Grey Eyes Made Glittery.

I went to London on Wednesday for the opening of 'Reframing The Myth', hosted at The Guardian offices and created by Central Illustration working with Graeae Theatre (pronounced 'Grey Eye’).

Graeae is a theatre company made up of people with all kinds of disabilities, created to 'break down barriers, challenge preconceptions and place disabled artists centre stage'. It champions accessibility - for both performers and audience - and provides a platform for new generations of deaf and disabled talent through the creation of trail-blazing theatre, at home and abroad. Their founder and Artistic Director Jenny Sealey wrote and produced the 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony, and was awarded an MBE in 2009.

So, quite a lot to live up to then!

The brief invited a selection of artists to respond to material supplied by our subject - mine was 24-year-old Jacqui - all of whom were Graeae theatre members - in any way we wanted, whether that was focussing on their history, or achievements, interests, lives, thoughts, inspirations, physicality...or any combination thereof.

Jacqui is a poet which gave me plenty of potential material, seeing as I like to work with words, but in the end it was the ambitious and aspirational little girl at the very beginning of her story that caught my imagination, and created a piece which didn’t need any words!

The broken glass bubble is a reference to something she said in her interview, and once decided upon as a central feature, lent the whole thing its magical look!

Here’s what I said about it in my recorded interview (recorded so that the people of Graeae with sight problems could listen in on our ramblings too!)

“The thing that had the most impact on me were these two things: the photograph of Jacqui as a tiny little girl, an unfeasibly huge smile on her face, and her defiant line ‘we don’t all live in a bubble in the forest you know’, referring to the way people assume she knows ALL the other disabled people.

Jacqui was a little girl who wanted to be an astronaut, then a vet, then a Power Ranger...then a Ninja Turtle.

This is a picture of the spirit of the Jacqui I saw, that aspirational, excited little girl reaching for whatever she wants to do, without fear. Those very toys of her childhood - examples of super human ability and physical powers - marvel up at Jacqui as she flies around in her own vast sky, aided by the stars, having bust out of ‘the bubble’ while leaving her beloved sparkly purple wheelchair - her first as a little girl - safe on the ground. The animals she would have looked after if she had chosen Vet Jacqui are looking up too.

Her forest is a fantasy one where the trees are purple and pink, and the grass is lime, and the moon suggests the space-helmet of an astronaut framing her face.

She is wearing the dress she has on in the picture she supplied of herself as a small girl; I liked its collar, and fact that it is too big for her - she makes reference to her feet staying tiny, and her clothes being too big. In this picture, the world can hardly contain her!"

The collection is currently on show at The Guardian heaquarters at Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, just behind Kings Cross and very close to the House of Illustration.

No, you’ve got it all wrong, this is ELDERFLOWER WATER.

Stories & Hot Cocoa.

As you might be able to tell from time to time, running a very full-time illustration business is hard work and occupies the majority of my hours.

However, there is and always has been a constant urge to do things which fall slightly outside the description of ‘illustration’ - making things, putting on club nights, doing radio, giving talks, designing and hosting shows and events. These things come under the banner of Factoryroad. Doing these things is extra hard work of course and occupies the rest of whatever hours we might have free for things like telly and reading…but when they happen, they are magical and worth every sleepless night.

With my partner Leigh we hosted a Buddy Wakefield show a couple of years ago (which you can read about here) which was received with glowing - nay throbbing - feedback; warmth, tears, surprise and emotion (as one of the artists participating, below is my piece made in response to one of his poems, ‘Battle Magnet’.). We are happy to say we’re having Buddy back on December 1st for a special gig at The Silver Arcade in Leicester – one of only two original four-storey Victorian arcades in the country – as he stops off in Leicester on his ‘Riled Up And Wasted On Light’ tour.

In this beautiful setting Buddy will be performing his distinctive and very universal brand of poetry live with two support acts from the local area, and on the night freshly made hot cocoa will be supplied to every guest – dairy or non-dairy – courtesy of Silver Arcade resident and manufacturer of very fine chocolates Cocoa Amore. After you’ve watched the gig, you can mooch around the Arcade’s shops looking for ways to spend the £5 voucher that’s also included in the ticket price, in the Arcade’s very Christmassy surroundings. All for the disctinctly un-princely sum of £10.

