By Étienne Lavallée
Soft Flirt is a project run by Alayna Hryclik out of London, Ontario. Alayna runs Soft Flirt, a printmaking, mural, and illustrative art practice built around concepts of softness, locality, body positivity, platonic relationships, and dark humor. She can be found on Instagram as @softflirt and her website at softflirt.ca.
E: You just had a super successful Soft Fest. What does it mean to you to provide this creative space for Londoners right now?
A: I think that, for myself and my own artistic journey, community support has been essential for my own livelihood, for battling imposter syndrome, and for feeling supported and having a network of people who are not only working together but championing each other’s success. So, I think that entering my 8th year in business, Soft Fest has become important to me because I’ve had such success going to other people’s events and building community that way. I think it’s important for me now to start creating those spaces for other people, especially emerging artists, and to help continue to create community spaces in London. I’m deeply passionate about community and I feel it’s always the buzzword that I talk about a lot, but as anyone who shares in the beautiful community knows, you can become obsessed by it and it’s all you want to talk about.
E: Absolutely! Very relatable on my part; I don’t have to explain to you, we’re surrounded by creative people, and I think that London has a special network of creatives.
A: I also think, although costs are increasing everywhere, that it is slightly cheaper to do things here, so we have more ability to try something that might not be doable in Toronto, Montreal, or New York. For me, I feel I’ve passed a hurdle in my business—I’m established. I feel comfortable to try something new, and for me it’s this new self-assigned job: creating options for other people and creating what I want to see in the community. For me, the softer, the better.
E: Absolutely, all of that! I think softness is a big deal right now because the world in many ways seems to get harder and nastier. So not only is your work creating a counter-narrative to that, but it’s also imagining a better world— I love that. Correct me if I’m wrong about that interpretation.
A: I think that’s a nice way of putting it! I don’t think in terms of what I’m doing in this specific decision—I’m making. Most of my work is inspired by either what I want to see, or a reaction to what I’m seeing. A lot of my local stuff is tongue-in-cheek; there’s a bit of hurt underneath. There’s some humor, but with my gravestone design, there’s a hurt for the city that’s lost all these treasured spaces. But there’s also a bit of confusion about it. Why does London lose everything? There are so many layers to that, but I think a lot of them can be seen as negative. I think the work has been an interesting way to put an artistic spin on not just being negative about the things that are hard, or the things that are frustrating or sad, but to try to see through it with softness.
E: I absolutely love the gravestone design; I got that shirt for my partner. When he wears that shirt out in public, everybody points out that they remember this place or that place.
A: I get the same responses from people when I have the shirt at markets or events. This year I made a big version of the design featuring 163 places. It’s become this fun local history project. I’ve never thought of myself as a local historian, but I feel I am now.
E: That comes with community engagement, doesn’t it?
A: It does! They’re inextricable from each other. When you’re looking into the deaths of these important community spaces, you have a community history. You become a local historian; you’re deeply thinking about these places that used to host house parties. When I was in my twenties, my favorite thing to do was go to a house show. There was something about seeing a show in somebody’s basement that had a certain layer of specialness. You have that deep community bonding where you’re dancing, and you’re in the pit with people, sweating together, screaming together—there’s something special there. Maybe you don’t know it at the time, but when that space is gone, you yearn for it. That gravestone design was creating a space for that grief. I didn’t realize what I was making at the time. I had the idea, brainstorming with some of my friends in our print shop, and I was like “This would be such a funny zine.” And then it just spiraled out from there. My idea came first, but then the more research I did, the more I asked people about their favorite lost spaces, the more the work became a piece of old memory, with all the feelings alongside that. It’s been an amazing connector for me in the community.
I love to make niche London merch, but, beyond that, it is about the connection aspect. It’s not just about making a T-shirt for me, it’s about the message behind it. A T-shirt can’t be just for me—it would have five places on it, and it would be only my memories. It has to be for the community as shared memories. Shared memories–that’s part of what builds a community, it brings people together. You share in the good and the bad.
E: Your style, what I’ve been seeing from you, is connected to shared spaces, community experiences, and creating work out of it. What is this process for you and what does it mean to you?
