My Books
Or Thoughts in Front of a Bookshelf I like my books. They aren’t particular about the company they keep. The big ones don’t look down on the small ones. The oversize ones recline gracefully, like some ancient staute of Buddha, when the shelf hasn’t enough headroom....
Back to the Drawing Board
Or There’s No Place Like Home Time has taken wing in a big way and suddenly a full month has flown… Apologies for that, I had entertained illusions of actually keeping up a newsletter and deadlines, but the muse flew the coop along with the rest. But, I’m back. Not...
Why I Hate Shopping
Misadventures in the Land of Plenty Why do I dread going shopping? Especially for food (which admittedly is unwise if not downright idiotic). I think my problem is concentrating. There’s just so much to look at in a supermarket that I forget the food; even a list...
John’s Big Day Out
Or the Inherent Serendystopia of Modern Travel… Getting to the U.S. was no trouble, the only letdown being that I did want to try the new biometric PortPASS portal, which in theory lets you skip the endless lines in L.A.X. and scoot through in no time. Much to my...
All Work and No Play…
...Makes John a Dull Boy. This last week has been a week of overtime and malicious deadlines lurking in wait (like the ones that live under the basement stairs when you’re a kid, with tentacles). Between camping out at the scan shop and wearing down my brushes....
Fantasy, Bordering on Reality
Or Where Truth is Hopefully At Least As Entertaining As Fiction… This must be a standard film director’s phrase: “That was great! Perfect, movement, lights, everything. Excellent! Can you do it again? Oh, and don’t look at the camera this time.” Being part of a...
Skin Deep
Or Where I Finally Make a Lasting Impression… It’s not every day that somebody makes a decision to tattoo a piece of artwork they like on themselves, or at least I don’t imagine so. My work seems rather too narrative to work as tattoos; I don’t draw enough roses,...
To Make a Short Story Long
Or All About Drawers and Dreams… Once upon a time, I had the ambition of actually writing (and while building castles in the air, of actually getting someone else to illustrate) a children’s story, the initial idea growing out of a portion of a picture I had done for...
Sympathy for the Devil
Or the Fine Art of Picking Up by Putting Down… Not so long ago, I bumped into an art school colleague, or so I thought… Little did I suspect it was the devil - or at least one of his many advocates - in disguise. Here’s the conversation: “So what are you up to these...
Portraits and Potted Plants
Or What You See is What You Get…. Last weekend, while my son and I were waiting to go up to the top of Notre-Dame de Paris (like good tourists, absolutely, I’ve always been drawn despite myself to France’s great remodeller of the Middle Ages, Viollet-le-Duc, and...
Signing Your Life Away
Or the Amusing and Ambiguous Exercise of Signing Sessions Rule number one: signing books is fun. (Establishing rule number one firmly in your mind is useful after several hours, when you can barely spell complicated names like “Fred” or “John”, and someone with an...
Chiaroscuro
The vastest things are those we may not learn. We are not taught to die, nor to be born, Nor how to burn With love. How pitiful is our enforced return To those small things we are the masters of. Mervyn Peake, 1950 MERVYN PEAKE (1911 - 1968) I am totally under the...