Nice eh?

If you never came to our first Buddy Wakefield show and want to know more about him, well, we find these words taken from his biography are a good place to start:

“Buddy Wakefield, who is unconcerned with what poetry is or is not, delivers raw, rounded, disarming performances of humor and heart.”
A quick YouTube search for his name will yield an abundance of his live performances – sometimes moving, sometimes heart-rending, almost always funny – to give you an idea of what to expect.

You’ll be able to buy his books, recordings, T-shirts and other goodies at the event, which starts at 7pm.

This is the first ever event we’ve put on as Factoryroad where we have had to charge entry, in order to cover the associated costs, so please do support us and the local scene by coming along!

Book tickets here
https://factoryroad.net/shop/products/buddy-wakefield-ticket/

The Silver Arcade
Silver Street
Leicester
LE1 5FA

buddywakefield.com
thesilverarcade.com
cocoa-amore.co.uk

A fine palindrome, letter-presssed for Katie Wirsing.

It’s been a musical period indeed. As well as drawing the illustrations for Sage’s Copper Gone album and the art for our own 7” single released last week I did this illustration for US spoken-word poet Katie Wirsing. We’ve only just been able to rub our eyeballs over the finished product and we’re deeply impressed by how beautiful the print is! I’ve been waiting quite a long time to share this.

We know Katie via her place in the extended Sage-based circle of humans, as a compatriot of Buddy Wakefield and Andrea Gibson, Leigh having toured with them a couple of years ago. She asked if I’d do an image for her new album and of course I saw the opportunity for some hardcore pen action and went for it. It’s all nib pen and ink, no fineliners this time. The idea is taken from the title - an exquisite revolver pre-loaded with love, but you have to squeeze the human-heart handle and trigger hard before it’ll fire. And even then, you never know if it’s going to be a Yes or a No. So…are you gonna take the risk and make someone’s day?

The CD cover (no vinyl on this one, though it’d make a fine cover) has been letter-pressed by Stumptown and you can see the wonderful silver and grey prints produced at the same time coming off the Heidelberg here:

https://vimeo.com/92885119



Here’s the CD, and below it, the full art and sketch plus some lettering that wasn’t used.

http://katiewirsing.squarespace.com/store/revolt-lover-cd

The Robert Burns Museum.

In April 2009 I was contacted by Charlie at Studio MB about whether I'd be interested in producing some illustrations for the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, Scotland. A frantic one-day trip to Edinburgh revealed that this was going to be big - but I didn't appreciate how big until the end! For the uninitiated, Robert Burns is Scotland's national poet, and they're immensely proud of him. For around eighteen months I worked on this project, the biggest to date both in terms of scale, quantity of work and challenge.

The Burns' family cottage, Alloway.

The Museum had received an award of several million pounds for re-design and build. The existing museum consisted of the cottage 'Rabbie' grew up in, the landmarks he was associated with - the Brig o'Doon, for example - and a visitor centre. Studio MB, who also designed the Bosworth Battlefield Centre fifteen minutes from me in Market Bosworth, were charged with producing the creative elements. I spent the next year and a half working on a wide range of imagery for the £21m centre. I saw, for the first time in many years, my work rendered in three dimensions, and at a scale previously unseen.

The end result consisted of ten 2m high weathervanes, over 520 square metres of illustration, four wallpaper designs, 25 metal animals, three 3D cows, five metal-cut story illustrations and lots of other ingredients which combine to richly envelop and embellish the collection of artefacts which present Burns the man; the poet, the father and the farmer. On November 30th we went to the grand opening, through the much feared snow and ice.

