Mea Maxima Culpa…actually
I am falling behind on nearly everything these days. (Where DID summer go?) With the exhibition in Gruyères now in the past tense, I had hoped to announce something really fun: my first ever real gallery show in Canada, and in my home town of Vancouver, no less. Unfortunately, after weeks working like mad to co-ordinate everything, the gallery decided to cancel the whole thing 3 weeks before opening. (Luckily, I had wisely put off purchasing those plane tickets…) However, while I was really looking forward to a bit of rain and West Coast winter weather (us lower mainlanders are like that, only really content when our hair is stringy and wet and the water trickles down the backs of our necks) that’s life.
Meanwhile, I have a stack of mail to answer that has grown to ridiculous proportions, so please remember that patience is really a virtue.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS…
Headed to Reims the other day, not that I actually managed to get to Reims itself, but beelined for a printer in an obscure suburb of same, to print a limited print and scurry off in the dark back towards home. (We just printed 250 copies of Glorfindel and the Balrog.) But, there is a most wondeful cathedral there, which we visited a few years ago. The facade of the edifice is so incredibly weathered – by time, pollution, stray shells and bombs – that is has almost assumed the look of a cliff face. In many spots, it is hard to tell if elements are sculpted by man or by nature and hazard. It is haunting and moving.
But there’s better.
In the cathedral museum there is a gargoyle with a great fountain of solid lead frozen in its mouth. the cathedral was bombed and burnt during the war, and suffered a huge amount of damage. There is a lot of lead used in cathedral construction, not only on the roofing, but also to seal stonework and blocks. Lead is inert, resilient and easy to work, a perfect metal to marry to stone. It also has a low melting point…
Thus, in the inferno of the burning cathedral, lead melted and ran, to spew out of the mouths of gargoyles in molten streams. Now isn’t THAT an image? Straight out of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (And no I DON’T mean the Disney movie. Ever seen Victor Hugo’s drawings, by the way?)
It seems the fantastic is clothed in a thin skin of the mundane, and fantasy illustration comes with the pair of X-ray specs that lets you see through it. I picked up a pair of those glasses in Strasbourg back in the early ‘80’s – http://www.john-howe.com/portfolio/gallery/details.php?image_id=974 – and have been wearing them ever since.
ENTERING THE NEXT DIMENSION…
I must have repeated far too often that every two-dimensional illustration spends all its energy focusing on the one it can only suggest; my wish has been granted. Alas, it does not show in the scan, but the Siege of Gondolin has been layered into a 3-D image on the Random House J. R. R. Tolkien Gift Set. (If you like dramatizations and hadn’t yet figured out what to splurge on for Christmas, this is your solution…)
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GANDALF
Two more pictures from Sweden. Gandalf does look rather like he’s just delivering a stiff right without his staff in hand. It’s hard to remember the statue is just over a foot and a half from crown to heel. Once all the little bits, belts and pouches and bags are done, Gandalf will cinch up his belt and plunge into a glue bath so Oscar can model the movement in his clothing.
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THE STUFF YOU FIND ON THE NET…
Amazing what you find on the net… this spring I got an award of some kind at the Imaginales fesitval in Epinal, France. Besides the award itself, I stumbled across the mention of the fact that I also received prize money – 1000 Euros to be precise. The funny thing is, the organizers have thus far forgotten to tell me. Now it seems a bit mercenary and decidedly ill-mannered to write to them and say “Hey dude where’s my money?”, but perhaps I will anyway, just for posterity’s sake…
I seem to have a knack for getting ripped off, now I have attained new heights – getting ripped off not once but twice by the same people. Remember Chris and Helena’s Art Store at Vestra Ventures on e-bay? Not only did they print and sell my work on t-shirts and ceramic tiles and as prints, they refuse to send me the tile and the t-shirt I ordered. They have debited my credit card, however… bunch of crooks.
THE STUFF YOU FIND ON THE SITE…
‘Tis done! We actually have the French version of the main texts contained in the Biography section now up and running! Many many many thanks to Goupil, who did the translations, and to Dom, who has inserted it with elegance and precision in the headers. At the far left of FORMATIONS :: BIO :: EXHIBITIONS :: AFTERWORD there is now “Textes français” in brackets. Click thereupon and the whole section will be in French. To go back to English, another click on (Textes anglais) will take you there. (Many many many MANY thanks to Dom for figuring out how to do it without embedding hideous little national flags on the page.)
A German version is now in the works.
THE STUFF YOU’LL SOON FIND ON THE SITE…
Believe it or not, I actually pay attention to what goes on in the forum. Dom and I have been mulling for ages over how to set up a “Fan Art” section, and as yet nothing workable had really come up. Then bingo, a couple of weeks ago, I figured out how it might work, courtesy of an idea I stole from one of the forum members!
More when I get a chance to write up the rules and regulations.
GRUYÈRES
The exhibition wrapped up last weekend, with 2500 dominical visitors (who ALL wanted signatures, I swear) who braved the winter weather to stand in line for ages and ages. (I had a heater, but it kept going out, with people stepping on the extension cord.) Total visitors: 43,500 in six weeks. Now, that’s not TOO bad, considering that the big Lord of the Rings Exhibit in London hit the hundred-thousand mark in seven weeks. Gruyères managed exactly half that number, and believe me, the Bernese Oberland is a far yodel from central London…
Next venue: Annecy in January.
But, speaking of exhibitions, I hope to have some REAL news next time…
