Throughout March we are celebrating Women in the Arts with a connection to the Isle of Man. The aim of this series is to highlight the challenges that women face in the creative industry, share some advice to younger creatives and also to celebrate these women in their achievements. 

Janet Lees is an artist, poet, filmmaker and facilitator.

What is your professional background in the arts?

I originally did a BA Hons degree in creative arts – visual arts and writing. Because of a lack of confidence, great scarcity in opportunities and the need to earn a living, I didn’t pursue a career as an artist after graduation. Instead I took a business course and eventually became a freelance copywriter and editor. 10 years ago I did an MA in creative writing at Lancaster University, and since then I’ve focused more on developing my creative practice as an artist, poet and filmmaker. I’m also a trained facilitator in creative writing for wellbeing.

What inspired you to pursue a career as a poet/artist/filmmaker?

I don’t think I can qualify my creative practice as a career, as it doesn’t support me financially. I really hope that one day it will, but I’m fiercely committed to giving time and energy to my creative practice, basically because I’m driven to do it and feel only half-alive without it. Having spent a long time in a creative wasteland due to depression and addiction, the need to write poetry came back to me in recovery. I’ve been inspired in so many different ways, but my biggest and most enduring source of inspiration is other artists and poets, many of them women.

What are the current challenges for women in your creative industry?

Making a living is a perennial problem for the majority of people who pursue a career in any kind of fine art. Very few poets earn a living purely from poetry, for example. In the world of art photography, funding and other opportunities are hugely over-subscribed. I’ve been lucky to have had some amazing opportunities, but you are constantly chasing the next chunk of funding/residency/exhibition opportunity, and keeping up to date with and applying for these is incredibly time-consuming. Fundamentally, I think we have a massive challenge of perception – ‘art’ is typically not seen as a productive or even valid job in a culture which values quantitative outputs over qualitative benefits.

What progress have you seen for women in your field?

Poetry (and literature as a whole) and visual art have traditionally been very male-dominated fields. It feels like things are finally shifting and particularly in the recent past there’s been more of a focus on redressing the balance, not only in terms of gender equality but also equality and diversity in the fullest sense. It’s so good to see this happening, with more and more opportunities offered specifically to emerging artists who have been marginalised. We’re also increasingly seeing women artists of the past rediscovered (or discovered) and celebrated. But progress has been painfully slow and there is still a long way to go – gender-based pay equality, for example, is still a big problem in the arts, as it is generally.

Share a women’s empowerment moment that inspired you.

Carol Ann Duffy becoming the UK’s first female poet laureate, in 2009 (yes, shock horror, right up until 2009 they’d all been men!) I have mixed feelings about the post itself, as did Carol Ann Duffy, saying that she accepted “purely because they hadn’t had a woman”, adding in the spirit of female solidarity and inclusiveness, “I look on it as recognition of the great women poets we now have writing, like Alice Oswald.”

What do you think is the biggest issue today facing women of your age?

Alongside climate and ecological breakdown, gender equality. The 2020 Global Gender Gap Index revealed a 31.4% gap that still needs closing. The problem can literally be a matter of life and death in developing countries, where countless girls are not given access to education and where older

women like me (I’m in my 50s) so often face life-threatening poverty and deprivation, a situation exacerbated by the climate and ecological crisis.

How important is it for women to lift each other up and what does that mean to you?

I think it’s incredibly important for us to lift each other up. Female solidarity is vital in the fight for gender equality. And without the support of my women friends (the laughter, the tears, the love, the cake) I’m not sure I’d survive.

In the wake of International Women’s Day, what is the most important message you want to send out to young women thinking about a career in the arts?

Do the work that you feel moved to do, not what other people are doing, or you think other people might want to see. Don’t take rejections personally – everyone gets rejections, lots of them; all the best artists could paper the walls of their homes with rejection notices. A piece of wisdom from the poet Louise Glück has always stayed with me. She talks about having ‘the adamant need that makes it possible to endure every kind of failure’. All artists have this adamant need to create. Stay true to it and great things will happen, one way or another.

What have you been working on?

I’m really happy to have had some work (art photography and film) selected for a couple of upcoming exhibitions, one in the Isle of Man and one in the UK. I share some of my creative work at https://www.facebook.com/janetlees2001 if you’d like to take a look and follow. Thank you!