Watching how people interacted with and observed the exhibits was fascinating. The main room is tall, dark, eerie, and atmospheric indeed, luring you in to look closely, and at first I felt a little bit teary at seeing so much of my work and at such a scale. It literally enveloped everything else, and created the continuity that held it all together.
The whole thing begins with a timeline of the poet's life paralleled with historical events around the world:

The main room had the feeling of completely enveloping you, which I liked - I felt this built on the suggestion of claustrophobia suggested by having been into the tiny cottage first. The entire Burns family and all their animals co-existing in that tiny space. Lighting levels were very low, but in parts very directional, so that, entire elements of the illustrations - particularly at low levels - disappeared. I saw people bending down to peer (good, nice bit of interaction) but also saw those unable to bend far struggling to see things - this applied to the imagery up high too. Children were at the right height to spot hares and cats, but due to the colour differences being very subtle in the print, combined with the low light, those things appeared to be overlooked. Here's what you see as you enter the dark and gloomy Intro gallery...

Section of the cornfields in the introduction gallery, containing quotes by Burns

The original artwork for one of the cornfields, much reduced!

Detail of the Poetry Perimeter wall (the nearest house sits around 4ft tall) - artwork...

...and on the wall.

Section of artwork...

...and on the wall.

Here's a shot of Rhona, landlady at the B&B, posing by the Trysting Tree, a metal tree composed of lines from Burns' poems on which visitors could hang messages of their own. This picture illustrates the difficult lighting - I'm wondering if this might get addressed in the future. (We stayed in her 'Robert Burns Suite' - how could we not?)



Behind the last picture with the tips of the branches showing, (with Jean on the foreground, Burns' long-suffering wife who outlived him by decades) you can see the start of one of the four wallpapers designed to fill the 'Inspired By' cases, looking at the the inspirations for Burns' poems: love, music, nature, books. Behind Jean is 'Love'.

And this one is 'nature' (artwork section below) and next, 'Words and Music'.


These little laser-cut metal pieces were literally leaping off and out of the books on the shelves - shown here is Don Quixote and Macbeth's witches, all from stories which ignited the young Burns' passion for writing.


The Man O'Parts exhibit showed the different roles he had to play in his lifetime indicated by a particular item such as hair or razor hidden behind a 'clue' illustration (note my 'entirely faked but accurate' Burns signatures!) The illustrations are tiny and done with a very fine nib and ink - but they were huge in print!


Outside, the ten weathervanes, telling the story of Tam O'Shanter, looked great against a very appropriate sky. I thought they were going to be bigger to be honest - I got the height and width confused though obviously - I thought the 'vanes were 2m wide! Nonetheless, seeing something I'd created at A3 in ink become a solid object spinning with the biting wind was wonderful.



Weathervanes on the path leading between the Museum's main sites (also available on the obligatory gift shop teatowel!)


The storytelling continues back in the cottage, with Su Blackwell's beautiful paper sculpture telling the story of Hannibal's War.

Cottage window: the family shared its living space with the animals, including the dairy herd next door. The snuffling cows would, I imagine, have been a comfort and a source of warmth.

Finally, not one of my creations, but an exhibit which brought a lump to my throat was the collection of floating embroidered babies' gowns over the little bed - it moved me suddenly and without warning, and illustrated with painful vividness the hard lives they all lived. That any of them survived is continually amazing to me!

The Burns babies' gowns seem to 'hover' over the bed in which they were all born.

My only regret is I wish I'd been able to come to the museum first before starting work. And maybe a couple of times throughout. Reading about Burns and his poetry wasn't, with hindsight, enough for me to really grasp 'the man'. Of course this would be difficult since the museum itself wasn't built as I saw it...but the cottage and the environment would probably have created enough of an impression. If I'm ever involved in something like this again, I'll insist on visiting for a couple of days first, camera and sketchbook in tow.

Speaking of which...Robert Burns' own writing set - a tiny quill and nibs, with ink and a sharpening knife.

It was an incredibly challenging job but I enjoyed it so much, and learned an awful lot - something which pleases me since it proves no matter how long you've been doing something, there is ALWAYS a ton more to learn.

The Guardian featured a some photographs of the museum on its website on 25th January.

There is so much detail at the museum, I'd recommend a trip there, whether you actually like his poetry or not! The sense of place and Scottish history is immense, and the surrounding countryside is breathtaking. Details are below.

Museum: http://www.burnsmuseum.org.uk/
In the press: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/01/robert-burns-museum-opens-ayrshire
Where we stayed: http://www.scottishhospitality.co.uk/luxury-bed-and-breakfast-rooms.html