Sobering Up And Pissing Off Dads With FilthyRatBag

From afar Celeste is the epitome of cool girl: heart-on-sleeve, authentic, just herself.

And closer (via international zoom call) she is exactly that. In fact – and completely unrelated to anything especially not her name – Celeste is a mountain of joy. Anyway it’s her other name you might know her by: Filthy Rat Bag. That’s the handle she’s posted her illustrations to social media as since she was thirteen. And what started then as drawings in notebooks and graffiti on pub dunny walls, has now turned into a fulltime artist gig for Melbourne-raised Celeste… and still some graffitiing on pub dunny walls.

She now travels around leaving her mark in the form of colourful murals. Her book ‘What The Fuck is This’ has just come out in the US (already out in AUS) and if you don’t take it from me, then take it from her 442k IG followers that she has something significant to say. But uncovering life’s yuckies and uncomfies means some people feel personally pissed off by her creative output. But like the cool girl she is, she doesn’t back down. Here’s how:

Hello! Thanks for making the time, it’s super early over there?

Hi! No worries – it’s 7am and a beautiful morning in New York City!  

So you’re in New York now and Paris before that? What’s happening over there?

I’ve been spreading my wings and trying to find some inspiration outside of Australia. In Paris I’d been doing lots of life drawing – it’s nice being in a different environment and seeing different faces, people look so different everywhere – and in New York I’m doing an intensive painting course.

I was under the impression that when you become a grown up you just get to a certain point of ‘good’ at drawing or art or whatever it is, and then that’s it. But I’m in this period now where I’m newly sober and I’ve realised that you actually can get better the more you practice (laughs). And my book has just come out in America so I’ve been loitering around bookshops.  

Is that the same book that’s already out in Aus but with a different title?

It is! It’s called ‘Filthy Rat Bag’ in the US because they didn’t like the word ‘fuck’. So yep, same book just Americanised. It’s even got an Aussie slang glossary in it which is quite funny…cause like no one knows what ‘root’ means for example.

I read it and loved it! It’s admirable the way you’ve shared such vulnerabilities that you’ve experienced. How does it feel having something so personal out in the world?

The aftermath definitely sent me into a nice little spiral (laughs), but gosh yeah it was a large project to bite off while still unpacking it. The space I was in while I was making it was covid, I was pretty lost, I was still processing a lot of what happened growing up. I also had a friend die while I was making the book and it was all in the throes of while I was drinking like a fish. So with it all unfolding at the same time I was making it, it was tricky. I was feeling a little raw about it, but at the same time it felt like popping a huge pimple.  

Because in making the book – and by shining a light on the less glamorous parts of growing up – my hope is that it creates a sense of comfort for others going through similar things, hopefully I can extend solidarity to those people.  

The cat mural you painted on Melbourne’s Little Lonsdale Street, I saw on your IG you said you got some negative feedback with people calling it ‘creepy’ etc. How do you receive that kind of response from the public?

I think in AUS culture we like to think that we embrace a lot of new ideas and concepts but there’s still a lot of pressure to ‘pull your head in, stick to what you know.’ So there’s always going to be pushback when you’re trying something a bit unique or unsettling. But I also think there are lots of brilliant creatives in Aus who are passionate about trying new things in art and when they’re seeing the vision that I’m seeing then it helps having them on my side to keep pushing to try those different things. Everyone has their own taste, art is divisive, that’s why it’s exciting.

How do you try to not let potential criticism and outside judgement interfere with your creative process?

It is hard to grow a thick skin – I still haven’t mastered it – cause bearing a really vulnerable part of yourself into the world and watching it get picked at can feel really personal. But I’ve realised you’re never in control of how the world perceives you, even just going to a dinner party or hanging out with a new group of people, you’re not the master of how people are going to receive you and that’s fine. And you can’t expect everyone to like you because you yourself probably don’t like everyone, you know?

I’ve just had to learn that the solidarity and comfort I can offer to people that have been trying to make sense of similar things, that’s more important to me than some middle aged dad having a hissing fit about me being a feminazi.

Us humans are constantly shedding old skins. How do you feel about having so much of your past selves’ perspectives out in the world, do you ever disagree with what younger you has shared?

Oh yeah…that’s something I think about a lot (laughs). I was exposed on the internet from such a young age. I started gaining strangers’ recognition online at fourteen. I do look back and think: was it healthy for a teenage girl’s thoughts to be publicly aired, viewed and picked apart? Probably not (laughs) but I also think it would be a shame to delete or re-write any of it. It’s all representative of a particular time in my life. But yeah I still have it every few months…where I look back on my notebooks and I’m like: what the fuck is that!?

So you’re not immune to it! I feel like every time I look back on my own previous writings I’m like: what was I thinking, this is BAD! But then it seemed so important at the time It’s just where your mind’s at, at the time I guess.

Yep and I think having compassion for past versions of yourself is important as well. If you can have that past self-compassion then it makes it easier to create in the present because you’re sort of pre-emptively offering that to yourself. We’re only ever expressing what we know at any given moment, so it’s important to just do it and yeah, some of it will be shit – lots of it will be – but a lot of it will also resonate with the right people. A lot of it is stuff that I look back on and I’m taken back to a really specific part in my life, a specific state of mind that I might not have access to if I didn’t put pen to paper. It might’ve been lost.

And you said you’re sober?

Yeah! Eight months woohoo!

That’s so great! There seems to be this cliché that alcoholism and great creatives go hand in hand. What’s your take on that?

I think that creatives are usually chronic overthinkers and I think there’s definitely truth that overthinking and substance abuse go hand in hand. And there’s absolutely that cliché of like: Oooooo let’s go do acid and make good art! But I think if you ask most creatives you’ll find that it’s pretty hard to make good art if you’re fucked up all the time.

I used to think I came up with really great ideas when I was drunk, but the number of mornings I’d wake up after a night out, look through my notebooks at drawings I’d done drunk and just have to throw them straight in the bin because of how shit they were… It’s just not conducive to making good art.

That’s cool to hear you say, that you’ve found booze doesn’t enhance your creative output.

Since I’ve stopped drinking it’s been much easier for me to generate ideas and I think a lot of people should know that’s the case. I don’t want to sound too righteous or preachy or anything (laughs) I just don’t think there should be this glamorisation around drug taking/fucked up drinking to become this tortured ‘cool’ creative, because a lot of the time it just stunts your growth, it sucks you dry of ideas, motivation. You just end up telling your ideas to strangers in bars who don’t even care (laughs).  

I’d love to encourage young creatives to explore getting to know their artistic selves without the lens of booze – or other substances – it gives you much more space to grow and see things from a different perspective, one that isn’t blurry. Cause when you’re pissed all the time you’re never really sitting with yourself, you’re just experiencing this dulled out, weird, fake version of yourself which prevents you from ever getting to know your true self – and getting to know yourself is one of the most important parts of being a creative, I think.

I feel there’s a correlation between tragedy and meaningful art, have you found that in your work? And…if everything’s fine where do you pull your inspiration from?

Yeah I’ve definitely found that. My book basically goes through four of the saddest things in human existence (laughs). I think even when things in life are good, well… bad shit is always happening you’ll never run out of bad things to draw inspiration from (laughs). And even finding the humour in the beautiful things too, like lying in a park and everything’s great, the suns out…but then you’re scared that the sun is going to fall on your face and kill you, there’s this constant feeling of doom is only just around the corner.

I think if you allow your art to grow with you then you’re allowing ideas to be seen from many different angles of your mind, and the world keeps moving and happening around you so it’s just about tapping into that and zooming into the bits that provide inspiration.

Follow Celeste at @filthyratbag