Interview with Marsha Rowe

A What I find most fascinating is that you decided to share all the tasks except graphic design.
M No, that did come in. Because those days it was still all cut out, big pasted up on boards, everyone ended up getting much more involved in what type size, headings and the images and what to chose.

A So there was an involvement in the design?
M Yes there was, but there was a person co-ordinating and making the final decisions. And everyone got to learn a bit but some people couldn’t do it. It was a skill, you have to be very good with your hands to do those paste ups and you have to have a flare for it, so it just couldn’t be easily collectivised. You still had people responsible for specific things, so right up to collective days, you had someone in charge with design, and someone responsible for music or features.

I interviewed Marsha Rowe, the founder of Spare Rib, for Treating of Matters in 2010. You can read it in full here.

Spare Rib's first dummy, 1972