NEWS
CHRONICLES of an illustratorWord for Word
Or When Margin is Horizon by Another Name… Never one to miss an opportunity to let someone else write the newsletter… this time Viggo Mortensen is doing it for me. Following is the original preface from the new book, reproduced with his permission. In the Margins With...
Some Assembly Required
Or Putting Your Thoughts Together Without the Instruction Booklet… DOCUMENTARY FILM SHOOT - CONTINUED DAY 7 “Bienne, Grenchen Süd, Solothurn, Olten, Aarau, Lenzburg, Zürich Hauptbahnhof… naechster halt Zurich Flughafen…” the seemingly endless litany of stops on the...
Memory Lane
Or Where I Illustrate Walls, Inhabit a Ghost Town and Impersonate a Frenchman, In That Order An old acquaintance just sent me three memories out of the blue from 30 years ago: “One was your bedroom in your parents’ house in Ollalla - you’d wallpapered it in white and...
A Pocketful of Leaves
Or Roots With A View I always have leaves in my pockets. They are of the kind that never reach the ground when they fall, since they fall into the past. (They also resist absent-mindedness and the laundry, unlike the essential phone numbers scribbled on scraps of...
Walking in Minas Tirith
Or Hitchhiking to Byzantium A few weeks ago, we (yes, we do manage to coerce our son into accompanying us - occasionally. Privately, I believe he only accepts when he’s sure we won’t bump into any of his classmates.) were strolling through the streets of Lucca, when...
Travelling in Place
Or When Does Going Back Turn Into Going Around in Circles? I used to keep a diary. Regularly. Or at least until it became clear that I was using it to carry on conversations with myself. (I used to be schizophrenic, but we’re better now…) So I eventually gave it up...
Behind the Rain
Or Under the Ridge-Line How I wish I had invented that title.* The month of October is going to be about as full as it can be and still squeeze myself into it. The art book project is nearing completion, I have a painting of Beowulf to do, sketches to deliver, the...
Borders
And No, I Don’t Mean The Bookshops….. Say the word “border” and what springs to mind are generally those places inhabited by uniformed officals who have the power to and often enjoy making your life briefly miserable. But then again, it seems our entire existences are...
Continental Drift
Or Falling off the Edge of the World DOCUMENTARY FILM SHOOT: CONCLUDED DAY 11: INTO THE WEST The tides and B.C. Ferries wait for no man, so it is wise to leave early for Horseshoe Bay. As it is, we are there in plenty of time, but too early for the Starbucks at the...
Hurry up and Wait
Or “That Was Great! Could You Please Repeat It, But Louder This Time?” Back in the thick of the second documentary. Talking about yourself is like handling a sharp sword - you can just as easily stick yourself with it as parry questions and strike deep to the heart of...
Dorian Gray
And Other Favourite Colours Someone just sent me a quote from “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. “Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his principles and his...
The Adumbrate and the Pellucid
Or Dark Light and Bright Shadow Ever wonder just how much of your world is bound up in light and dark? It seems we live in an age of good guys and bad guys. Manichean, machiavellian, how it is that we have taken two of the subtlest of statesmen of all time and...