Member Stories
Fyona Finn

What’s your name and what do you do?

My name is Fiona, and I am a multidisciplinary artist, DJ, tutor, storyteller, and community facilitator.  My art lives under the name FYONAFINN, and my music goes by FFINN.  I work mainly with experimental lettering, but lately I’ve been leaning into unfamiliar territories with various mixed media.  It’s all feeding into my practice rooted in documenting my endless fascination with the human condition — why we do what we do, feel what we feel and how we make sense of it all.  In the meantime, Elevator Sound keeps me afloat economically; it’s an independent specialist synth shop on Stokes Croft that looks like a telephone exchange crossed with a spacecraft cockpit, conveniently tucked right next door to Hamilton House.  There I wrangle their logistics and serve as their honorary librarian.

Tell us about your background and what led you to your current work?

Well, I’ve lived a few lives at this point! I grew up in Singapore, where I completed my diploma in visual communication, majoring in photography.  Then I moved to London in 2012 for film school, where I studied cinematography and spent the next four years establishing myself as a camera assistant in the film and TV industry.  A couple of major life events swept me over to Bristol in 2018, and it was here that I really planted roots in the music and art communities:  I co-founded the record label SLUG WIFE with two friends, and we ran it alongside our club nights for six glorious, chaotic years before deciding to bow out in 2023.  Through all of that, my freelance logo and flyer design commissions had been quietly ticking along in the background since 2011, and my attention to typography had been present in everything I touch.  But it was the COVID-19 pandemic that gave me the stillness I’d never found for myself.  Like a lot of artists, I had what you might call a ‘lockdown renaissance’, where I finally slowed down enough to properly hone my love for lettering and making.

What’s your favourite part of calling HH your creative home?

I feel really lucky to share my studio space with Beth Kirby, who runs Bristol Life Drawing at Hamilton House.  There’s something madly inspiring about being surrounded by each other’s raw ideas on the walls, and working closely in parallel with an artist I respect and love dearly.  Then there’s the building itself — our neighbours are the most wonderfully colourful bunch, from oil painters and textile designers to puppet makers and psychotherapists!  The cross-pollination alone is worth the rent and that’s before you factor in all the creative bartering.  Case in point: I landed an incredibly niche commission through the Hamilton House community WhatsApp chat, when a member from coworking asked if someone could handwrite two notebooks as separate 70th birthday gifts.  One was a collection of messages and memories, the other a short biography. The biography was in German – I don’t speak German – so it was a wildly fun experience writing in a foreign language in a beautifully handmade leather-bound notebook, which really tickled the stationery nerd in me.  Where else does that happen?  I wouldn’t know how to hustle for a gig like that.  Now I’m curious to know how niche these rare asks can get!

So, FYONAFINN and FFINN —  are they two worlds that meet, or do they stay in their own lanes?

They mostly run parallel and quite close together, but every now and then they merge so beautifully that I have to pinch myself.  Machina Bristronica, the annual modular synth festival and convention that the Elevator Sound team runs, is one of those times.  I feel that my art extends into my DJ sets too.  When I’m selecting, I’m intentionally curating a dance floor environment that mirrors what I’d want to feel and hear if I were a punter in that room at that moment.  It’s just a different canvas, really.

I see you also teach DJ workshops under FFINN.  Tell us about that.

I provide CDJ tutorials and mentorship for DJs at pretty much all levels, and I strive to hold an informal, judgement-free, and playful safe space where mistakes are seen as the best learning points. It’s a collaborative space built around self-directed learning: the student brings their goals and access needs, I shape the lesson around them, and I adhere to how they receive feedback and learn best. I advocate for tailored lessons because I wouldn’t train someone who just wants to play some tunes for their wedding as a one-off event the same way I’d support someone whose dream is to perform on a main stage in Ibiza, for example.

What’s on the horizon for you?  We’d love to hear what you’re chasing and why it matters to you.

I’m currently rolling out a series of experimental lettering workshops, where I help people reconnect with their own handwriting and guide them in developing unique lettering styles from their penmanship.  This project means a lot to me, because my entire lettering practice is self-taught.  No formal calligraphy or sign writing background, just years of exploration, happy accidents, and a very neuro-divergent hyper-fixation on letterforms.  So, being able to pass that on feels very full-circle.  I’ve run a few test sessions with friends and a couple of public-facing ones now, and the feedback from both sides has been so lovely — very reassuring to that full-circle sentiment.  I hope to shift perspectives and demystify lettering by sharing my various lettering exercises as a form of creative meditation; to show people that the artist is already in them.  All we have to do is to let the artist play!

Where would one find Fiona when they’re not working?

Probably wandering Bristol’s gallery circuit (RWA, Centrespace, Kit Form, Arnolfini etc.), feeding my mind, taking it all in, letting it sit and maybe become something later.  Or supporting my friends who run WetWare (@wetware.av) and Escher Music Connection (@eschermusicconnection) at Strange Brew, or Varispeed Socialz (@varispeed303) at The Red Lion.  I might be painting with the Bristol Mural Collective (@bristolmuralcollective), or geeking out at a Letter Luvvers (@letterluvvers) gathering.  Other nights, I’m at a live gig, catching a fringe production at The Wardrobe, or having a chinwag with a dear friend over a tall drink at Basement Beer, Mickey Zoggs, or The Old Castle Green.

Any last words?

Fight hate with fierce compassion, take care of each other, art is for everyone, and you are not alone. x

Where can we find you online?

Instagram: @fyonafinn__  / @ffinniff

DJ workshops:  ffinn.xyz