Illus201

Please tell us about yourself and how you got started?

I have been working as a Freelance illustrator for the last 7 years since graduating, for the first few years I was still working full time at a college but then as more and more work came in I was lucky enough to be able to concentrate on my illustration full time. My first paid job was for Howies which I was so excited about as I have always loved them as a company.

What is the story and ethos behind your work?

I just draw things that I like and hope that others will too. Often People say how much my work makes them smile which for me is really good to hear.

Do you have any formal training/experience which applies to what you do?

I studied graphic arts at leeds Metropolitan University, even then my work was heavily based around illustration.

What inspired you to set up your own business and what did you find most helpful in doing this?

I think being an illustrator is just something I have always wanted to be, ever since I was little I have loved to draw so it happened very naturally. It was quite a steep learning curve getting used to dealing with clients and the business side of things. The aoi where very helpful offering advice on contracts/pricing etc. The more work I got in the more confident I became with all of that. When I first started out I took on any job that came along and often did free work as a way of building my portfolio up.

Your work features wildlife and nature and your Owl illustration is rather famous being the logo for the recent first ever Renegade craft fair in London; what draws you to these subject matters?

I guess I just love animals. I recently did a few weeks voluntary work at a seal sanctuary down in Cornwall so now I am slightly obsessed with drawing seals. I am at my happiest when I am in the countryside or by the sea so maybe this explains natures influence in my work. I especially love to draw trees and birds, I find the patterns in nature fascinating. Alpacas are my big thing at the moment – can't get enough of them! I have produced prints and bags inspired by the funny creatures.

What do you love most about illustrating and what do you find the most frustrating?

I love to draw and create things and feel very blessed that I can make money doing something that I love, I sometimes have days where I feel completely uninspired which is not a good feeling and is very frustrating but luckily these spells don't last long.

We love your wonderful cuckoo clocks; what was your inspiration for these?

Thanks! I have always loved cuckoo clocks and had the idea of creating my own in my head for some time – I love the fact that they are all so different. I like to add a lot of detail to my work so cuckoo clocks lend themselves to my style with all the wood, leaves, and animals. I have recently created a new version screen printed on to ply wood.

What is your favourite illustration you have drawn and why?

It's hard to pick a favourite. I was really pleased with the collection of recipes I did for a zine I made. I love using hand drawn type in my work and also really love instructional drawings. Howies have recently used the root veg stew recipe on one of their t shirts.

Can you tell us a bit about where you draw your illustrations (your creative space), can we take a sneaky peek at your workshop/studio/office?

I work from my studio at home which to be honest is often rather a mess especially during busy creative spells. Last year I started screen printing and have a great place in liverpool called the bluecoat where I regularly go to print – I love the whole process.

Who or what inspires you most in your work?

Nature is a big inspiration for me, I am at my happiest drawing animals and trees. I also take inspiration for old maps, I love all the intricate details and ornate patterns. Other influences include old childrens books, nice typography, vintage fabric designs. As for artists who inspire me - the list is endless! Olle eksell, nate williams, tove jansson, oliver jeffers, maurice sendak, to name a few.

What are your plans for the next 12 months and where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

In the next 12 months I plan on doing quite a lot of travelling whilst keeping up with my drawing – this for me is the plus side to the job. As long as I have a pen, my computer/scanner and internet access I can work from anywhere. I want to continue screen printing and develop my product line further, mugs, cushions, and t's are in the pipeline. In 5 years time I would like to have a studio by sea with my cats, still illustrating! Hopefully having worked on a childrens book (my dream job).

Is handmade a lifestyle choice for you and if so why?

I suppose it is, ever since I was little I have loved to make things – whether I was drawing, knitting, baking, or sewing – its just a huge part of my life.

Running your own business is extremely hard work, how do you balance your work and home life and what do you do to wind down?

It is very difficult to switch off – especially when you work from home. On the run up to a show or when a deadline is looming its impossible to find a balance, but I always make sure I get some fresh air and run everyday to clear my head, this really helps to keep me inspired and motivated.

