Who…
I grew up in the north. Most people who leave the north look back and say they can’t abide it. I’m not so sure I feel that way. I always feel my heart swell when I cross the Ribble, the river that cuts across the southern end of my town. It’s like the Rubicon. Every time you cross it, you know you’ll be different the next time you encounter it. I love my town. It’s where some of the best people are and some of the bleakest, finest and darkest landscapes in all of England. It’s a neglected place, but it’s part of who I am. I left, like most, to head to university. My MA brought me to London and I don’t see home nearly as much as I should. Same as everyone. But then, ‘you’ are your home. Like a tortoise.
What…
My self-assessment form says ‘Illustrator’. It also says ‘Teacher’. I teach illustration and a bit of graphics, but essentially I’m just drafted into the places I go to provide some kind of energy and enthusiasm for what they do. I teach football to preschoolers at the weekend. I don’t ever really look at my bank statements too much. I make book covers, which tends to go into a half-arsed unofficial pension for some distant point.
Learning…
I’m halfway through a postgraduate in Higher Education teaching and learning, so really, I could spend hours talking about this. I learned to draw through experience. I had a genuine curiosity in rendering the world around me and intermingling it with fiction and made-up worlds. I had a great set of parents – my father was incredibly pragmatic, whereas my mum was more idealistic. They gave me the right balance of thoughts and feelings. And they always let me do what I felt was best. They both have a very strong idea of telling stories. We used to share stories a lot when I was a kid, and still do now. In my family, we all have a very strong sense of history – what it does to us and for us. I was always pretty bright at school but lazy at times if something didn’t engage me or if I felt it was useless. I don’t regret my attitude to learning, I know an awful lot. Ha ha.
Then vs Now…
I was a square. A fat square, in fact. Drawing was all that made me cool, plus I did have a well-developed sense of humour. People would watch me draw so I became good at holding people’s attention, talking and making pictures at the same time, giving them away because once they were finished, I had no care for them. I always thought it was a lot like performing. I enjoyed making people like my work. It’s obvious, when I look back, that those elements of my personality were in place even when I was eight or nine. I drew to impress people. And you get used to the idea that you can do that.
At the moment…
I’m writing about three separate teaching plans, for various purposes. One is a photography/graphics project for a BA Graphic Design group. It’s about generic architecture, such as industrial parks and disused airfields. The second is a narrative project for another BA in Illustration at St Martin’s. It’s my dream project, in lots of ways. It’s about using tacit knowledge to develop a story based on existing stories. The third is very new in my mind – I want to develop a project for illustrators using sequential illustration in non-traditional forms of storytelling. Or something like that.
I’ve also managed to find time to re-re-re-update my website with a ton of new drawings. I try to make portraits of people for special occasions, like birthdays, to build up a big collection of drawn figures. It’s a way of staying sharp.
I made a lovely little sketchbook in Paris recently, which I used to make a short presentation about story-telling, as well as to encourage my students to keep sketchbooks on them all the time.
I’ve also just started to write the basic outline for a graphic story about a minotaur. I’m not too sure about that yet.
Pros and cons…
I’ve reached a point where I don’t dislike anything about what I do. It feels wonderful, actually.
Best advice…
My dad’s always made me understand that you should have just enough money to do what you want. And then a little bit left over for emergencies. It helps an awful lot. I’m not driven by money, not at all, but it’s the all-time evil. The chicken and the egg.
Collections…
Bicycles, because I ride them obsessively.
Slides, though not as much as I used to. You can have some if you like.
Jeans. I never feel like I have enough jeans. I like jeans more than any other kind of clothing.
Pens. Illustrators do. Maps too.
And, being modern, I seem to collect links on Firefox. I have reams of links to forgotten websites. I collect other people’s attempts to explain things.
And most of all, I collect stories. That’s what Homer did. And the Grimm Brothers. Just collected them and then wandered about Greece and Germany, telling them. Brilliantly self-fulfilling. You’ll end up finding more than you can tell.
For inspiration…
I read. I just read.
Favourite things…
I find caffeine is my most highly sought source of inspiration. I have tremendous ideas after coffee. Coffee and Joseph Campbell.
Favourite website…
eBay. I like how crap some of the stuff people flog really is.
Relaxation…
I do cycle and swim a lot, but it’s not so much relaxing as it is cathartic. I don’t know what I do to relax. I really don’t.
Inspiring people…
My dad. It’s a strange answer because in lots of ways we’re not very similar. But as he’s grown older, I’ve found that he’s who I look to for a lot of answers. I guess I’ve never known anyone who’s tried to live so simply and yet has become one of the most complicated men that there ever was. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. He didn’t stay at school past fifteen, became a carpenter, then a policeman and loves me for being different to him. Yet, we’re also quite the same.
I have a nephew, who I adore. I always want to be something to him. I don’t really know if and when I might ever have a kid of my own so he’s pretty much my highest investment. He’s already turning out to be good at drawing, smart as hell and has a taste for adventure. He doesn’t do what anyone wants him to do, not in a disobedient way just in that well-intentioned way. When something doesn’t interest him or seem constructive, he decides against it. For me, it’s like a reverse inspiration. I want to do all I can to inspire this little man and yet he seems to affirm in me all the things I like about myself, the way I grew up. Children do that.
Plans…
More of everything. More work, more bicycles, more countries, more love, more new things, more old things. You found me in a strange and wonderful period of my life. I do want to teach, quite a lot in fact. My friend Jerome always used to say we should start a school. A school! It never occurred to me that people could ‘start’ a school.
Dream life…
I’ll write a book. I just will. It’s itching to come out.
Advice…
Don’t copy anyone. It doesn’t get you anywhere. And there’s no such thing as a mistake.