NEWS
CHRONICLES of an illustratorTravelling in Place
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...
Hurry up and Wait
Or “That Was Great! Could You Please Repeat It, But Louder This Time?” Back in the thick of the second documentary. Talking about yourself is like handling a sharp sword - you can just as easily stick yourself with it as parry questions and strike deep to the heart of...
Memory Lane
Or Where I Illustrate Walls, Inhabit a Ghost Town and Impersonate a Frenchman, In That Order An old acquaintance just sent me three memories out of the blue from 30 years ago: “One was your bedroom in your parents’ house in Ollalla - you’d wallpapered it in white and...
Behind the Rain
Or Under the Ridge-Line How I wish I had invented that title.* The month of October is going to be about as full as it can be and still squeeze myself into it. The art book project is nearing completion, I have a painting of Beowulf to do, sketches to deliver, the...
Dorian Gray
And Other Favourite Colours Someone just sent me a quote from “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. “Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his...
A Pocketful of Leaves
Or Roots With A View I always have leaves in my pockets. They are of the kind that never reach the ground when they fall, since they fall into the past. (They also resist absent-mindedness and the laundry, unlike the essential phone numbers scribbled on scraps of...
Borders
And No, I Don’t Mean The Bookshops….. Say the word “border” and what springs to mind are generally those places inhabited by uniformed officals who have the power to and often enjoy making your life briefly miserable. But then again, it seems our entire existences are...
The Adumbrate and the Pellucid
Or Dark Light and Bright Shadow Ever wonder just how much of your world is bound up in light and dark? It seems we live in an age of good guys and bad guys. Manichean, machiavellian, how it is that we have taken two of the subtlest of statesmen of all time and...
Forgotten America
Or the Unexpected Benefits of a Poor Memory I confess, I had forgotten a lot. I had forgotten the American mania for putting ice in every beverage. (Perhaps this is why global warming seems such a distant concern in the US, every American is busy tryingto warm up his...
Urban Legend
Or How Do You Say “Dragon” in Danish? Afternoon off from film editing in the Danish capital (which incidentally was quite a pleasant surprise, I thought I had been booked on a flight to Stockholm until the lady at check-in said “Straight through to Copenhagen, sir?”,...
Global Village
Or Where I Meet a Citizen of the World and am Suitably Impressed The other day, on a café terrace, in a conversation with a group of acquaintances, I blithely asked someone where they were from. (Simple curiosity, a belated attempt to vanquish my sempiternal timidity...
It’s a Wrap
Or the Summing Up of Much in A Short Time… Finished shooting for the Swiss-Swedish documentary, at least all my bits are done except for sound bites. After filming the Howe in his natural environment, we headed off to Strasbourg where we shot on and around the...