How do you get the word out about your work and where can we buy your work?

I have a website where I showcase my portfolio, I recently got an agent who helps promote my work. I regularly update my blog and facebook page to keep people up to date with my latest work. I sell my products through my etsy shop, and in shops in the uk including the Red door gallery and Utility.

http://www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/emerg/SRahman1.pdf

this article is essentially a summary of Alois Riegl's thesis (mentioned in Folk Art of Europe written by Helmuth Th. Bossert)  on Folk Art and its development throughout centuries. It's definitely an interesting read because the thesis was written in 1894, the article published by Sabrina K. Rahman shows Riegl predicted that folk art would eventually become industrialized  and modernised to make it suitable for mass consumption of contemporary folk.

a few quotes:

"His analysis of folk art production and aesthetic trends at the dawn of the modernist era leads Riegl to argue that traditional folk art could transform itself into an internationalized form of expression in a multinational context."

"He will ultimately call for the development of a »house industry« (Hausindustrie), a system that will allow for the transformation of these antiquated folk institutions into a form suitable for the modern era. Riegl argues that, like the decorative arts, folk art has not yet found its established place within the field of Art History"

"When one comes upon a collection of traditional art forms that all members of a people have in common, then, Riegl explains, it is legitimate to speak of a »folk art« in the narrowest and most essential sense of the word.9 In this conception of folk art, two main characteristics must be present for it to be considered as such: 1) individual forms must be known, understood and used by all members of a culture, regardless of class distinctions; and 2) the forms of folk art must be associated with tradition, i.e. a practice that has continued and not changed over a long period of time."

The vernacular line: adoption and transposition of the kitsch in illustration 

In this world of confused and uncontrolled changes, people tend to regroup around primary identities: religious, ethnic, regional, national. […] Increasingly, people organize their meaning not around what they do, but based on what they are or believe they are.(Castells 1999: 23)

Work, which was perpetuated through a ‘job for life’ and defined the space and the value of each person in social, family and  identity terms, became precarious, sometimes even unnecessary. The void left by the absence of models involves a movement of self-searching, self-discovery and the demand for identity.

According to this author, in modernity, the social construction  of identity and the transformation are based on an equation between roots and options: the thought of roots refers ‘to all that is profound, permanent, unique and singular, all that generates security and consistency’, while the thought of options concerns ‘what is variable, ephemeral, replaceable, possible  and indeterminate from the roots’ (Santos 1997: 9)

As Moisés de Lemos Martins (2001: 94) points out: ‘[…] the identity of a community is fertilized by two conditions: the static (the identity is institution) and the dynamics (and identity is movement and transformation)’. By this we can conclude that ‘the identity of human communities is made so  much of tradition as foresight’ (Martins 2001: 95).

[…] as a trial for a process of alterity that we envision as being humanist and able to valorize territorial identity through design, […] suggest a reflection about the opportunity and the relevance of considering crafts, and especially ‘craft skills’, as a challenge to innovate through design. This exercise tries to lead us to a sort of broadening of the ‘senses of places’ as civilizational territories of the 21st century […]. (Albino 2012)

The increasing use of technological means (or the mere use of technology in the absence of a strategy or concept to assist a design project) has expanded in an industrialized world at all levels, resulting in a formal and consequently stylistic standardization. On the other hand, and along with the  continuation and strengthening of technical developments, we are witnessing today an inverse movement towards the use of low-tech and symptoms of human presence. Being able to do, as a process that requires a special skill, returns the forgotten dignity. Appadurai suggests that imagination in a post-electronic world assumes a significant new role: freed from the restricted space of art, myth and ritual to integrate everyday life, it now takes part in ‘the mental activity of everyday ordinary people of many societies. […] People have started to show imagination in their everyday practices of life’ (Appadurai 1996: 17).

Urban craft demonstrations, as well as a renewed taste for cuisine, sewing, tricot, crochet and embroidery, all emerge from these practices; the ability to accomplish, seen as a form of individual expression, is enhanced. Interestingly, it is this individuality that brings us together – perhaps because we recognize in these expressions something innate or natural that is able to rescue us from the status of mere operators of sophisticated machines and bring us back to the possibility of being just human.

