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Folk are familiar with the printed work of many of the illustrators featured In this magazine and may have even shared a drunken discourse at some iilustrators’ convention or other. We have asked a selection of radical illus-trators to submit biographies in which they proclaim the ‘raison d’être’ of their work. Now read on...
IAN POLLOCK
Born in Cheshire 1950, followed by a prolonged childhood which I spent prising up damp flagstones to watch the retreat of worms and the frantic scurrying of millipedes. I’ve always wanted to be famous; mass-murdering didn’t appeal; besides, the only activity I was any good at during school, apart from maths, physics and chemistry, was drawing. ‘Best send him to art-college!’ I was awarded a grade E for art A-level and sentenced to four years at Manches-ter Polytechnic followed by another three years at the Royal College of Art for not conforming to photo-realism.
In truth I’ve always wanted to be a conjurer — I like tricks; Houdini was my hero before I’d even heard of George Grosz. If I could make all abstract painters disappear I would do so immediately.
While at the ‘College’ I alter-nated between maggot and butter-fly. Collage, my dominating activity, gave way to water-colour: a new dawn. I began to work on thirty water-colour illustrations for ‘The Brothers of the Head’, illustrated fiction by Brian W. Aldiss. I was given this commission during my final term, it saved me from having to hawk my folio around; though I enjoy showing my work to art-editors I resent the need to do so — especially phoning up and making appointments. ‘Ian who...?’
I don’t, and never have had, an agent. As for art-editors, I can only express the utmost gratitude to those highly responsible arbiters of public taste who give me money for doing what I want to do, and then go to all the trouble to make sure that as many people see it as possible — wonderful!
Since leaving the RCA I spent three years out of circulation work-ing solely on book illustration; it is only recently, this last eighteen months, that I’ve become involved in editorial illustration. I’ve never done a job for an advertising agency, nor have I refused a job — a measure of how much work 1 get. Each new brief I regard as a chal-lenge, in fact the worse the brief the better. Imagine being given a job for which you could do exactly what you wanted, it would be like playing chess with yourself.
At heart I’m a traditionalist, respecting ‘good’ draughtsmanship above all else, it is the meat-hook from which the raw imagination can hang. Without it a work lacks a spine, and I don’t like works without spines — Constable doesn’t have a spine, Turner does: the difference is obvious. Most illustration I’d class as invertebrate, most fine-art’ is invertebrate; in fact there is very little around at the moment that does have a spine, and that is a very sad situation. Grunt!
EDWARD BELL
1955—Sing ‘Davey Crockett’ to nuns at convent school.
1960—Sing in St Matthews church choir, Surbiton. 1968—Do not take art ‘A’ level — Father explains that art is a ‘cissy’ subject. 1969—Leave Architectural Association School of Architecture after one term.
1970—Hitch-hike Europe as pavement artist —pictures of a sad Christ earning most response. 1971 —Foundation year BrIghton School of Art:
take first photographs - - -‘This is easier than draw-ing.’
1972—graphics Chelsea School of Art (because it’s near to Kings Road).
1974—Assistant Vogue photographic studios until they close down.
1975—Photography Royal College of Art. Fall to attend mortar and gown
ceremony — however MA certificate arrived in post later.
1976— Live in Paris —freelance for Faqade and Elle.
1977-9— Freelance photo-graphy and Illustration (photomontage) In London or lines, Honey, 19, Harpers, Over 21, New Society, New Scientist, Bananas, Ms London, Radio Times, Vogue, etc.
1979—George Snow and I organize regular Sunday afternoon drawing sessions with a live model.
1980—Start painting larger than life portraits. Exhi-bitions Neal Street Gallery and ‘Zanzibar’. Bowie album sleeve — Elton John and Hazel O’Connor follow.
GEORGE SNOW
I was born in Hanover, West Germany to Lucy Makowiecka, a Polish/German refugee and William Snow, an English Army corporal.
Of my period at college I won’t say much, save that whereas most students graduate with a BA or an MA, I was awarded the G.B.H. after hitting the head of the fashion/ textile department at Hornsey College of Art.
My subsequent expulsion imbued me with the necessary bitterness to function within the extreme left and underground press. This was to prove a useful foundation course in the vagaries of litho printing, forc-ing me. to maximize the minimal resources available — poor quality paper, limited colour, and crude reproduction.
The natural consequence of such limited technology was a move away from drawing and into photo-montage, using the same line techniques as are used to transfer line artwork onto a litho plate. This method evolved until I was able to use complex line separations to produce multi-coloured photo-montages.
A hardening of my radical arteries took place in the mid-seventies caused, in part, by the visual illiteracy and claustrophobic think-ing of my erstwhile comrades. Disillusion set in with a vengeance. Money and amphetamine, in sym-biosis, became an addiction which obsessed me for three years from 1974 to 1977.
Two factors played a part in my renaissance. The first was the emergence of Punk music in 1977. For the first time since the dis-appearance of the underground press I was being asked to produce aggressive work. The second factor was my discovery of the work of Mason. Mills and Pollock. Not only was I impressed by their product but it appeared to me that they were also able to make a living. I greedily devoured their influence.
