Three Portraits

Time to round up the new portrait prints I've recently finished (and which are now available here).

First up is James Joyce. Yes, I remember well the outsized Penguin Modern Classics edition of Ulysses that used to sit awkwardly among the other paperbacks on my bookshelves. Carrying it in a bag felt like I was carrying not a book but an object, some kind of talisman... something like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in fact - a massive encyclopaedic encapsulation of life and customs written from a very partial (and very funny) point of view. Though it's set in (and all about) Dublin, Joyce wrote the bulk of it (all of it?) in exile in various cities in continental Europe (Trieste being one such city). Putting your subject matter at arm's length can certainly help the creative process (especially the story-making, exaggerating process), but it's interesting to note that Joyce frequently wrote to friends 'back home' to ask them for details about this place or that place to ensure his very particular form of accuracy. Crowdsourcing, as it were. There's nothing new in rock 'n' roll, as they say.

Next is Harold Pinter. Here's my claim to fame, if you can call it that: I once stood on Harold Pinter's big toe. Waiting in a theatre foyer Somewhere In Europe before a performance of the fantastic No Man's Land ("I'll drink to that", etc.) I went up to the tea table (yes, I know, nice isn't it?) to buy some tea. Transaction over, I took a step back and away only to find my heel had found someone else's foot to perch on. Turning round ready with fulsome apologies I saw that my unwitting victim was in fact the great man himself.

'Sorry!', I said. He glowered at me. There was... an awkward silence.

I trotted off sharpish down the stairs only to be followed by Pinter and his companion (the theatre manager?). After a good 10 seconds Pinter's anger had subsided enough that he was able to speak again and I heard his unmistakable baritone ask the man, "So... how's tricks?"

You see - it's one thing to meet your heroes, it's quite another to injure them. Reminds me of that quote from Vivian Stanshall's Sir Henry at Rawlinson's End: "I never met a man I didn't maim."

Finally (it has been a productive week-and-a-half) it's Dylan Thomas, stories about whom are legion. I like the one where he met one of his idols, Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin found his drunken four-letter-littered behaviour appalling, and told him so. Thomas walked out into Chaplin's conservatory and simply pissed up a pot plant. Now that's poetic compression!

Words Into Images

How about this for a chunk of text? If you get enough words together, they become a picture (or even a sculpture).

Depending on how my experiments go, the relevance of this image may become apparent later...

Kafka

The thing that struck me most about Kafka's writing the first time I encountered it was the physicality of it. We're used to valuing brevity and succinctness over wordiness and bulk, but here was a form of writing where a paragraph could run over two, three, four pages. A single paragraph! Great blocks of writing, dense as a meteor, and containing an equivalent amount of universal wisdom. The vast rockface of protocol he was writing about solidified in the vast rockface of words he created. It's that great modernist thing of form following function, and like a lot of modernist work it's great on the large scale but also in miniature - if you've not read them, treat yourself to his collected short stories. Anyway, my Kafka print is available in the shop here.

Young Intellectuals

Here's my new print for this week - some Young Intellectuals.

It's the first print I've done in my looser, note-taking style (although the Vintage Radio Calendar is close). I've always enjoyed drawing like this because, even though it looks simple, it forces you to make every line count. So you have to bring everything you know about how faces fit together - all the 'rules' - and gently bend them.

This is also the first print I've put up in the shop that isn't hand-lettered. I wanted to make something that was kind of promotional material for young intellectuals (can I still count myself among them, I wonder?), so the layout's very faintly suggestive of a poster. Ranged left type - can't beat it. And Helvetica Bold - as you know from my Gill Sans post earlier, I love a nice sans serif. I was out of love with Helvetica for a long time. But visiting New York and seeing it employed so beautifully - white on black - as signage on the subway system (among many other places) made me realise that it can be a force for good rather than for blandness.

And while we're on the subject, here's the trailer for Gary Hustwit's film about the font, appropriately entitled Helvetica. It's well worth checking out.

Important Information for Buyers in the USA

Here's some info for those of you in the States who have bought from my Etsy shop recently:

In November the Department of Homeland Security instituted extra security measures on mail inbound to the US. This has meant that shipping times have been extended way beyond what we'd normally expect - up to 7 or 8 weeks instead of the normal 2 for Airmail. This is due to the DHS's need to restrict postal transit methods and to screen each item individually. More information can be found here:

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1289237893803.shtm

...and here:

http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/an-important-note-on-international-postal-delays-11571/

Lots of sellers in the US - and thus lots of buyers in the US - are having to deal with this:

www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6739394

The key thing to remember is that the mail is getting through, eventually. It's unfortunate and annoying that this is happening but there's nothing we can do about it - plus it's meant to be for our security, after all - so I'd ask for your patience and understanding if you're still waiting on one of my pieces to arrive. Thanks.

The Remains of Hastings Pier

Greetings Cards

I've created fifteen greetings cards based on my series of portrait prints. Just as with the prints themselves, I made them because they were things I wanted to have (and I hope other people will want to have too) - nice, unique, solid cards for any occasion, a note to a friend, a birthday, anything. I mean, before this I couldn't find a card with George Orwell, or Igor Stravinsky, or Dorothy Parker on the front. Exactly the sort of thing I'd love to send people. But now... ta-da!

I've arranged them in three groups of five, or there's also the option to pick any five you like. You'll find them in the shop here. Enjoy!

Mutual Appreciation

So here's my other new print from this week: Oscar Wilde. But it's also a Morrissey piece too, and the connection is via The Smiths' song 'Cemetry Gates' from their album 'The Queen Is Dead' (2011 is somewhat gallingly the 25th anniversary of the album's release, fact fans!). "Keats and Yeats are on your side", Morrissey croons, "While Wilde is on mine". I thought it was a nice idea to imagine a co-endorsement from beyond the grave...

Come to think of it, it kind of reminds me of the Marshall McLuhan bit from 'Annie Hall':

The print is now available in the shop here.

William Carlos Williams

I've loved William Carlos Williams' poetry ever since we were introduced to his famous poem 'The Red Wheelbarrow' at school. It blew our minds. And then later, at college, discovering in a corner of the art school library a dusty, unread copy of his long work 'Paterson'... it was like finding a Picasso in an attic full of empty boxes (although the reality of the situation was that I found a Williams in a basement full of books on Picasso).

The print is available here.

Top Prof

TS Eliot. Imagine having this as your 9.30 Monday morning lecture. (Or your 2.15 Monday morning Open University broadcast).

Via the University of London's School of Advanced Study.