A: I think it gives me something to have purpose for. I am an artist, and it’s great that I’m making art. I think having a community lens to a lot of the work that I do, or even who I work with, is important. I am somebody who doesn’t really expand beyond London. I have a support network here that aligns with the mission around everything else I’m doing. I’m getting a mural project and then my next mural is from word of mouth because this person saw the other job that I did. It just demonstrated to me that you can have a strong supportive community and don’t have to strive for something else. This goes back to when I was in art school at Western. There was this idea that to be an artist, you had to move to a bigger city and be represented by a gallery. That was the way to do it, constantly marketing yourself, and trying to live in that super inauthentic fine art space supporting the bourgeoisie.
I think it’s been revolutionary to make a $3 sticker, a $30 T-shirt, or a larger project mural, and have it be for people in my local community. I don’t need that pat on the back recognition, that gallery stamp of approval, or being purchased by a collector to call it art. That’s been a powerful thing for me and driven a lot of my work. I shelved that frustration of not being able to achieve that ideal when I left university, and now it’s a joy to be able to say I didn’t need to do it that way. I was able to do it my own way. I am so supported here, so it’s in turn made me feel that this is a good place to be. It is a good place to put down roots, and I’m happy to be here. I have no plans to leave.
E: We have a unique environment here in London with a small-town feel but a lot of big-city amenities. That includes our cultural scene which has huge potential for growth. I don’t think we could see that growth if all of us were to give up, throw our hands in the air and say fuck it, I’m going to Toronto. Obviously, we talked a bit about it already, but are you able to reveal the locations of your upcoming mural projects in our city?
A: I can reveal both of my next projects! I’m very excited about them. The first, which hopefully is starting this coming week, might be an ongoing project over the fall depending on timing. My mural painting partner (Pamela Scharbach) and I painted a fun project at the Big Brothers Big Sisters location on Wharncliffe. We did this fun meandering line about the building, and it’s been one of my favorite projects. They have an amazing team, and they got a grant to upgrade their boardroom into a community room. They reached out to me again, and they want to bring us back for another mural project on the inside this time. I’m excited to work with them again—they were great people to work with. It’s nice to partner with people who are community-minded and who make such an impact in the community. We’re still in the brainstorming process but the ideas are flowing, and Pam and I are very excited about that project.
The second mural project I have coming up is for the Summit at the Western Fair. The Summit is an urban arts exploration event put on by Ken Galloway and his Risky Play with Paint Initiative project. Last year I was able to paint a peanut-harvesting wagon. This year I’m still waiting on some of the details, but I will again be painting live during the Western Fair. You have all kinds of people, including people from out of town, watching and talking to you. I’m an introvert, but to be the spectacle, you must be kind and talk to strangers. There’s a lot of people who come over, and whatever you’re doing sparks a story in them. I’m talking to people, I’m making connections, and that’s part of the fun of it too.
Both of those projects I’m excited about, and both are for people that I worked with last year who have brought me back this year. Constantly building relationships and working together multiple times is always fun. I feel murals have this immersive experience working with this specific person in their location. It’s so nice and so fun, and then at the end of it we’ve developed some beautiful friendships.
E: I’m so glad we have these mural initiatives, because they bring a lot of brightness and cheer to our city during dark times, including the literal darkness of winter.
A: It’s all free, publicly accessible art, which is something I’m passionate about.
I love London but let’s not waste words. There are some serious downfalls, especially when it comes to certain City Council initiatives, and the things that get funding, and the things that don’t. At least we have public art if not other things. Living in London, I know that there are serious problems, pitfalls where we lack support for social services like SafeSpace and the work that they do. If I didn’t have a positive way through, I would be so mad at the world, and that’s not productive either. They’re trying to turn things around, and art helps us do that. I think having a platform in the community also helps me do that. Community is amazing. There are so many good things, but also, we have to put them in the context of giving support to the people who need it. Even if I can’t give someone money, because I’m still a working artist, I can share my platform with people or align my community event with something. These things give us a united front against the problems we face—like certain city counselors who antagonize social support organizations in our community.
E: You have experience with local exhibitions, galleries, and arts events. You did Print Pop earlier this year at Palasad, and prior to that you were at TAP Centre for Creativity. Was there anything else this year that I missed?
A: I had a small show at Variety Cafe. They’ve become great advocates for local shows and local artists, and they’ve been incredibly supportive of me. That was a nice little diversion from my typical artwork. It was a textile collection, but it’s something that I always want to come back to. They gave me the platform to do that, and they’re supportive and encouraging. That was lovely. Then I do a lot of work with Punk Rock Flea Market (PRFM), which is a market with live music as well. PRFM has been instrumental in keeping a DIY spirit alive in our community.