While Flusser warns of the risk of technical images substituting for experience, illustration appears as a way to escape and to create alternative worlds. 

e. The hypothesis we advocate is that illustration enhances the production of new meanings from the anchoring and interpretation of folklore, a process that probably results from a phenomenological and hermeneutical adjustment of each illustrator (as a ‘self’) to modernity. Contemporary illustration revisits folklore by discovering the DNA of a people; an innate, primitive and under construction way of knowing; a knowledge that is now reinterpreted but still keeps intact those  signals that allow us to identify its origin

Folklore indicates popular culture, ‘the set of customs,  legends, proverbs, artistic expressions in general, preserved through oral and visual tradition by a people or population group’. Folklore therefore includes what is common to us as a people and what is distinctive from the dominant majority. It brings a sense of identity, of belonging to a place, a way  to be and to do which are essential nowadays. This identity is constituted during the process of relating to others. It evolves, but at the same time it retains the essential expression of diversity, which allows us to recognize the author.

This is, according to Steiner, a process of creative transposition, in which those aspects originally fulfilling a function give rise to  semantic values and to qualities whereby the new artefacts become aesthetic and culturally  developed.

Today, Sanna Anukka, Kate Suton, Janine Rewell, Julia Rotham, Madalena Matoso and Karoline Rerrie are illustrators who share a genuine interest for the folklore of their countries of origin. On the one hand, their illustrations have the ability to make us revisit an iconography that by being distant from our reality allows us to immediately feel an identification with the culture in which it arose; on the other hand, these images add a semantic and symbolic layer that project them beyond their initial visual and cultural frontiers

autopoietic systems are to Luhmann dynamic principles for determining identities and consequently, illustrations having popular culture as a starting point behave as autopoietic systems, being able to contribute to and to define a collective identity through these artefacts – which also bring to light individualidentities hidden in the complexity of modernity

Joana Quental University of Aveiro, Journal of Illustration

"It came without warning, building and welling inside and like the release of a thousand things unsaid, or the pouring of a life time of regrets - it came."

Probably one of my favourite lectures this academic year, Dean definitely surprised me the most out of all my lecturers with his career choices and his past. I really didn't think he's done such a vast variety of things in his life, including storyboarding and writing music scores.

What amazed me the most was how open he was when he told us about his book 'A Book Made of Tears' and how it came to be, nearly had me in tears myself. As a professional now, I really like his style, there's something very personal about his work and it feels very apparent but yet difficult to figure out. 

And hey, Dean has a blog about pencils: 

http://imperiodical.blogspot.co.uk/

 During Jo's lecture she talked mainly about all the illustrators who'll be included in her newest book that she's been working on, Becoming A Successful Illustrator. 

Here are a few examples of Jo's Work: 

I dropped down a list of the illustrators she mentioned, but some of them I already knew of so and some of them didn't really feel relevant to what I'm interested in so here are some printmaking goodies done by Aundrey Niffenegger:

She uses aquatint a lot, a technique I've only tried once and safe to say, it's not the easiest method to use which makes me appreciate the quality of her work even more. Her choice of medium is great, aquatint gives a normal print a bit more texture and depth and adds more tonal values, enriching each illustration. I like her choice of colours, each image compliments another giving her story "Raven Girl" (2012) more of a natural flow. 

__

Author: Quental, Joana

Source: Journal of Illustration, Volume 1, Number 1, 1 April 2014 , pp. 9-27(19)

Alexa Galea, University of Brighton

James Walker

Here are my questions:

How are things different now to when you started your career as an illustrator?

Your work is very unique, would you say that certain movements or artists influence you, e.g. things like European folklore?

I know your illustrations have been used in books (Where my Wellies take me is absolutely delightful to look at) but has your work been put in any other context throughout your career?

Paper Aeroplanes- Winter Never Comes