Ælfleda Clackson on creative encouragement, oversharing online and why we need to talk about grief
Collage artist and storyteller Ælfleda Clackson is one of many creatives I have become internet friends with thanks to social media. We started following each other on Instagram back in 2020 and, since then, Ælfleda’s online presence has blown up. She’s amassed over 50 thousand followers by sharing her beautiful artworks and creative process as well as her thoughts on art, life and how the two intertwine. Scrolling through the library of imaginative videos on Ælfleda’s profile, you can see why her content has surged in popularity. The videos are insightful, encouraging and heartfelt. Each one feels as though she is speaking directly to you.
After years of liking posts, reacting to stories and occasionally trading messages, it was time for Ælfleda and I to take our online friendship to the next level and have a face-to-face chat (over Zoom). Sitting in our studios in Münster and Birmingham, our conversation wandered between personal and professional topics; covering everything from the dangers of sharing too much online to the importance of talking about grief…
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Having supportive friends was so important. Without them, I’m not sure I would have gone on to do anything creative.
Ælfleda Clackson
Hi Aelfleda! Let’s start by talking about friendship. Why do you think it is so important to have supportive friends?
When I was younger, some of my family supported the idea of me becoming an artist but most of them were disappointed that I didn’t want to do something ‘proper’ like engineering or medicine. Having supportive friends was so important. Without them, I’m not sure I would have gone on to do anything creative. I constantly felt like I had to prove to other people that what I had decided to do was right before I was completely convinced myself.
Having friends to talk to about your work also makes it easier not to get stuck on one way of seeing everything or get lost in your own world. And meeting people from different places is important too. When I was at university, I studied abroad twice; I spent six months in France and six months in Poland. It made me realise that the way we think about art depends so much on the way we are taught - and it is so different in each country. You are always limited by what you have seen and been taught. Having friends from different countries opens you up to ideas you wouldn’t have been able to think of on your own.
Did you always aspire to create video content as well as art? What inspires the content you share online?
My Instagram used to be an online portfolio like it is for a lot of people, and my target audience was art directors. I read The Death of the Artist by William Deresiewicz which basically says that in a world where we have so much access to creative work, you need to have a personal brand so that people can feel an emotional connection with the things you make because they associate them with you. After reading the book, I decided to change my target audience. I realised that, if I wanted an audience that liked me as a person, I needed to speak to everyone interested in creativity, not just those who are already professional art directors and designers.
A few years ago, a lot of people in Germany started getting fined for using music on social media without a license. I took down all of my reels to avoid getting fined and had to start from scratch. I decided to use voiceovers instead of music and talked about creativity while showing my process. So that’s how it started. It was a mixture of reading a good book which helped me realise I had to put myself out there more and being scared of having to pay a fine for using the wrong music.
When you record a voiceover for a video, do you have someone specific in mind that you are speaking to?
Whenever I make content, I always have one of two people in my mind. The first is a friend (who I will never name because it would be too embarrassing) and the second is my mum. They both make lots of things but are also both perfectionists so struggle when showing their creations to other people. When I do a voiceover, I am speaking to one of them. It is easier to have a specific person in mind rather than the abstract idea of a persona.
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The people you are jealous of are the people you should ask for advice from.
Ælfleda Clackson
Do you have any advice for someone who is nervous about sharing their creative work online?
I like the idea that on social media, it is always just one person watching at a time. Obviously, loads of people can see the videos (I have some with over a million views - you can’t imagine a million people) but there is always just one person looking at the phone. Even if they are watching in a group, it’s lots of individual people. I am always just speaking to one person at a time. It doesn’t make sense to make content for lots of people; it only makes sense to make content for one person. I think that takes away a bit of the pressure.
Trolls can sadly be an inevitable part of growing an audience online. Have you had much negative attention?
I have been very lucky because I haven't received very much hate online. It was been overwhelmingly positive. The most negative feedback I have received has been from people who know me in real life. For example, someone I know once said that the only reason my Instagram was successful was because I am a young woman and the algorithm favours young women. There is always an undertone of envy when it comes to comments like that.
I always say that the people you are jealous of are the people you should ask for advice from. Say you want to write a book, you are not going to be jealous of the author who has published 30 books and sold a million copies; you are going to be jealous of your friend who had managed to get their first book published just before you. They are one step ahead of you and you feel like you deserve what they have. When I feel jealous, I ask myself: why do I feel like I deserve what they have? And what is stopping me from having it?
Mental health is a common theme in your content. Why do you think creativity and mental health are connected?
Why is there a connection between breakups and great songs? Why do we have our best ideas when coming out of a depressive episode? It is because when you are struggling mentally, it forces you to look at life from a different angle - which is essentially what creativity is.
How is your creative work impacted by your mental health?
My creative work has always been a way for me to take the things that are bouncing around inside my head and make them into something. It’s a way for me to get out everything I am struggling with at that moment. I get more productive and have the urge to make more things when I am struggling with my mental health but I know lots of people experience the opposite.
Last year was a really difficult year for me because we had three deaths in my family. I’d been confronted by grief before but not like this. I struggled with my mental health but I also had so many ideas to make things. During that time, my sister worried that the content I was posting online was too personal but I didn’t have any other topic to talk about. No matter what I tried to make, it would always end up going in that direction. It was so consuming. There is a fine line between putting yourself out there and putting too much of yourself out there.
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When I was going through grief, there were so many people who just disappeared.
Ælfleda Clackson
Has your experience with grief made you wish people spoke more about what it feels like to lose someone?
Grief is the most common thing ever; everyone will be impacted by grief at some point in their life. But we don’t talk about it.
Before my experience, whenever a friend had lost someone close to them, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d tell them I was thinking of them or something like that. When I was going through grief, there were so many people who just disappeared. I think they felt like they didn’t want to put me in the position of having to talk about it and knew that they would feel uncomfortable talking about it.
We don’t talk about how much time it will take. It took me a year to sort things out in my mind. For a lot of that time, I felt like everybody else had moved on faster than I had. I wondered why it was still such a daily struggle for me. We don’t know what others are going through because the world outside doesn’t acknowledge it. Everyone is just expected to take a day off work and then continue with life as before. And going to work after losing someone is awful. It feels like you are in a simulation and you just can’t see the point in anything.
When I look back at my posts on social media from last year, it seems like I was having a great time - even to me. And then I remember what I was really going through. Social media is real but is very curated. What you are seeing is not what the world is like. Everyone always looks much more successful and happier than they are.
Finally, as you are such a wonderful storyteller, I’d love to hear about a few of the stories you love!
I love the book Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. It’s about lots of things but mostly about travel and the desire to ‘keep moving’ which is something I feel very driven by. It is a beautiful fragmentary novel and the one book I have read more than 3 times.
I also love the podcast This Is Love by Phoebe Judge. She tells these short beautiful stories about love and relationships. Stories about love for a craft, for a person, or a place. It is one of my comfort podcasts and is really beautiful!