graffiti about slash-street affairs

October 1, 2008October 2, 2008Leave a comment

I could get used to these. A month ago I did this labour-intensive drawing; tonight I finished a second one. You can I’m sure guess the theme. All will be revealed when we turn to the answers page, a singer once said.

I am still around, I have just been busy. But I found time to fit this in too, which helps create balance. Plus I stay up far too late for someone who works so early. These things sometimes accompany those wee small hours; well, these and the baby monitor.

A note on the broken ibanez guitar head: this was the guitar i bought when I first moved to the US. I looked after it so well, but one day it fell lamely from its stand onto the carpet and the head just came off. Not my happiest moment. Very difficult to repair (the guy in the shop couldn’t bare to look at the poor thing, it was like bringing in his grandma’s head or something), so the decapitated body sat gathering dust in the corner like the shards of narsil. When we moved out, I wasn’t sure what to do with it (you get attached to your instruments). My wife suggested I dispose of the body Pete Townshend style. And so I did. Have you ever done that? It felt pretty good. I kept the broken head as a souvenir (or a warning?), and there it is. The broken Ibanez.

never his mind on where he was

August 31, 200810 Comments

Encore, my illustration friday entry this week: “Memories”, this time with colour. Not much colour, but some colour. I posted the black and white version yesterday. It’s an homage, or even an homage of an homage. I forget now.

Memory is a funny thing. Whole academic programs are set up around the very idea of memory, its uses, its effects on future actions, plus lots of other stuff I don’t quite know (or have forgotten). In the days before literacy, memory was of vital importance, to keep laws, to pass on traditions, plus lots of other things I can’t remember. Our incredible capacity for memory became less well exercised once things began to be written down – we trusted paper for permanence, rather than agreed ideas on what really happened or what the rules really were. We also began, everntaully, to equate language with what is written rather than what is spoken – a huge mistake if you ask me. But anyway back to memory. Do you remember, in the days before we all had cellphones, that you used to remember most of your friends’ phone numbers? You had to, in case you needed to call them. But now you just press their name in your nokia. Memory capacity unexercised. I don’t even remember my own cellphone number now. I don’t have to. So what’s the rest of my brain doing when it’s not being used remembering things like that? I forget.

As for what happened in our lives… it’s funny how quickly things whisper away from your thoughts. People, places, ideas; yet, if we have a small token from them, doesn’t matter how small or insignificant, we have a greater chance of retaining that memory. Photos are one thing, drawings are another. Each of these things above have some sort of meaning to me. I’d be happy to explain.

some have gone, and some remain

August 30, 200810 Comments

Illustration Friday this week is “Memories”; this is my entry.

I took my inspiration for this composition from the phenomenal Andrea Joseph. Well, her and the homage to her by France Belleville. I’ve wanted for a while to do a detailed piece of “bits” for a while but hadn’t blocked out the mental space for it – wow, it takes some concentrated concentration! – and, actually it’s not finished. I’ll be adding colour later (I just need a rest!). I drew it so that it would be coloured.

Those are just some of my memories. Oh, except one, a partially hidden photo of my grandad (who i never knew) with my dad as a boy (you only see his hair). Once the picture is complete I’ll add notes. They span several countries. Two of the objects are actual ‘memory’.

every day i look at the world through my window

August 26, 2008August 26, 200814 Comments

Illustration Friday this week is “routine”…this is my entry.

Now, before you say, “do what?”, I’m playing a game here I used to play when i did interactive theatre. This image, ok, it’s an image of Tel looking out of my window in Belgium, about eight or so years ago. Add the word ‘routine’ and you start to write the story in your head around it.

This may have been the night after this night here. But it was probably after a different night.

But that windowsill! Man, I spent so many days and nights sat on that, looking out of my thirteenth floor window, across the Square Hiernaux (I nicknamed it the Vicious Circle because of the quite crazy Belgian driving), to Ville Deux, to the Stade Mambourg (where England beat Germany in Euro 2000), and to the terrils, the large slag heaps that dot the landscape of the forsaken pays noir.

ainsi font, font font

August 19, 20088 Comments

Luke has this great toy (given to him by my cousin) full of lights and shapes and buttons and songs, all in French, and he absolutely LOVES it. “Ainsi font, font, font, les petites marionettes,” it sings as you turn it on. We’re trying to expose him to French early on (we also have a CD of French nursery rhymes and sounds for babies his age), so hopefully one day he’ll be able to teach us what we have long forgotten. I look forward to us one day taking him to the south of France, to where I met his mommy. And we’ll eat poulet-frites. (Funny enough I got a postcard from Menton today).

fish big

August 13, 20083 Comments

for the second day in a row i didn’t leave the office during lunch, because it’s too hot, and i brought something homemade to eat (this time tomato soup; yesterday was jamaican jerk chicken). Both times I got out the superthin copic pens and drew something in the office. Yesterday was the view behind me, today was a detail of the same view, but with the fish that got left out. Why do I have a fish? Well, why not?