I decided to start again at the beginning. So in 1978 1 went back to life-drawing, painting and experi-ments with collage.
The ability to draw and abstract is to me the root discipline in all fields of visual communication; painting, sculpture, photography, typography, montage and all fields of design, craft and even archi-tecture. I believe that the eye that understands line can develop an understanding for space, three dimensional form, colour and tone.
The words ‘design’ and ‘draw-ing’ are to me interchangeable. (In Italian the word disegno suffices for both.) An ability to draw well gives the artist freedom from the confines of one particular style. Without this freedom an artist like Picasso could n6t have progressed beyond the limited sphere of syn-thetic Cubism, leaving as he did his fellow traveller Georges Braque to endlessly repeat himself. Limited ability to draw can often, (though not always), lead to the inability to develop ideas. My formula is this: Ideas give birth to an approach, approach leads on to a formal construction (style). From the formal construction we get mood and expression. In short, there are so many things to say, I don’t believe I can say them all in the same way.
I enjoy commissioned work where I have to manufacture a solution to a problem which would other-wise never have entered my head. however I prefer to be the prime-mover in a visual product rather than an ‘illustrator’ who merely clarifies someone else’s concept. I have no beef with art-directors. I see them as employees of organ-izations which frankly don’t owe me, or any other illustrator, a living. I’m thankful when I’m given a com-mission which I hope I execute in an uncompromising fashion, but no art-director can set me a problem which will tax me to the limit.
I am currently developing a ‘human’ dimension to my work. I want the figures in my personal work to reflect those I encounter in life. Figures (and environments) are, now researched with the aid of a camera, as opposed to my previous method of using ‘found’ material. The photographic results of these researches are abstracted using the traditional materials of collage. I call this approach ‘documentary collage’. The aim is to reflect the soul of the people I portray, and to get away from my previous approach of manufacturing impersonal patterns which merely allude to real people. My ‘role model’ is Masaccio.
My interest in Masaccio has led me to study the problems he and other Renaissance artists were trying to solve. I am trying to re-define for myself the terms ‘abstract’ and ‘illusion’, and to this end I am producing a picture in the ‘illusionistic’ style. I am study-ing anatomy, perspective and the effects of light. No conclusions yet.
CATHERINE DENVIR
Foundation course at school followed by 3 year Diploma course at Chelsea School of Art 1971-1974.
Rather than conceiving an idea and then sticking rigidly to it, my pictures have always tended to evolve, one line or image being sparked off by another. Now, because of the time limitations of commissioned work, where space and theme add further restrictions, I have to build from the base of a set plan. This approach has in-creasingly infiltrated my personal work.
I use collage as a medium because it has the same immediacy as drawing in line, which I have always preferred. A problem I’ve previously encountered was how to successfully add tone to my pictures without bogging down the essential linear quality of the drawing. With collage not only can I control the mood with varying tonal effects, but can also, in the process of cutting or tearing paper or print achieve, (in result and execution), a quality very similar to the spontaneity of drawing in pen and ink. There is of course the plus of being able to juxtapose an image, repositioning it to produce an unexpected effect. The versatility of this process, I find, is not matched by the com-parative immobility of line drawing.
As mentioned previously, I now find myself increasingly working to a pre-set plan, particularly with commissioned work. This factor, combined with the ability I now have of being able to judge the manner in which the raw material of my collage will reproduce once it has been re-photographed, (per-haps diminishing the role of chance effects), has resulted in a tightening of my style. I don’t want this process to lead to an over-sophisti-cated, rigid technique, resulting in a series of stylized conclusions.
Although to plan a piece of work is convenient, and to a certain extent necessary. I would like to concentrate on the content rather than become preoccupied with the technical finish, and to introduce again some of the more abstract elements of my earlier collages.
ATELIER KONINCK, LONDYN
The Brothers Quay
Born 1947 Norristown.
1965-69 PhIladelphia College of Art.
1989-72 Royal College of Art. 1979 "NOCTURNA ARTI-FICIALIA. Those Who Desire Without End" puppet film for BFI. 1980 Atelier KONNICK,
Londyn formed.
1980 "PUNCH AND JUDY" co-directed with Keith Griffiths: 47 mm. film for Arts Council. Create decors, puppets, mise- en-scene, animation for excerpts from Harrison Birtwistle’s opera "Punch and Judy".
1981 Present work: Adaptation of Kafka’s "Em Bruder-mord", Melodram fur Marlonetten for GLAA 5 mm; and for the Arts Council a 30 mm. spectro-graphy:"L’ ETERN EL AUDOURD’HUI DE MICHEL DE GHELDE-RODE", the Belgian play-wright.
"THE TIMES OF DISCOVERY ARE OFFICIALLY OVER…THEY NO LONGER EXIST AND
CAN NEVER EXIST AGAIN."
