The goddess really broke the mould when she made Gold Coast artist and author Samuel Leighton Dore. This colourful and uniquely talented slashie first came to our attention when his eye-catching installation Cloud Drive became arguably the most talked-about piece at HOTA Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, but he’d been making waves long before then.
His 2019 book ‘How To Be A Big Strong Man’ took a humorous look at masculinity and mental health, themes that are inextricably woven throughout all of his works, smattered as they also are with joyful queerness and subversive takes on life, the universe and everything.
Sam has just published his sophomore effort ‘Wow It’s All A Lot’, which is described as “A heartfelt celebration of not quite having life figured out.” Based on his famous ceramic tiles covered in encouraging phrases, ‘Wow It’s All A Lot’ is set to give readers the kind of quirky, heartfelt hug for the soul that Sam’s work is becoming well known for.
We recently caught up with Sam about the book and his (many) other projects.
Can you tell us all about your book, ‘Wow It’s All A Lot’, and how the response to it has been so far?
About five years ago I was going through a rough patch and started sharing my handmade ceramic 'smile tiles' on social media. They're colourful and fragile and each has a different gentle, encouraging phrase engraved into it that reflects my journey with mental health so far. They were my way of processing the things I was learning in therapy... examining difficult emotions through a lens that was creative, engaging, hopeful and uncomfortably specific to the human experience. They seemed to resonate with a lot of people and now there are over a thousand of them hanging on walls around the world. My book Wow It's All A Lot is a colorful mental health coffee table book that includes a collection of 32 smile tiles, along with mini-essays about the challenges that inspired each of them. I like to think of it as a therapy companion book - a self help book for people who might avoid self help books. The response so far has been really touching. It's always scary when strangers engage with your work, especially when it's quite vulnerable, so I'm relieved that people seem to be enjoying it.
Do you remember the first ceramic tile you made? What did it say, and how did this process begin for you?
My first two smile tiles read 'Rest You Beautiful Busy Weirdo' and 'Look At You You Big Wonky Star'. I made them at a time when I really needed to slow down and reshuffle my priorities. I'd just been diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had been spending more time than usual in therapy waiting rooms, where I found the art to be quite sad and clinical. I'd also recently become interested in ceramics, so tiles represented a simple form that I could make with limited experience. I think those very first tiles were born from both a need to express myself and a drive to explore a new creative medium.
Your work explores mental health in a way I haven’t really seen before in other artists. It’s very gentle and compassionate, and thus significantly less confronting. Have you always taken that approach to your own mental health, if not, when and how did you learn to treat yourself and by extension others, so gently?
I'd be lying if I said I was always gentle and compassionate with myself, but I do aspire to be, which might be why it comes through in my work. My mother is a counsellor and I was definitely raised in an environment that supported open dialogue about feelings, which I think made it easier for me to open up about my challenges when I felt ready to do so later on. But it still took me a long time to get there. I'd say it was around the time of my CPTSD diagnosis that I made a more concerted effort to be gentle with myself and others, because I realised just how okay I seemed from the outside, but how not-okay I actually was. And if that was the case for me, it could be the case for anyone.
I’m in love with [Sam’s animated short] Sensitive Gym Bros. Where did this idea come from, and where do you plan to take it next, if anywhere?
Sensitive Gym Bros is an animated sketch I wrote and directed, which was produced by my husband Bradley Tennant through our company Sad Man Studio. Filmmaking is the only thing I've ever studied and has always been my first love. For the past eight years Brad and I have been slowly developing a small slate of adult animation TV shows - two of them have been optioned by other production companies and a couple of them we're developing ourselves. Sensitive Gym Bros is a proof of concept for a full-length animated sketch show we want to make about Australian masculinity. The plan is to use it to get development funding for the full series, with the long term goal of being a boutique animation studio on the Gold Coast producing bold, emotionally intelligent, inherently Queer animated stories for film and TV.
Is there anyone you’ve never collaborated with that you’d really love to? If so, who and why?
There are so many people I'd love to collaborate with. In the ceramics and contemporary art space, I adore Grayson Perry's work across mediums. I also interviewed philosopher Alain de Botton once and would love to make something with him. Lana Del Rey is one of my favourite singers, so it would be a dream to get clearance for one of her songs. When it comes to my animated projects, I'd also love to use the voices of comedians including Judith Lucy, Anne Edmonds, Bowen Yang, and Aaron Chen.
How do you feel about Cloud Drive being acquired at HOTA? Are people still able to submit their thoughts?
Having Cloud Drive acquired as part of the Gold Coast City Collection was such a huge honour. Mostly, I'm relieved that the work is getting another life and isn't sitting in a box in my garage. I believe it'll be on display at HOTA for the next year - and people can make submissions at any time via the form on Cloud-Drive.com.au.
What projects do you have on the boil at the moment?
I'm working towards a new solo exhibition early next year, which I'm excited to share some details about soon. But now that ‘Wow It's All A Lot’ has been released, I'm hoping to take some time to focus on my screenwriting and work in animation. We're pitching one of my shows to networks at the moment and I'm currently writing an episode on someone else's series, which I'm really enjoying. There are always a few pots simmering away, so it's just about tending to them as they reach boiling point and hoping none fall over.
@samleightondore is the best way to keep up to date with Sam’s shenanigans.