good.

This weeks’ kind of interesting because I have only three days to work this week, and then I’m interstate on Thursday and Friday, so I know I have to achieve a certain amount before I go because I’ve got deadlines on Friday, so I have to get them done for Wednesday. 

Because I didn’t get as much done as I wanted today, I know I’m going to wake up early tomorrow and I have to do some writing, so that’s really good. I can wake up at a five and can be really productive at that time, so that’s kind of how I’ll catch up. And then I will also know that I’ll probably have to work tomorrow night as well.

MD: And so once you know that, okay, you’ve really got to get up at five, otherwise everything is just going to fall to the wayside, you have no issue getting up early?

BO: It’s not always that easy, but it’s fine. If I have set myself something to do and I know I have to get it done, then I just get it done. At the moment, it’s not the middle of winter, like it’s not as light as early as it has been in the middle of summer, and it’s not too cold, so I just convince myself with a cup of tea, really.

MD: That’s a lovely bargain to make. When I’ve even just told a few people I’m interviewing you for the podcast, that’s the question. How does Beci Orpin get it all done? What is it about you, do you think, that can take on so much?

BO: I’m really good at getting a lot done in a short space of time when I really need to. Like I can really focus, really intensely, and get a lot done, and I think that’s a really good skill that I’ve learned. I think I’ve been working for so long now, I think this is either my 24th or 25th year of running my business, that I’m pretty good at judging how long things can take.

So if I start work at 12 on a project, then I’ll be like, okay, let’s see what you’ve got done by two. So that short increment of time, I’m good at getting a lot done or pacing myself so I can get a lot done in a certain amount of time. Does that make sense?

MD: It does, and I think you touched on something there that, you know, sometimes I find myself looking at, oh, I’ve only got 90 minutes, I won’t start that task. But actually I then end up just looking at Instagram or something, when I could’ve started the task and maybe got quite a big chunk of work done.

BO: Absolutely. I think that’s definitely part of it. And I, just like everybody else, waste a lot of time on social media. Particularly if I’m not very, very busy, then I definitely find myself really easily distracted. So I really have to be quite strict with myself, and I definitely know when I’ve got a lot on, I can be really strict with myself.

It is going back to that thing like, okay, I have to get up at 5am to get this done. But also my deadlines are really… I’ve worked on a few quite long-term projects lately, and usually my new projects last for three days or a maximum of two weeks, and so I’m much better with shorter deadlines.

I guess it’s the satisfaction of achieving something is much faster, so I’m really good in that kind of work, and getting a lot done.

MD: It’s interesting hearing you speak about how much you can get done, and it sounds like you’re really quite busy, and often I think busyness has become a bad term.

BO: I know.

MD: But actually there seems to be a bit of nuance there. For you, you said before, busyness can give you momentum.

BO: Absolutely, and I absolutely work best. But there’s a difference between busyness and driving myself completely insane. And so I definitely don’t take on more… that’s wrong because sometimes I do take on a lot, and I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I’m so aware of what I’m capable of now, so I definitely know if there’s a really busy time coming up, what that will involve for me, and the things that I need to do to get me through. And how that can often be quite a short space of time, so you just have to work really hard for a week or for however long.

And I also know now, certain jobs take more energy than other jobs. In January, I was really, really busy, which is a crazy time for me to be busy. Usually I’m either quite quiet in January, it’s pretty standard, but I was really busy with four really big, high profile projects, which were all quite public-facing, so that’s a whole different energy than just being in front of my computer every day, and I don’t know if I’d put myself through that again. So it’s also knowing what type of work to take on.

MD: So, what happened after you were so exhausted, say in February?

BO: I’m still exhausted. I haven’t had a catch up yet, so I just keep being exhausted. But I’m fine. It just means that the other day I worked half a day, or I work from home, so you do little things like that where I’m like, okay, that gave me some mental space, or that gave me a little bit of respite. I’m not hugely busy at the moment, so I can do those things, so it’s definitely taking those bits of time when you can to prepare yourself for the next onslaught.

MD: When you say that you allow yourself to take half a day, are you referring to weekdays or does that mean weekends as well?