E: London has this dialogue where the harder and grittier our city gets; the more punk rock people seem to get about it and the more people try to create with each other. PRFM helped a lot of small punk bands and visual artists get exposure. I can see how strongly they’ve influenced you and how you’ve influenced them.
A: We’ve been aligned from the beginning. I launched Soft Flirt at the first PRFM. At that time, they were just community members, then we became friends in the process. I did a bunch of markets over the years, and then in 2022, I weaseled my way onto the team and now we work together. It’s been a beautiful reciprocal relationship. We have a shared anniversary and a shared history, which is a fun thing to have. We [had] our September market on the 28th, and it’s the anniversary of Soft Flirt and also the anniversary of PRFM.
E: Could you tell me a little bit about some of the challenges you’ve experienced and your triumphs too?
A: There have been times when I should have had a part-time job to help support myself financially, but I was digging my heels in and making it work with Soft Flirt alone. A lot of my challenges were times when I didn’t have a lot of jobs going on, when I didn’t have markets, or when I didn’t have a lot of places where I felt I could share my art. I work well when I’m busy all the time and I have lots of stuff going on, but then the well runs dry. I get to completion and then I just allow that to spiral. I don’t necessarily always pull myself back up in a timely manner.
My hardest ruts were self-imposed, and I think that’s important to learn from and learn through. There are things that I could have done to make things easier for myself, but I was stubbornly motivated to succeed alone. I’m somebody who struggles with rejection sensitivity. I’ve applied for a lot of public calls for murals, and applied for grants, and I get my hopes up. If something doesn’t come through, I’ve had to learn from my own feelings of rejection. I think that some of those experiences are unavoidable, and some of those are inevitable. It’s the growth of being an artist. You must keep trying. You must keep applying for things. You’re not going to get everything you want, and I see that as a struggle a lot of artists go through, and a lot of people in the community go through.
There’s a lack of funding for artists, so the opportunities are further between. That’s something that I think I’ll always be challenged by. I get really excited about opportunities, and if I don’t get it, it’s always a hard pill to swallow. There have been some seriously difficult moments, just digging myself out of periods of funk without minimizing it. I’ve recently landed on what works well for me, and it is keeping busy and working together collaboratively with people that I’m excited about working with. Challenges and successes can be one and the same, and I think that the process of being an artist is finding your process.
E: It’s never easy finding the space to feel your feelings and get through it while becoming resilient and not bitter.
A: I had a bad bout of rejection this year, and it really hit me hard. I felt embarrassed by it. I had to work through those feelings which is why I took July off. I was so burnt out emotionally. I had three back-to-back months which were busy, high energy, and successful. Sometimes that pendulum sways too far in the opposite direction afterward, and I get hit with— I jokingly call it—Summer Time Sadness. It’s just burnout. If I’m not booking a mural for a couple of months, or I’m not booking a collaboration, then my spark, my fire, is a bit dim. Then it’s hard to self-start on my own ideas and projects. I work best when I keep myself busy because I have a constant level of inspiration happening. When the burnout hits, it’s hard to climb back out of that, because that’s the way that my brain works. It’s such a tough balance to learn to live with, to bounce back when you can’t even create. If I’m going to be told “no” by this thing I’m applying for, then why don’t I make my own thing? I think it can make you wallow sometimes, but the positive result of rejection is figuring out a way to make it happen yourself. It’s coming from my own pocket—that’s the reality of community projects sometimes. Funding is not so easy to attain, but the stubborn need to succeed is and it has to happen.
E: You have those projects coming up that you told me about, but, in the long term, what do you want to see for your practice? Do you want to do exhibitions, or do you want to do more festivals? What are your plans for your own art practice and for London as well?
A: Soft Fest is something that I plan to do once a year, every year until I’m done doing it. In the first two years, Soft Fest was a four-day event—something on each of those four days. That felt like the right formula, so I’m not necessarily dreaming too big. I would be happy if next year we do the same thing again. If I were to come into some community funding, I would just keep expanding. I would feel very accomplished if I kept it running for even five years.
On a personal level, I always love to try new things. I’m keeping it under wraps for now, but there’s a different art medium that I’m going to learn next year. I’m excited to open myself up to some new skills and it will expand my art practice. This sounds so sneaky, but it’s because it’s a secret until January. I’ve always wanted to learn new artistic skills. When I started, I was sewing and screen printing. Now I’m screen printing, mural painting, designing, illustrating, and community planning. There are so many other layers to what I’m doing, and I want to be a jack-of-all-trades. I want to say “challenge accepted” to different directions and paths. Within Soft Flirt, I don’t know what my goals are necessarily, because I maybe don’t know about the opportunity yet. There are endless ways that I want to expand my art-making and develop new skills, but also hone the skills that I already have. I want to paint more murals, I want to screen more T-shirts, but I also want to learn new things and try new events.
