Today we’d like to introduce you to Isabella Rotman.
Isabella, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Of course. I great up in a small beach town in Maine. My mom is an artist so I found it quite natural to do the same. I think that all little kids draw. They all sing, dance, and make art. Over time, most kids stop doing most of these things. I simply never stopped drawing. It’s funny because I sort of hate writing now, but as a teenager I loved it almost as much as I loved drawing. Comics seemed like a natural merging of the two. For most of my life I had only been exposed to super hero comics and newspaper strips. When I was about 15 I stumbled upon a copy of Charles Burns’ Black Hole and was absolutely hooked. Comics could be about anything! Suddenly the medium was wide-open and exciting. In 2009 I graduated High School and moved here to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which I graduated from in 2013.
In Chicago I’ve met a lot of amazing artists, students and teachers at SAIC, exhibitors at comics shows, friends of friends, and fellow attendees at my local figure drawing group. I think there’s something special about the Chicago comics and illustration community, and the self-publishing comics community as a whole. Everyone’s sort of in it together, and that’s shaped and supported me as an artist more than anything else.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Although I also consider myself an illustrator, my heart primarily belongs to comics. There’s a very vibrant self-publishing scene going on right now in comics. You can use words and pictures the talk about literally anything, in any way you want, and put it out into the world all by yourself. This is beyond exciting to me, so most of my work finds its form in small, lushly illustrated, stable-bound, photocopied mini-comics.
When I think of my work I usually divide it into two categories, educational and narrative. My educational comics revolve around the topics of sexual education and sexual violence prevention. I consider myself a sex-educator and have been Artist in Residence at Scarleteen.com for 5 years. Titles include you’re So Sexy When You Aren’t Transmitting STIs and Not On My Watch; The Bystanders’ Hand book for the Prevention of Sexual Violence. Both comics aim to take a difficult subject and make it more approachable through the use of illustrations and (when appropriate) humor. In these books I present the concerns of the queer community as part of the concerns of the general population in the larger issue of sexual health and violence prevention. Both books are designed with the college aged audience in mind, and are often distributed at universities to incoming freshmen. I also have a few tiny educational comics about plants and other things that interest me.
My narrative works are a little bit… weirder. Generally these works come in the form of mini-comics that function as a processing method for my own life and issues. They are half auto-bio and half surreal dream. I like to take something that I’m going through, something that I’m having a hard time dealing with, and dissect it. Through the process I try to unearth the core of the issue, a basic and universal emotion. I’ll then build up a new narrative around that basic emotion. The resulting comic may or may not look anything like the situation that actually happened to me, but it should have the same feel. I like to call this work “thinly-veiled autobio.” I hope that when you read them you connect to the guts of the issue, and not the details.
Do you think conditions are generally improving for artists? What more can cities and communities do to improve conditions for artists?
Oh goodness. I’m not the best person to answer this, considering I’m only 27. I’ve been making work my whole life, but I’ve only been out of college and supporting myself with it for 5 years. I don’t really know what it was like for artists *before* the internet. I know that I use the internet in my favor to promote my work, to reach more people. Of course I want to reach more customers, but primarily, I want more people to see my work. Most artists are just trying to connect. We say “here’s a piece of myself, I want to show you” and if we are lucky people “me too me too.” We want to make a connection. We want people to feel less alone. In a very immediate and functional way, the internet makes that easier. It’s actually quite amazing. So many people can see what I do, without the barriers of having to purchase an object that costs money. I’ve always wanted what I make to be accessible, cheap, as far as possible from economic barriers. The internet is a powerful tool for that.
Other ways, I’m not sure. Work is constantly being shared on the internet without attribution to the artist. There seems to be a disconnect in people’s minds between an image, and the person that made it. Maybe most people thing that images belong to everyone. In reality, art is made by a person or group of people. Those creators want credit, and usually, a chance to make a living, off of what they have created.
In a much more immediate sense, I think the current political climate is an absolute black cloud over anyone trying earnestly to express themselves and pay their rent through art. So for most artists, that makes just about everything harder.
So, what can folks do to encourage and help artists thrive? On an individual basis, shop local! Do your best if you can to buy things from someone in your community if you can. If money is an issue, you can support simply by signal boosting. Follow artists you like on social media and promote their work by posting about it. If you share content on the internet, please please please credit the artist. Even if the credit has already been removed, you can probably track it down. Do a reverse image search on google that usually works.
On a city basis, we could really use more grants. Let’s support local art and comics shows, were artists have an opportunity to table and sell their work. Events like these are often crowdfunded and run by a community of dedicated volunteers. A little city funding could go a long way. Local libraries, do you have a zine section? See if you can collect local self-published comics to share with the community, especially in teen sections! Perhaps even run a small zine fest through the library or invite local artists for paid workshops or talks.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Oh, I try to make my work as easy to find as possible! You can see my work at IsabellaRotman.com. There’s a section on that website called “digital comics” where I have posted comics that you are welcome to read for free. If you wish to buy something there’s also an online store. If you’d like to follow my in progress work, including a Tarot deck I’m currently drawing, I invite you to follow me on Instagram @This_Might_Hurt. I try to post drawings there fairly regularly. If you are local and would like to save on shipping, you can probably find my work at a few local stores. I usually have comics and merch at Quimby’s, Chicago Comics, Woolly Mammoth, Alleycat Comics, Wolfbait & B Girls, and Sideshow Gallery. My comics are also distributed by Radiator Comics.
Contact Info:
- Website: IsabellaRotman.com
- Email: IsabellaRotman@gmail.com
- Instagram: @This_Might_Hurt
- Twitter: @IsabellaRotman
Image Credit:
Image by Isabella Rotman
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