BO: I definitely try and take weekends off now, just because of my kids and it’s really important. I definitely would say that once a month I have to work on weekends but, because of the nature of my work, I can do it at home, so I try and at least be at home when I’m doing it so that I am still around for the kids.

But this was Wednesday, it was a Wednesday that I took half a day off, and it wasn’t even half a day off, it was more like getting kids off to school, I went back to bed and I read my book until 10 o’clock, and then I went out for lunch. I still got stuff done, but it was very chilled.

MD: I love having them as a Monday. A Monday warm-up for the week.

BO: Oh, love that.

MD: So what happens, then, when you’re not as busy?

BO: So that would probably be at the moment, so that gives me time to work on my own projects, which I do have a long list of projects that I want to get off the ground and never quite get there. So it does allow time for that.

Or I work for Raph’s, my partner’s, business quite a lot, and he always has a long list of things for me to do, which unfortunately he’s always bottom of the pile, so then it’s perhaps working on something for him. I’m far better working on something, rather than just being oh, I can take two days off.

But I do know when I need to take time off to rest. Does that make sense? I do try and invest some time in my own projects and my own experimentation and stuff like that. But I do also find, if I don’t have a certain deadline for those projects, I don’t get things done and it’s not as satisfying.

MD: Yeah, exactly, it’s so hard. I think that’s definitely one of the reasons why I started Side Project Sessions, which is this series where people can come and work on specifically that thing because they are the things that can just shift to the bottom of the to-do list.

So what’s on there then? What kind of self-initiative projects do you do? 

BO: I do this Instagram tile that went a bit viral and then got turned into a book, and then got turned into a jigsaw puzzle, so I’d still like to do some of my own products based around that. I’d really like to do some apparel again, or something like that.

So it’s things like that, but just on a really small scale, not on a big scale. But it’s also that sometimes I have these ideas of things that I’d like to make, just for me. So illustrate, or start playing with styles, or different mediums, so it’s having the time to do that, really.

MD: You just said briefly there, this idea of playing around with style, and you have such a distinctive style. Is there a pressure or an expectation not to veer from it? Or how do you navigate that?

BO: I guess what I do with my personal work is if there’s something that I would like to try, then I use that in my personal work. And then I’ve still got the chance to experiment with it. And then, often what happens with my personal work, is that’ll go into my folio and then a client will see it and be like, oh, I actually really like that, can you work that in?

It’s still a very definite style of mine, but I really like working how I work. There is times when I’m like, oh, I wish I had the opportunity to do more handmade work, but I feel like the list of clients and the variety of work that I get to do now is quite good. I do get to do a whole lot of different mediums and things like that, which is good, and I also get really great guidance from Jacky Winter and from Jeremy. He can be really, really great if you want to vary your style or something, going to him and talking to him about it, and he’s full of really great ideas. And talking to [inaudible 14:06] and stuff too, which is really good.

But I definitely use the opportunity of personal work to explore different mediums and styles.

MD: I think that ties into a question I wanted to ask you about, because, as you’ve mentioned, you’re coming up to almost 25 years of having your own business. I think that people can look at you now and look at how much you’re doing and the variety of amazing clients and all this amazing work that you put out there. I’m wondering if, at the beginning, it was quite different in terms of knowing how to work and how you actually supported yourself, when you were at the very beginning?

BO: It took quite a while. When I left uni, I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do. I knew that it probably wouldn’t suit me working in a studio. I graduated from textile design and I guess the standard job from textile design is going to work in a textile design studio, like Peter Alexander or Sheridan or something that’s a really textile-heavy apparel or homewares company.

I did some work experience with Sheridan in their Sydney offices, so I had that two weeks of work experience where I had an idea, and it was a really beautiful experience and I loved it, but I knew that wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I wanted my work to be a bit more diverse.

So I kind of fell into freelance. It wasn’t something that I intended to do, but I started to pick up some fashion-based work as soon as I left, like tiny bits and pieces. Like absolutely not enough to support myself. I had a host of other jobs which kind of supported me. I worked at The Lounge and then I worked in a bookshop and I did screen printing. I used to wake up and not know what job I was going to, I had so many jobs.

