Or the Ins and Outs of Applied Creativity
Been reading a lot of books lately – who would have thought that making images would involve so many words? This of course has the fringe benefit of allowing me a totally frivolous series of purchases on amazon, (“Yes, it’s all for the book I’m writing. Yep, that one too. And that one. Honest.”) and my wife has become inured to the cheerful jingling of the doorbell with the postman bent double under great boxes of books.
Naturally, everything on amazon is designed to sidetrack the undisciplined, and I end up with a lot of publications only related to the subject at hand through a thorough hands-on application of Beziehungswahn. Notably, Nicolas Shakespeare’s biography of Bruce Chatwin.
Having read all of Chatwin’s almost-fiction, the biography was simply too tempting. Despite risking a near-indigestion of quotes (everybody on the planet seems to have a quote about Chatwin), the tracing of his life, madcap, awry and poignant is really a wonderful read. Is it possible to know too much about writers one admires? Nearly 500 pages later, the answer is no (along with the comforting confirmation that Chatwin may not really have grasped Songlines either).
And, since one more quote won’t matter amongst the multitude, in the words of Frank Thornlin:
“Poor little boy, born on a Black Hill,
First he runs ‘round, then he lies down, then he lies still.”
Went to an audition at the Early Music School where our son played his lute pieces. He looked very handsome amongst all the other students, so I was thus inordinately proud (his mom was static with joy, and floating 3 inches above her chair, I swear). For we former Ugly Ducklings (who have grown simply older with no miraculous transformation or moral to the story) a certain vicarious contentment a generation removed is permitted I think. (It’s also very good to be the wholly anonymous “father of…”, a role at which I hope to excell.)
Wandering briefly on the Moors in Devon a few weeks ago, up in Hound of the Baskervilles territory, (though it was admittedly clement and sunny and populated by hounds of basking tourists) it struck me forcibly that one’s roots are not necessarily where you think they are. The same thought struck me when we attended the Lord of the Rings Symphony in Lucerne two weeks ago, and that familiar shiver snaked up three Howe spines simultaneously. I think it is possible to set down roots in a land composed not of geographics but of experiences. An eclectography of home…
Just realized that my laboriously written introduction to the web site, which I thought I have equally laboriously updated a short time ago, is now two years old. Have often puzzled over this web site business, and besides the clear professional and commercial aspects, the REAL reason I have one (besides the fact that I have a wonderful webmaster to spontaneously set it up and troubleshoot for me) is that I would very much like it to be the kind of thing I wish I could have stumbled on when I was a kid. Here’s an illustration, in the form of a letter I received a few weeks ago:
Hallo!
I am 10 years old and living in Sweden and goes in school, but I don’t like it there. My classmates give me some hard times but they seems to like me when I draw. Drawing and painting is the best I know, and I will always do it.
I like to look in books with pictures and drawings.
John Bauer is my idol, but he is dead. Have you seen his paintings? I like your paintings and drawings as much as his, and now I wonder if you can do a quick little sketch to me? My dad says that I should not write you a letter as waste money on stamps and so because he don’t think you will answer because you don’t have time, but I think he is just envious because he can’t draw, like you and I.
Ps! A neighbour’s older brother has translated this for me. Hope you can read it?
There you go. Isn’t that a wonderful letter? If that’s not enough reason to have chosen making pictures as a life, I don’t know what is. (Yes, of course I wrote a proper letter in reply, did a drawing, and sent a few things.)
Fantasy Art Workshop is now shaping up and going to final proof. Here’s a little taste of it. This is the blad that was shopped around the last few book fairs. (A blad, by the way, is the acronym for “Book Layout and Design”, which had me stumped too, so I nodded sagely – and likely rather blankly – every time the word came up in the sales conference and got on Google straight after to do my homework.) The layout has changed a good deal, and we have reworked the cover, but it give you a taste of the book to come. I’ll be posting more material as the publishing date draws nearer.
