It all might have ended with the papier mache jellyfish.
Picture the scene – Fife in the late noughties, a young schoolgirl by the name of Lauren Morsley carries in her latest giant craft project, proud as punch.
Teachers watch on as lovingly-trimmed tentacles trail along the lino, dwarfing the little budding artist.
Before the story starts, we know it how it’ll end.
Tragedy.
“It broke in half,” nods Lauren, now 27, feigning tears over a Zoom call. “I was very, very sad. My teacher chucked half of it in the bin without even telling me!”
But rather than defeat her, this heinous arts and crafts bloodbath only served to teach Lauren, now a full-time artist, her first hard lesson about the life of a creative.
“You can’t really be precious with your art,” she reflects. “What happens, happens. You just need to make the next thing.”
It’s a lesson that’s stood illustrator and printmaker Lauren in good stead through her time at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) and beyond, as she’s built up her design career from her home studio in Kirkcaldy.
“I had a piece in an exhibition before where people got very drunk and fell into it, and completely broke it!” laughs Lauren, who graduated from the Dundee art school in 2018. “But other than that, I’ve been quite lucky.”
‘You’ve painted a photo of my ex-wife!’
Indeed, as the brains (and brushes) behind one of the well-known Stobswell gable end murals in Dundee, as well as murals in Beirut and now her hometown of Kirkcaldy, Lauren has had to make peace with the idea that her work won’t all be pristinely preserved.
“The murals haven’t been tagged (graffitied) or anything yet, and I know some people have had experiences with that,” she explains. “I’ve been fine so far – fingers crossed.”
But for Lauren, whose clients have included V&A Dundee and cult arts magazine The Skinny, the public aspect of mural work is part of what makes it so special.
“Murals, especially outdoor ones where you have the public coming up and speaking to you, are always really interesting and really fun,” she adds.
“On the Dundee mural, I had this little snake, and this guy comes up to me, and he’s like: ‘Oh, you’ve painted a photo of my ex-wife!’
“Because it was a sheltered housing complex, all the residents were really keen to see it developing, and they took that ownership of it, which was really nice.”
It was this bold, colourful Stobswell mural which caught the attention of Beirut organisation Art of Change, and saw Lauren flying solo for the first time in her life to work in the Lebanese capital in 2022.
“I was so out of my depth,” admits Lauren. “I’ve done a lot of travelling but I’d always been with people. So that was first time in another country on my own, not knowing anyone.”
However, hosted by Art of Change founder Iman Assaf, Lauren collaborated with graphic designer Samer B Saleh to create a 30ft mural around the theme of female empowerment and women in tech.
“It was a really unique and challenging project, because we had to design it remotely, before I went out,” reveals Lauren.
“We did it over the phone instead of in person. We’d never met before, so it had all sorts of challenges. It was completely different to how I was used to working on my own.
“Samer specialises in calligraphy and Arabic text, and the rules are very different when it comes to Arabic writing – there’s a lot more you have to consider in terms of the readability.
“So it was cool to learn from someone who’s so talented with it.”
‘I’ve left a mark here in Kirkcaldy’
But even though her career has taken her across the globe, it’s the works closer to home which are closest to Lauren’s heart.
Just last month, the Adam Smith Theatre in her Fife hometown unveiled a new mural of hers, and former Balwearie pupil Lauren couldn’t be more proud – especially since she has her own personal connection to the theatre.
“I didn’t expect to ever do a mural in my hometown,” she gushes. “Especially with smaller towns, there’s often not enough funding, especially in the arts. So it was really cool to see that the Adam Smith has had investment put back into it.
“I used to take part in the Fife Music Festival there with my school wind band and play clarinet and sing in the choir.
“So when it was finished, me and my dad went in and saw it, and had a coffee in their new café.
“It’s just really nice to be able to say I’ve left a mark here in Kirkcaldy.”
Frightened Rabbit merch was ‘crazy’ commission
And that’s not the only “full circle” moment for Lauren, who was shocked to receive a commission from one of her favourite bands lands year – fellow Fifers, Frightened Rabbit.
“It just popped into my emails one day,” she says incredulously. “This woman from Warner Music followed me on Instagram, and she commissioned me to design a T-shirt for their merch!”
For longtime fan Lauren, the job was a dream come true.
“They were supporting Snow Patrol at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in 2010 – that was my first gig!” she recalls.
“I must have been 14. My mum took me and my friend. So it’s that crazy, full-circle moment, just like the Adam Smith mural was. It was very cool.
“And the band reached out on Instagram when it was launching – I got a really lovely message saying ‘thank you’ and how much they loved it. That was really nice.”
Her career’s certainly had its highs – literally, she’s been 26ft up on scaffolding – but Lauren’s had her share of obstacles too, beyond one dead papier mache invertebrate and the “body breaking” muscle aches that come on day four of mural painting.
Trying to build a freelance portfolio as a new graduate while holding down a retail job to pay the bills left Lauren on constant “work mode”.
And even though she’s been full-time freelance for almost three years now, she admits that she finds the work-life balance to be her biggest challenge.
Double-edged sword of freelance life
“When you’re freelance, it’s quite intense trying to balance it all,” she explains. “I don’t make it easier for myself, mind you, because there’s so much I want to do.
“I do my commission work, which is the main part of my job, but I also sell my own work – I’ve got over 20 stockists in America and a whole bunch here and few in Europe. So it’s about juggling everything together and still keeping it running.
“I feel lucky enough, I’m at a point now where I’m getting work in, but you’ve always got that fear that tomorrow, that’s going to stop.”
And despite the fact she doesn’t endorse artists “doing work for free”, Lauren admits that seeking out casual collaborations with charities, such as creating a line of Christmas cards for Fife Women’s Aid, was a key way to gain experience while starting out her career.
“I don’t like the idea of doing work for free, I don’t think it’s something that should be encouraged in the creative industries,” she says firmly. “But this project was one that really helped boost my portfolio.
“You get some experience working with someone and because it’s for a charity, it’s different to just doing work for free. Projects like that are what helped set me up to eventually go full time.”
Affordable creative spaces in short supply
And as an independent artist working from home, affordable studio space is Lauren’s next dream – one which is no doubt shared by many local creatives.
“Not having a dedicated space at the moment is really difficult, and I know that there’s shortages of affordable creative spaces across Scotland,” she notes.
“When you’re working where you’re sleeping, your brain is always on work mode – or mine is, anyway.”
However, with “very arty” parents and the support of her former art teacher Miss Taylor behind her, Lauren feels well-placed to keep expanding her colourful, creative world of long-limbed characters and cute critters – which she imagines “all exist in one universe”.
“I feel like the colours and the bold shapes are my strong points, so that’s what I like to put throughout. I’m really drawn to bright colours. Colour in general is so effective on people’s mood and how they interact with the world,” she observes.
“I do a lot of characters and exaggerated arms and that kind of stuff. That, alongside the colours, encourages a sense of imagination and takes everyone back to when they were younger, and how we all saw the world.
“I feel like people kind of lose that as they get older, so I like to create that nostalgia.”
Conversation