I would love to do more work with galleries. It was just cool to work with TAP Centre for Creativity this year. I could see some Soft Flirt gallery shows in the future. The possibilities are endless. Maybe something huge will change and suddenly we’ll get loads of arts funding. Everything is up in the air right now. Everything is chaotic, but that means good things as well as bad things could happen. I am such a hopeful, optimistic person who has been beaten down over the last four years. I miss being delusionally optimistic all the time— it keeps your spirits high. You can’t just focus on all the bad. The bad is happening and we have to recognize it, but it doesn’t really do us any favors if we can’t be hopeful for a different reality. Otherwise, you are just going to wallow and, while there’s good art made in wallowing, there’s also good art made in hope. All the feelings are valid, but I think there’s more positive progress with the hopeful.
I think it’s powerful to embrace softness—it’s the solution to things that are harder.
E: Circling back around to softness and how softness plays a huge role in your work–what does vulnerability mean to you as a radical act?
A: I’ve been a plus-sized person and see the plus-size body through a lens of softness. I’ve spent a lot of time struggling with my own identity, and my own image in the world, and I feel I’ve developed some beautiful things out of protecting myself. It’s taken me a long time to come to a place where I’ve been able to embrace my literal softness, and alongside that, I formed some beautiful friendships. I’ve been all about platonic love and platonic romance in my life, and I think that it was something that I had to learn through that lens. To be able to put that into my art and to create what I’ve created now, I’ve deprioritized traditional romantic relationships in my life in favor of nurturing beautiful platonic relationships—creating community before I knew that that’s what I was doing. Having these friendships in predominantly female spaces and queer spaces was everything. Societal expectations about pursuing a partner are shoved down our throats in general, and that’s just sort of what you’re supposed to do.
E: You lose something when you sink all your spirit and your heart into one single romantic relationship. You’re missing out on all those nuanced connections.
A: There’s just layers to it. I must honor that part of what makes me soft. It comes from unlearning internalized fatphobia and the trauma that went alongside that, and feeling grateful for what my body can do for me now. There’s a softness to that that I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to specifically, but that’s part of the core of what I’m doing. Then there’s this lens of platonic love. The harsh reality is that we’re always faced with the hardness of the world. We all have this inner softness, and why not make it more of a priority? Why not make it the focus of what you’re doing? It’s a literal thing, but it’s also a theoretical softness and being tender with yourself, your community, with your loved ones.
I try to infuse that message in my art. I have some designs that don’t necessarily feel that soft, but it’s all about what I want for myself and for my community. It is a gentle place to live. I think some people get hung up on visuals; they think soft means pink and floral. I have a lot of those aspects in my work and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s beautiful to explore the ways that softness can be an ideology and energy in pursuit of something more tender in the world, however you want to define that. I think that there are so many avenues to pursue softness in the abstract. Soft Flirt allows me to do this on a grander scale, and highlight platonic relationships. I think that’s my new mission in life: to remind people that to have stronger romantic relationships you need to have the support of platonic relationships. I think it’s powerful to embrace softness—it’s the solution to things that are harder.
E: It’s also a revolutionary idea. We’re told from an early age not to be soft. We live in a heteropatriarchy that treats empathy as weakness. Kids grow up hearing messaging like “Stop crying or give I’ll you something to cry about.” We need to create a revolutionary space where it’s okay to feel these things together, where it’s okay to experience grief, softness, and tenderness. How else are we going to process these sentiments in our community unless we process them together?
A: In my early days of Soft Flirt, before it became a business, it was a nickname. In the early days, it was my Tumblr identity. It must have been 2014-2015 that I stumbled on a piece by Lora Mathis about radical softness as a weapon. It was a while ago, but this idea that softness is the change, and softness is the medium has really stuck with me. Not everyone is going to get what this is all about, but the people who do are worth my time, my art, and my energy. That’s who I want to make things for.
I don’t always have the exact formula for the exact thing that’s expected, but nobody does. That’s not what’s being asked; what’s being asked is that we contribute positively and proactively and that we uplift and support our community.
To check out more of Alayna’s work through Soft Flirt, visit her Instagram @softflirt or her website.