I guess they all fed into my freelance work though, because they all offered me skills or contacts that I could then apply to my freelance work. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s kind of what happened. It took me, I think I was five years of being out of uni before I could go full-time freelance, so it took a little while.

I think it’s a bit more fast-paced now, and I think there’s a lot more freelancers now. It’s a much more common way to work than it used to be. So if it was now, I think it would be a little bit different, but it did take me a little while. I think the first year out of uni, I always say, is so confronting. It’s really hard and don’t put that expectation on yourself that you know what to do, because I absolutely didn’t. It took me a while.

And also to find my peers post-uni as well. That was really important for me to find a group of people that were into what I was doing and worked in a similar way.

MD: It does take a while and I think, even though there’s more freelancers now, I still think it’s mystifying, especially around a stable [inaudible 16:54].

BO: I still don’t know that. 

MD: Yeah. When people look at you and your client list, do you think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding about your income?

BO: Yes, absolutely. Some muse are great, some muse are terrible, and that’s just the way that it goes. I’m so used to it now, but of course you still stress out when there’s nothing on the horizon. You stress out less, but you just don’t quite know how it’s all going to roll.

I guess you also have to be progressing all the time. You do have to be pushing yourself and putting new work out there and that’s going to increase your chances of being employed, or people seeing something different that you’ve done, and that gives you more opportunity, so I guess I’m used to that too. Pushing myself and creating opportunities for myself, which is really important.

MD: What point in your career do you think you broke that point, where it was like okay, I know that there’s going to be natural ebb and flow, and the median income is what I need?

BO: Well, I guess maybe about ten years ago? Maybe. I definitely was able to employ someone and buy a house and stuff, but then literally the year after we did buy a house, I had a really bad year. That was a really hard time, but it really prompted me to get a new website and do all these things, which absolutely helped.

But I think probably about ten years ago was the time that I was like, okay, this seems pretty constant now, and I was getting work that was seasonal as well, like a lot of work for fashion companies. So I knew that four times a year I would have a certain amount of work, which then all stopped and that’s when everything went back. But then I picked up a lot more illustration work, which is where I am. And I guess now I’ve diverted again into a whole lot of different things.

MD: It’s fascinating because I think, especially with yourself and Raph as a duo, you’re taking amazing creative risks with these businesses. It’s a, in Raph’s case, food trucks and brick and mortar restaurants and things, so it’s always nice to know, do these people take risks with having to be frugal as well?

BO: We’re definitely frugal, and definitely they’re measured risks. There’s definitely a lot riskier people than us out there. There’s been a lot of opportunities that we haven’t taken, especially Raph, which we all go through all the decisions he makes in his business together, because he creates all the opportunities for himself. It’s not like me where… I mean, yes, he has a lot of people asking him to cater and things like that, but he has to make the decision to make a new truck or take on a new lease for a restaurant and stuff, which is a lot more self-initiated than what I do.

So we look at them all together and it’s definitely a measured risk. There are times when I wish he would take higher risks, to be honest, but he knows what he’s doing, and we have a lot to think about when it comes to those risks. So they’re very measured.

MD: Do you have any tips for taking measured risks in a creative career or a business as well?

BO: Raph’s way better at it. We’re quite different, as in I’m quite a fast decision-maker and he’s quite slow, and I think the good old pros and cons list is a big thing and he’s really good with budgeting and making sure the financial risks aren’t too great. Like if it doesn’t work and we get in a hole that we can’t dig ourselves out of it. Do you know what I mean? So talk to people and do budgets, and you have to look at the bottom, not just go with your heart. Sometimes.

You have to be practical, which I can be not practical and that’s why I make fast decisions and he makes slow decisions, so you have to have a bit of both, I think.

MD: I remember we chatted once for an article about how to redefine success. You were quite open about early experiences with comparison and jealousy.

BO: Yeah, it’s definitely a lesson that I learned early, was not to compare yourself to others. I had a really good friend, who’s still a really good friend, who I went to uni with. She studied fashion while I studied textiles, we became friends at uni, and we had similar interests. After uni, we went on to share a studio together and she started a really amazing clothing line with her partner, who was also sharing the studio with us.

