Laura Marling on making handmade screen prints to complement her music

In the fall of 2016, Laura Marling played a series of shows in the Northwest and Western United States. The English singer-songwriter started out in Washington state and moved on to Oregon and then California.

“Me and my friend who was touring with me were driving down the coast,” Marling recalls of a trip that took her from Mill Valley to Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara. “And we lost so much money on the tour that we stayed in campsites. “It’s not a boo story, it was fun,” she clarifies with a smile. “It was nice weather. But we were in tents – well, a single tent.

“We didn’t have a lot of money, but we bought some linoleum and some really nice cards and started designing seals. We would make 15 of them and sell them at the fairs, and then that would be enough money for the campsite and gas for the car.”

The seals were made as linocuts – “so that they can be easily repeated” – and were in postcard format, signed and dated. Marling charged $10 each.

Before 2016, during her first five albums, the 34-year-old hadn’t invested much in T-shirts or similar paraphernalia that artists typically sell on tour. Or as she puts it: “My merch was always miserable, terrible, because I wasn’t really interested in it.”

But this was different. “The imprints were, you know, spiritually positive – because I was interested in all those things. Well, I’m still interested in everything… But it felt good to sell something that actually had good intentions behind it.”

The Brit Award-winning musician’s sixth album was released the following year Semper Femina (which was later nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album), the artwork partially consisted of another seal. Marling sold large-scale works based on this case design. She also made custom prints for each show on her subsequent tour. “That’s when I really got involved with the craft.”

Eight years after this essential traveling fair of California crafts, Marling’s prints have become something of a cottage industry – well, an industry in Victorian terraced houses in east London – for the artist. She has almost completed a series of prints based on all of her albums, the only one not yet begun Unfortunately I can’t swimthe 2008 debut, which (like three other albums) was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

“I’ve always been very interested in tarot,” she says of the thematic connection that binds her new visual interpretations of her musical back catalog. “I was really excited about how many Easter egg images you could fit into one image. Then I just started creating them in this tarot format, with one representing each album.” She regularly “releases” these limited editions on her website and through her social networks; Like a rare new sneaker, they usually sell out quicker than you can say, “Lunch line for Supreme in Soho.”

Now to their glorious upcoming album Patterns in repetitionShe designed both the artwork and another new print for a gossamer and profound song cycle that reflects on motherhood, family and generational legacy.

(Image credit: Laura Marling)

Congratulations on the artwork, Laura – an all the more remarkable achievement considering you also completed a Masters in Psychoanalysis. Are you self-taught in the art of linocutting?

Yes, but I tried a lot. When I got very serious about it, I had a print studio and a real printing press before I got pregnant. I’ve done designs for other people’s things – for my friend who has a cider company and other little things. I was the Creative Director for Two Orchards Cider! I loved it!

Did you do art at school for your A-levels?

No. I did GCSE art but I think I got a D. I was always painting, always doing watercolors and drawings. Then, like the cover of the new album, I really got into these spiritual drawings in a Kandinsky or Klimt style, because you let the drawing dictate the outcome. To give them nothing more [meaning]! It’s not that I think I’m spiritual, it’s just that the image is constructed that way.

I really got into it when I lived in LA. I was commissioned by a friend to illustrate her book. It was a pamphlet entitled How to be a womanand it was about self-care from the perspective of kundalini yoga. We did a run of 150.

Does that require a different creative force for you than songwriting?

Yes. Especially the repetition. It’s not like reaching into the ether and hoping the muse will hit you, like it is with songwriting. It’s practical design and then repetition. I also found this out during my dissertation. I would write 2000 words in the morning. In the afternoon I made 100 prints and listened to music. That was a perfect day. Songwriting always happens somehow by chance. But that [other] Things keep idle hands busy.

And I think creating the pieces at home also fits in with life as a new mother…

I went for a run last Christmas when my daughter was six months old. After a long, nerve-wracking day of parenting, I simply made prints here in the evening – we had them all hung up in the living room.

Screenprints by Laura Marling

(Image credit: Laura Marling)

Each track based on the album obviously has different inspirations. The pressure for Song for our daughter (2020) was inspired by Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of war and sexual love that you read about while writing. What about A creature I don’t know (2011)?

It had an interesting process. I started with a picture of Georgia O’Keeffe. It was a nude and I only drew the shadows of her face. That’s obviously an advantage of Lino: because you’re working in shadow rather than light, you can’t see that it’s Georgia O’Keeffe, but there’s an eerie, eerie feeling that it’s a face. So I’m having some creative fun with it. But there is by no means a big message behind it.

But you like to change things about your artwork – the cover for Patterns in repetitionfor example, is in a completely different medium.

It is oil pastel and was painted with a compass and ruler. It’s quite a laborious process. You get the expansion dimensions from the center of the circle. And you start using the compass the way you want, symmetrically. Then draw out the image that appears in the middle. So it’s a kind of random process.

So like a more refined version of the old Spirograph toy?

Exactly. Basically it’s like coloring.

Regarding the Patterns in repetition What does the sleeve picture of a woman on her knees praying tell us about the contents of the record?

I assume the recording is essentially a prayer. A motherly prayer. So I guess that’s what this represents in a pretty powerful way. This also has to do with the origin of all seal impressions. I’m very conscious now with the music I make – and with all the images and everything I write or put out into the world – that I want it to be a prayer. I’m not religious. But I want it to have a good intention and not a loose or evil intention. I try to imagine everything like that.

Laura Marling’s “Patterns In Repeat” album cover.

Patterns In Repeat album cover designed by Laura Marling

(Image credit: Laura Marling)

Certainly, in terms of colors, it also feels autumnal: fertile, fruitful and harvest-festive. Is that intentional?

Well, that happened last fall, so it was probably an accident. But I am autumn! All of my music comes out in the fall.

If you say your wares have always been “catastrophic,” perhaps this bespoke piece of art will give you wings?

NO, [because] We don’t wear a t-shirt. You can only buy them as prints. This is targeted. They can only be handmade by me. I made more money from printing than I did from album sales because I was feeling so bad [major label record] act. I literally made no money from the first five albums. So it’s amazing to go from nothing to something.

They are completing two sold-out residencies in London and New York in Hackney and Brooklyn in October and November. Do you make special drops for this?

We sell the new print there. And I might also do one-off designs for the shows, which is pretty fun – 100 a night or something.

(Image credit: Laura Marling)

In this era of superfans who value a tailored connection, directly between the artist and the fan – direct, even from the artist’s hand – this is a valuable and powerful piece of interaction with your audience.

Of course I hope so. I like the idea of it actually being touched [by me]. It feels manageable to the soul.

You’re now 15 years and eight albums into your career. Is it rewarding to know that you’ve gone through every single aspect of the creativity that comes with releasing a record?

Absolutely. But I have to say: Only under the incredible supervision of the people I work with – because I am chaotic when it comes to deadlines! I just wouldn’t be able to do this if people didn’t constantly chase me! Just because I’m so well looked after. But it feels like an honest way to make a living, and that tops it all off nicely.

Patterns in repetition (Chrysalis/Partisan Records) will be released on October 25th. Subscribe to Laura’s Substack Here

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