I have drawn little cartoon fish around the place. It was something I used to do in England.

The Danish tomte seen yesterday is to the fish’s left. That’s from the fish’s perspective. From your, it’s behind the fish.

making plans for nigel

August 12, 2008Leave a comment

grusinia on my mind

August 11, 2008August 11, 20081 Comment

NATO went into Kosovo in 1999, bombing targets (such as bridges) not only in the region but all over Serbia. Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally. Russia could do only so much. They sent troops down, but not to oppose NATO. Why did the US led forces need to go in? The risk of imminent genocide, not wanting to stand by and watch a repeat of what had happened in Bosnia.

I couldn’t begin to understand what’s actually going on between Georgia and Russia, how strongly the Russians feel about the South Ossetians, how strongly Georgia feels about not wishing to disintegrate further, or be under the sway once more of the bear to the north. Caucasus troubles run deep, and are far less well understood in the West than the Balkan troubles. It was interesting however to read that one side is accusing the other of genocide, while the other is counter-accusing them of ethnic cleansing. The threat of which, as we all know, apparently justifies invasion.

The picture: funny enough, I had this book slotted down the pocket of my bag since I bought it in a second-hand bookshop in the Castro a couple of weeks back. Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle (der Kaukasische Kreidekreis). One of my favourite (if not, my favourite) plays, one I have performed in German at university, back in the spring of 1999, at the same time that Kosovo was being torn apart. I co-directed a chaotic, ramshackle and very Brechtian version, in which I got to play the fantastic role of Azdak the judge. In those days I had a Beard to defeat all others. We had almost no set, and so I drew backgrounds of Grusinian buildings with Georgian graffiti over them, backdrops of hanged men, and great mountains, all on transparent cels using only four colours of pen, projecting them onto a white screen behind the actors using a bog-standard (and noisy) classroom overhead projector. For those actors who were gotten rid of for not coming to rehearsal, I recreated their characters in cartoon form and had them projected next to the real actors, even getting involved in dialogue. It was largely shambolic, but I have good memories of the other cast members, and it was great fun. And I think Brecht would have approved.

the cast; that's me in the top middle, azdak the judge

and i watch them roll away again

August 9, 20089 Comments

First illustration friday piece i’ve done in a while; theme of ‘sail‘. Now, do I get a Blue Peter badge?

I don’t normally draw boats, or ships (I do draw junk though, ha ha). Like I don’t usually draw cars. I have a problem with them. So I thought I’d give one a go (this one sits docked in San Francisco, at Fisherman’s Wharf). To get past the psychological barrier, I pretended that they were power cables, pylons, telegraph poles, all those street wires I love so much. I’m quite happy with how it came out, and maybe I’ll draw more. Maybe in the future. Perhaps.

eight-eight-eight

August 9, 2008Leave a comment

Drew this at lunchtime yesterday. Watched the Opening Ceremony lats night. Wasn’t it spectacular? Amazing choreography and visuals. I was very impressed. And the parade of nations was interesting in that there was no alphabetical order, the countries were introduced by how many strokes it takes to write their character name in Chinese. A nice touch, that. After all the politics and protests (and rightly so) I was very impressed with everything, including that amazing stadium. Bush was there, I loved it when they zoomed in on him looking a bit bored and checking his watch. Most of the time he was looking through his binoculars (which he probably pronounces ‘binoclears’). He gave the Iraqi team a big round of applause, and then sat back and gave his Bush smirk. I had to laugh. They didn’t show him applauding the Iranians. But just a few seats away was Putin, giving his glum anti-smirk. Georgia was on his mind.

Because on the day the Olympics begins in China, and the world is looking elsewhere, Russia invades South Ossetia, the troubled breakaway region of Georgia, and now all hell is breaking loose. This is a serious and difficult situation, and a very worrying development. Georgia wants US help in this crisis. Georgia sent troops to Iraq to help Bush’s cause. They will expect something in return – and will we honestly be able to deliver? And face off against Russia?

“Interesting Times”.