They had this really amazing success, really quickly, and this international success from all these people that I really admire, and it was really great. I guess I was having my own success at the same time, but it was different, it was smaller, and it was local, and, compared to what they were achieving, it just seemed really pathetic. But they were such a force and they were working together, and they had these really high standards, which was amazing to be around.

But I remember being really envious of them, and I remember one day just sort of thinking, why do you put all this energy into being envious? Of course I was really supportive at the same time, but I was like, well, if you stopped putting that energy there and just put that into being happy for them and putting that energy back into your own stuff, then I’m sure that will be beneficial. And that’s kind of what happened.

It wasn’t an overnight thing, but definitely once I started just being happy for them and put that energy back into my own work, then my own work started to escalate internationally and on a different scale. And it just makes me feel better in general. It’s a lot of energy to have that bitterness and that envy and jealousy. It’s a lot of energy and it makes you feel terrible.

When you make that decision, it just makes you feel better, and it’s still hard. There are still times when I’m like, oh, I really wish I got that thing, and they got it instead. I just missed out on a big job, and I was pitching against other people I knew, and I didn’t get it. There’s still like half an hour of disappointment, but then I’m so good now at being like, it’s cool, it’s the wrong time for you, and you weren’t meant to get it, and you can just work your way out of it now.

MD: Yeah, what an amazing switch to flip.

BO: Because it really can be so hard to work if you’re feeling all those things. It can be really counterproductive and really bad for my creativity and really bad for, you know, it just hinders a whole lot of stuff. It’s fine to let yourself feel it. It just recognises emotions and then go, okay, I feel that way, I understand why I feel that way, let’s get on with it.

MD: That might be also another little insight as to why you can get so much done, if that’s your strategy.

BO: Yes, I’m very, I guess, resilient. It’s definitely a thing in my work capacity. Resilience is like yeah, I’m definitely onto the next thing, don’t try and dwell on things too much, and I think that can be really hard.

MD: Well, I guess onto your work, it would be nice to follow you through a day at the moment.

BO: It really is quite different now. If I have a full week in the studio now, I am so pleased, but it’s quite rare that I have a full five-day week in the studio, and I guess that’s because my obligations have changed somewhat. Illustration is still in the majority of my bread and butter and the main thing of what I do, but I just end up doing a lot of talks and a lot of creative direction, which involves a lot more meetings and things like that.

So I get up pretty early, we’re usually out of the house by eight now because both my kids are in high school, so they both leave the house by eight. Raph and I work in the same office, so we usually go to the office together. I either ride my bike or whatever, it just depends if I have meetings. If I have meetings, I ride my bike, so I can get around.

I always start the day with emails and try and limit those and try and look at my clock and be like, okay, I want to finish these by this time. I find it’s way better for me, if someone’s asked me something to get back to them and I know it’s a quick reply, then I just get back to them throughout the day. But I usually save up big emails for halfway through the day or the end of the day.

And so then I’m a big list writer. I have a list for the month, a list for the week, and a list for the day. Not religiously, but even so, I know, this week, I’ve got a certain amount I have to achieve in the next three days, so I’m constantly ticking that list and being like, okay, what’s the priority? And that’s how I work every day, is prioritising things and usually assigning a morning and an afternoon, so it could be the whole day working on one thing, or it could just be morning on this project, afternoon on this project. It just depends now the deadlines are looking. And that’s kind of how I run the day.

I don’t usually go for lunch. I’m lucky to have a restaurant where my studio is, so I can be lazy. Or I sometimes just walk down the street and buy it. Then eat in front of my computer, finish usually about five.

MD: And do you have any assistants at the moment?

BO: I’ve got a few part-time assistants. I would say they come in on an as-needed basis, which is usually once or twice a week.

MD: And so then, how does the evening work now that the boys are getting a bit older?

BO: I mean, it’s good, we have dinner a bit later now. Dinner time used to be six o’clock on the dot, but now it’s 7 or 7:30pm or whatever, and that’s… I don’t know, evenings are just pretty chill. Watch TV or read my book or reply to emails. There’s not really a huge routine. Exercise is usually quite a big part of my routine, but I do that early morning as well.

But it’s pretty simple. Weekends are different. We do lots of things, like eat out. Now we eat out at least once a week, with the boys being bigger. But they like to be at home all the time.

