CHRONICLES archives the successive newsletters.
Spent the week before last running about in front of a film crew, entering stage left and exiting stage right, when it wasn’t the opposite or vice-versa. (The big problem of course being how the heck do you make in any way interesting a guy who spends all his time...
Recently wrote a short text for the French edition of Meditations on Middle-Earth. Mercifully, the editor was willing to accept my ramblings in English and translate them, thus I survived the ordeal with the certitude that some talented translator would make sense of...
Or The Great Percolator in the Sky… How many times have I absent-mindedly nodded my head when a waitress inquires “More coffee sir?” (usually while about halfway through pouring), eventually ending up drinking about 10 litres of the stuff and then spending the rest of...
Or: A brilliant CAREER in Wallpaper… Three things conspired the other day to take me unawares. (Well, four actually, the first being my general obliviousness…) The copy of National Geographic that I picked up in a used book store because it is the issue from the month...
Or How To Draw Attention… Oh would I love to be able to chat with John Ruskin. Ruskin wanted EVERYONE to draw. Not because he wished to turn the entire population of England into artists, to have factories filled with easels, and sketchpads on bankers’ knees, but in...
STEPPING RIGHT OFF THE PAGE Or Where I’m Allowed One Wish… It seems like ages ago that the original of Gandalf the Grey was stolen from an exhibition. http://www.john-howe.com/forum/smf/index.php?topic=1905.0 I’ve often been asked if I could paint it again, but you...
Or: Adventures In The Aisles of Plenty Most people make their personal connections to the universe in the hinterlands of the sublime - the far plutonian shore, the precipitous precipice, the wind-swept wilderness, in those blessèd realms where you can feel small...
Or Wondering Where to Stand On Things… We are forever putting things in perspective… remember back in school, when it was patiently explained to us how the murky shadows of the obscure, crepuscular and otherwise dark Middle Ages were at last pierced by the blinding...
Or Braking For Unicorns… Not so long ago, I drove past the Walt Disney building in Burbank. Imagine St Peter’s meets Bedrock with a hint of Stonehenge, but constructed by a pastry cook and you’ll have a pretty clear idea. With the seven dwarfs (well, six; Stupid or...
Or Where My Mind Does Some Serious Wandering… Five nights back, in the early hours of the morning, I was making my way south through the north of France, stopping at every signpost and peering myopically at my map in the hope of actually finding my way through the...
or Where I Am Faced With Serious Identity Issues… About two or three times a month I am accosted in the street by people who invariably say “Excuse me, Mister Alan Lee?” Generally I reply “No, I’m the other guy.” or something equally intelligent and otherwise...
Since I’ve been working on the map of Numenor, it occured to me how much maps shape our lives. I remember in elementary school there was a huge map of The World on the classroom wall. Like all the maps in North America, the big bad Soviet Union was judiciously chopped...