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 for the better alternative: silence.
It seems every person is a spinning planet at the centre of the universe, and slowly slowly life draws you off the surface and into orbit, where the view is vastly improved and the horizon less full of oneself.
Those early diaries were exercises in high horizons.
A lot of details, but not much of a view.
But, since my life recently has been full of… my life, in order to see beyond it, I’ve taken up diary writing again (celestial metaphores aside), if only for the duration of the Canadain film shoot.
DAY 1
A full day of shooting at our place – manhandling an easel up from the basement in order to shoot a few originals, a marathon interview in the studio (a pox on squeaking office chairs), an interview with Fataneh and “streeters” at the train station – my son and five classmates sufficiently softened up by a 10 hour trip home from Ticino to be collared and made speak into a mike.
A few shots around town, and a quick trip to those inevitable willows down the lake (I have to be careful, some day the farmer who owns the field is going to see how much mileage I get out of those things and hit me up for royalties…) and to a quatuor of menhirs that alas now have an unparalleled view of the new freeway… a late afternoon of clambering over electric fences and wandering in drenched fields.
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Standing stones and wandering Howe in Concise, near the lake of Neuchâtel
Photo: Gretchen Jordan-Bastow
DAY 2
Fabulous pre-dawn light on the Alps as I was driving down to hook up with the crew at their hotel. Grabbed Bob and we raced off to the edge of the lake to film the sun coming up. It’s a shame sunrises are so early in the morning. If they could occur at a more civilized hour, I’d be a more dependable admirer. Of course the light on the mountains was gone by the time we set up, but the lake was sea-green molten lead under the bruised clouds.
Off towards St.-Ursanne, a little medieval backwater on the edge of the Doubs river. Saint-Ursanne has basically slept since the Middle Ages, and while that may not necessarily help local chamber of commerce, it has preserved a very beautiful site.
Fabulous sculptures on the church – perhaps even with original paint, or at least the suitably weathered vestiges of some 19th century restoration, when any sculpture retaining the most meagre touch of pigment was enthusiastically daubed with paint.
Romaneque art is sublime, and one can only regret that time has robbed us of so much of its Carolingian predecessor, but we should be grateful for every scrap that remains.
Across the border into France and through the driving rain to Strasbourg, where we are met by Alexis Metzinger, our guide for the three days in France. Rapid greetings, parking spots gleaned by close surveillance of every passerby clutching car keys, and off we go. Werner (co-director and co-producer) elects to remain behind to watch the van – parking lots are haunted by self-appointed attendants who gesture to cars and hold out hands for coins. Not exactly reassuring, given the equipment in the back.
We run off through the rain to the cathedral of Saint Thomas, where a spiral climb in the dark up already treacherous steps reduced to practically a ramp by generations of dead pigeons and pigeon dirt lead to a balcony above the transept and provides us with (in addition to freezing wind and driving rain) an unparalleled view of the Strasbourg Cathedral, marred only by a tutu of scaffolding at the base of the spire. (Another three days and it will be removed, but of course it’s not possible to wait.)
The view is perhaps the nearest thing one can hope for of a medieval vista – steep Strasbourgeois roofs clustering about the base of the cathedral like sheep huddling near a shepherd. It is hard not to feel the power of faith and unbending will that raised stone on stone to the incredible height of the spire, near 140 meters. I have no real use for the insides of cathedrals, no particular attraction to stained glass, and feel always out of place in such solemn places. Too much reverence is definitey not for me. I far prefer the stone forest on the outside – columns and turrets, gargoyles and ravens…
But for the moment, we are entirely frozen and soaked and not very spiritual at all by the time we finally stumble back down into the nave of Saint-Thomas.
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The crew, from left to right: Co-producer and co-director Gretchen Jordan-Bastow, cameraman extraordinaire Bob Ennis, and sound technician, official umbrella holder and girl Friday Stéphanie Chapelle.
Photo: Werner Aellen
Medieval mascots in St-Ursanne
Photo: JH
DAY 3
Next morning, Saturday, we have an appointment at our old art school, where we replay the interview with our illustration professor, Claude Lapointe. The whole sequence is filmed backwards beginning with the interview (longer to light), and ending with meeting him in the street outside. I can barely keep track when things are in the right order – suddenly it feels like I’m in a fiction film, I who even at the best of times have a tenuous hold on reality…
Sandwiches in the rain, sheltering under the hatch of the van, then a few shots in the old part of town and off to Haut-Koenigsbourg.
There, we are blessed with the tumultuous weather that often crowns the Vosges – rainbows, racing clouds, thunderstorms backlit by the sun – and by a seemingly endless stream of German toursits which we temporarily dam up in order to shoot and then release to flood through once more. Back down the mountain to get establishing shots of the castle from below, the (brand new) rental car suddenly breaks down and we return to Strasbourg by taxi.
Day four is a short one for Fataneh and I – a quick pick-up shot and we are free. The rest of the crowd are to continue shooting in Strasbourg before returning to Zurich. They are bound the next day for London and Exeter, where they will shoot Alan Lee (who amply deserves it) and catch Jane Johnson (who commissioned my first Tolkien artwork) the day after at HarperCollins.
As for us, it’s home and to work like mad for the two days before I hook up with them again at Heathrow en route for Canada.
It ain’t half over yet.
NANTES AND BACK AGAIN
The Helvetico-Swedish co-production “John Howe – There and Back Again” will be shown at the Utopiales Festival in Nantes on Friday November 5th, at 5:45 PM at the Cité des Congrès. I should be signing something somewhere just before that. More news when I figure it out.
There will also be a horde of famous people like Robert Holdstock and Michael Moorcock. Definitely worth heading west for the weekend.
LA VILLE ABANDONNEE
There will be a little gallery show for the book at the Bibliothèque de Saint-Gervais, in Paris. The opening is at 3:00 PM on Saturday November 6th.
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