MD: Has it been interesting, I guess, that relationship between your own work and creative practice, and then the boys growing, and you getting different pockets of time back in the day?

BO: It is nice. It is nice, but it’s a funny thing where, when they’re little, all you want is time to yourself and for them to leave me alone, and then they get big and you’re like, all I want is for them to hang out with me again.

So that’s why it’s a weird thing, because although you have all this extra freedom, you actually just want to be around all the time, so you don’t know when they’re going to come to you, so you want to try and be there as much as possible so that you’re around when they do need you.

Having the extra pockets of time is great and even the fact that Raph and I can go out and leave them at home is amazing, but then you find yourself actually not wanting to do that as much, so it is quite strange. But it’s nice. 

I love the freedom now that I have with not having to pick them up from school and having to do all those kinds of things. It really makes work quite easy, but Raph and I are both workaholics, so we have to make sure we don’t work ourselves to death either.

MD: Do you ever pull each other up on that?

BO: Yes, Raph is definitely, I wouldn’t say worse than me, but he has a lot more responsibilities. Like I have one or two [inaudible 28:26], he has like 50, 60, so he has a lot more responsibilities and a lot more people asking things of him all the time. And hospitality is long hours and it is all those things, so he actually is less likely to switch off than I am, so he ends up working, contact hours, more than what I do. 

So I try to pull him up on that, but there’s also not much we can do. We definitely kept it, our life, within a one kilometre radius, so all our shops, the restaurants, the studio, the school, our house, is all within a one kilometre radius, so it’s not like he’s crossing town if he needs to go to one of the restaurants. Everything is still really, really close, so that definitely helps.

MD: That’s something I guess you don’t often think about, is making your commutes really small.

BO: Yes, and that’s a huge thing for us, and we’ve done that quite consciously. Keeping everything really close for us has been hugely important for family and so we’ve been able to do all those things but keep it all still pretty close.

MD: I love that. I read this wonderful study about if you have your friends 1.6km radius away, you’re happier.

BO: Aw, that’s so nice. I love that.

MD: It is nice, and, for me, my favourite kind of socialising it spontaneous things, so 1.6km does enable that a bit.

BO: That’s so interesting. I’m going to look at that statistic now.

MD: What does your social life look like? Or even the flip side, your alone time?

BO: I’m a very social person, which can be to my detriment because I just make myself really exhausted so I can see my friends. But I think also, after having little kids, and I definitely prioritised my work and kids over my friends for a long time, so it’s really nice to now be able to allow time to have lots of friendships, which is really good. And they’re really important to me. 

I find my friends incredible inspiring because, you know, I have a lot of friends from different ages, so a lot of them don’t have kids and so a lot of socialising happens at our house. We cook a lot for people, I’m just like, just come over, but we also go out a lot. We love eating at restaurants and we love trying new food, so definitely there’s a lot of that. A lot of afternoons wines. 

I’m quite different, Raph is not as social as me, so I’m definitely out more than he is. He’d probably choose work over friends, over socialising, whereas I’d definitely choose socialising. It’s really important to me. We definitely meet people at our own restaurants. It’s all different things where I try and go to gatherings with people.

MD: Are you ever hungover? Because I feel like, for me—

BO: Yes. One of the things I was talking about, all my jobs before, and one of them was working at The Lounge and so that just taught me how to be really good at working with a hangover.

MD: Oh, I missed that lesson. 

BO: It’s a very important lesson to learn. And, as I get older, it’s definitely getting harder. One of my good friends, Sally, she was like, oh, if you’ve got a hangover, it can actually be like, oh, didn’t I have a great night? Like it can be a positive, so now I’m always like, if I have a hangover and I’m hating myself, but then I’m like, but you had such a good time to have this hangover. That’s okay. So I guess that’s a good attitude.

MD: I guess it’s tied to whether the night was a good night. So ensuring the night is good.

BO: Correct. That’s true.

MD: Is there a habit that you’re working on at the moment, when you recap all that?

BO: Is there a habit that I’m working on? Sometimes when my head is really full, a meditation does help. And we had a lot of things happen lately that have been really full-on, and that’s one of the things I’ve learned about myself, is I can always deal with the work pressure, but pressure outside of that can be really difficult to pile on top of that. 

So I guess recognising that, when the pressure is too much with other things that go on in your life, and seeing if meditation does help or like a change in something does help. So that’s been quite good, and allowing myself to feel certain ways. Because I’ve always been very committed to work and things like that, but lately I’ve had to feel other things and being like, that’s okay, you can feel those other things and you can behave in a certain way, and that’s okay. So I guess allowing myself to do that.

MD: That’s one of the hardest things, allowing yourself to feel something. I was just blown away by your recent Instagram post, where you shared a grief awards chart after some really devastating news. And, if there’s any rut, I think grief and loss is going to be the big one.

BO: Absolutely.

MD: And I wondered if maybe you could explain the different grief awards, and why you think they help?

BO: My sister’s husband passed away recently, quite suddenly, so I was like, what can I do? We always deal with things with humour and her husband was very much like that too. Part of his speech at his service was all Monty Python, so I just started to think about all these things that she should be congratulating herself on, on getting through on a daily basis after that thing that happened.

So I did an award chart for her basically, where I made a bunch of stickers. One of them was ‘got out of bed’, or ‘drink a glass of water’, or ‘ignore some annoying advice’ and things like ‘falling in a pile and being okay’ and ‘not being brave’ if she didn’t want to be. And I just made a whole load of graphics, and that’s what I’m good at. I can do graphics and I can put my thoughts into pictures, so I was able to do that.

So I just made a whole bunch of stickers and then a chart and I sent them to her. It was nice, and she really loved it, and it felt like a good way for me to deal with it and do something for her at the same time, and she loved it.

MD: It’s a beautiful gesture, not only in and of itself how helpful that would’ve been to your sister, but also sometimes it is the simple things.

BO: Yeah, she’s a very strong person as well, so I was like, don’t forget to not be strong. Don’t forget to take all that pressure off yourself and don’t forget to do all those things.

MD: Have you had to remind yourself of those basic things too?

BO: I’ve been so surprised because I can be really not affected by things, or I can be affected by things and still keep working and still keep doing all those things. And this was a time when I actually couldn’t work. I was like, oh my god, I actually can’t do this, and I actually am really upset, and I am actually really grieving and depressed, so actually recognising that was a huge thing for me. 

And still, there’s been days where I’m just like, I actually I can’t do that, actually I’m just not up for that today, and I’ve never felt that before, so that’s been a big thing for me to actually recognise because all, my sister too, we’re all just like, here we are, soldiering on, that’s just what we do, keep going. But then allowing yourself to be resilient, but still be like, oh, I’m still not capable of doing that right now. So that’s been interesting.

MD: It’s interesting too because I think that, aside from personal circumstances, a lot of people have been feeling it’s a hard time, I guess, objectively.

BO: I know, and I think that’s cumulative. There’s Coronavirus, and the bush fires, and a whole lot of things at once that were three months, or it’s two months really, of trauma. Like external trauma, like the nation going through all this trauma, and then us going through this huge personal trauma as well, has been so wild.

All the hardships I go through with work, they’re so easy compared to when you actually have to deal with real-life things. The hardships with work are just like, oh my god, I can’t meet this deadline, and oh, I’ve got a block, but that’s nothing compared with someone dying or all these other things we’ve been going through. It’s interesting.

MD: Yeah, that perspective is so important. I’m not sure if you’ve observed it or you’ve felt it yourself, but with these kind of traumatic times at the moment, I think one thing that creatives might feel, or anyone might feel is that insignificance.

BO: Absolutely. I felt that, and that’s when I’ve done work about it. I feel like you feel insignificant and also what I do is really futile. Like I just make things look pretty and it’s so dumb, and people are dying, and people are losing their homes, and it’s a huge national tragedy. 

But then when I’ve been able to make work based on that, or on my sister’s partner dying, it’s really resonated with a lot of people and you can feel, like I said, less hopeless or more like you can actually give people… like some people being like, it’s so great that you made this, it’s really helpful, it’s really voiced something that I wanted to say, and that work, for me, has come from my rawest moments, but it’s been the work that’s been the most successful, on social media anyway. Do you know what I mean? So that’s been really interesting and made me feel less helpless about things, I guess, which is kind of cool.

MD: It’s such a wonderful flip. I just think that, gosh, we give ourselves a hard time because creative work, we’re not taking away from the earth in some way, it’s adding some brightness. As futile and trivial as it may seem, and it can be more meaningful.

BO: And it’s also communication, which is incredibly important during times of loss and tragedy and stuff. Communication is hugely important and if you can communicate a way that people are feeling, then that’s really helpful. I’ve seen how helpful it can be. Like how, if you had said that last year, I would’ve been like, that’s rubbish, but now I’m like, oh no, it could actually be really powerful and helpful and just helpful as in you can create something that people can share and that voices their opinions too. It can be a really good tool

MD: Well, I suppose because this is about routines and ruts and you’ve just shared such a personal story about what’s going on, is there anything that you’d like to share in terms for someone else who might be going through something similar?

BO: I find it really… oh my god, I hate to give advice because I feel like it’s a really personal thing and everybody copes with it in a different way, and I think it’s definitely about recognising that. It is about you doing that you feel is right. There’s no certain right or wrong way to behave if you’re faced with certain things, so that would be one of the biggest things that I would say.

I definitely think, obviously, talking to people is good, but I’m not very good at actually talking to people about certain things, so that doesn’t necessarily work for me. I don’t know. Just getting the help that you need is really important, and don’t think the help that you need is the help that somebody else needs. It’s just a really personal thing.

MD: Do you have an inner critic?

BO: Do I have an inner critic? Yes, I think everybody does. I definitely have an inner critic… how do I put this? So I do a lot of commercial work and I’m so happy during that commercial work, but then I go and do this personal work, and then the balance between making that personal work commercial, and do I take this job, am I going to look bad if I take this job? But I always end up justifying it.

I think because of these more personal posts that I’ve been putting up, and that’s opened me to a wider audience who have more opinions, so I would say that the last few things I’ve put up definitely have got some opinions, which are then frustrating because social media is not the place to respond or talk about these things. If you have a different opinion, social media, for me, is not the place to say those things, so I just have to be like, thank you for your comments. 

MD: It’s so hard if you’ve already got the inner critic and you’re so aware of balance.

BO: Yeah. I’ve spent a long time doing this and I do put a lot of thought and consideration into everything I do, so when someone tries to call you out for doing something when you’re like, well, no, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. So that can be frustrating, but it’s quite minor. I have had nothing but nice comments forever, but it’s only been recently where I’ve had a few not so nice ones. But I think, again, that’s when resilience comes in.

MD: I interviewed Jamila Rizvi and I loved her approach to having your own board of directors, so five people that you pick and they’re the people that you will care about the opinions of.

BO: That’s so great. I love that. I probably have, unofficially, the for sure people I talk to about it, for sure.

MD: You can give them a little sticker to say you’re on the board.

BO: Yes! Oh my god, that’s my next award chart.

MD: Beci Orpin is no doubt inspiring, and for so many she’s a leader in paving a career in design, illustration, and art, and also just a leader of being a good person. What I found so humbling about chatting with Beci is knowing that it isn’t always a smooth ride. Even the most established creatives can worry about the next paycheck, or whether they’re finding the time for their creative projects, or professional and personal setbacks.

It’s during these bumps when our creativity can be the most fragile. It can feel like our creative practice is futile or stupid or a waste of time. But, as Beci proves with her projects, such as the Grief Rewards Chart or the Take Heart, Take Action series, our creativity can be useful, even just for ourselves or for many, many people around us, in Beci’s case.

So if there’s one silver lining during these uncertain, very complicated times that we’re experiencing, it’s that we now do have time. We can use our creativity to be resourceful, to create new things, and to soothe. And that’s exactly what we should do.

Now is the time.

We might want to seize that time and be productive and busy with our creative work, or we might want to use that time to rest and reflect. Either way, it’s connecting. We cannot be reminded enough of the ebb and flow of our lives and, as writer May Sarton put it, “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.”

So I hope that you stay healthy and step into that slowness or into that momentum of busyness, whichever part of the ebb and flow you need.