You can no longer walk into a Europe already shrunk by the ornamental pornography of pre-packaged tours, americanexpress-barclayaccessvisa etc. etc., and hope to unearth some corner that hasn’t already been wrestled into its future grimace. No street in any quarter of any city hasn’t already once extended the welcom-ing handshake to the new age’s new custom drapers, the new age’s new inheritance . . . the nefarious plastics’ envoys.
Butchering ambassadors, of real taste, the American (Anglo-Saxon) malevolence of product insensiti-vity will change the face of Europe (if not the earth) to suit its own deformed altar. Pin brained…ball cutting…star gazing art directors (England and Europe included) have already wedged entire reputations on that wonder-ful sodomization all the while believing they’re maintaining some vestige of their own cultures. It’s not English . . . it’s not French it’ s not German . . . it’s not Dutch and it’s not EEC sauce we’re talking about. It’s tinned American!!! "Cock-a-doodle-doo." A hundred years from now only the language will remain as obstruc-tion to still greater uniformity. Then and only then will the skull Europe spit out the teeth of her facades into her rivers.
And for what? The ultimate decorators . . . the Formica clinics…Star Wars via the McDonald’s Merchant Brain Trust…the Pope’s blessing for that heroic egalitarian sovereign corporate clap bulldozing the - "sniff" of "plenty" into still newer territory You only have to imagine a little. SYRINGE... COTTON... SCALPEL . . . the thin smiles . . . A Poland on the horizon . . . Eastern Europe later. And then . . . AMERICAN BUSINESSMEN . . . whole squadrons . . . scheming giants in jockey shorts . . . lips slavering, already chapped in anticipation
D-Day all over again. And then just a little behind. . . the EEC boys... engines in their asses . . . Cortinas, Renaults, Fiats trying to catch up. FORGET IT. Leave Poland to the Russians!!! They’re better off than if the Americans can have them their way. Flying fortress air lift
2000 instant hamburger palaces. 20,000,000 toy hats and a country music jamboree at Czesto-chowa plus the Daughters of the American Revolution as interpreters. You watch . . . in a year’s time . . . total conversion . . . right down to the last atom. Just another decent country stuffed and set up as a urinal for the American cyclops. And advertising?? A field day!! Heroic, artistic advertising!!! The most impeccable parasitism down the last thirty years. Pucker-ed, pimping, camphorated, deter-mined, mythical suppliers of happi-ness grinning with all the banal numbness of an eight foot tumor. Creativity you say!! Via what! Their ratings . . . their financial pages . . . their deals . . . their lunches. Whoosh!!! 90 miles an hour straight to the feed bag belch-ing and farting harder for a piece of the profit and burial insurance. And then every year the Honours and Profits Battalion . . . the hand-ing out of prizes to these pioneers of salesmanship. Hymns . . . head-lines . . . proclamations .
"THERE’S NO COMPROMISE WHEN STANDARDS ARE BEING SET." What!! In typography for instance??? What exactly do you think a typographic jury bases its special brand of immensity on? Look-alike-genius?? All those rum-maging swooning puppies pirouet-ting for the billings with the fattest thighs and the biggest set of vari-cose veins. Let’s get it straight. These typographers let alone the agencies they represent would be the first to eliminate a Lissitzky, a Maholy-Nagy, or a Pete Zwaart. Make no mistake . . . these three would be out on the street today. You only have to compare the "formal" experiments they were introducing in advertising and typography to see where today’s butter ball prick typographers are sewing and farting. A Lissitzky, a Maholy-Nagy and a Zwaart . .
they’d have a poodle’s chance of attaining the infinite. And a jury report . . . all that sanctimonious 12 point perforated vinyl, bladder of plaintive piquant moaning for things just a bit better in the individual categories . the cult of squalor that runs throughout all the subsequent categories. And then . . . the largesse itself. . . that pygmy herd of Ad’s . . . whole trayfuls . . in hostess suits and medals . . faces folded like bill carriers dispensing one citation after another where there’s only the most cock-softening uniformity. And then there’s the published report itself . . - The Imperial Message . . the self congratu-lation so grotesquely self sufficient that it’s hypnotized itself for the universe. "IT’S A ROWBOAT WITH A SINGLE OAR!!" And today’s typographer!! What do they do? Or rather what can they do? These quivering connoisseurs, these minges at the wheel of the alphabet. They take the copy-writers 2ccs and they spell out with the typical conservative legible cautioning of letters which shake the finger of a typeface which has no other nose than for a wallet. RESPONSE?? The reader’s head is nothing but one big turd. From your first infant nightmare to your last sweat it won’t improve.
‘You get your prick In one mill-metre, the first centimetre is the hardest, the most costly
thereafter there’s no problem! Every pederast will tell you this. Absolutely any asshole can become well buggered by advertising, an immense whatever you like [. . .] advertising In order to render its full magical effect must not be troubled, hindered, diverted by anything. It must not be allowed to assert, consecrate, vociferate, trumpet abroad the worst stupidities, no matter what Himalayan, brain-less, thundering phantasmagoria on the subject of cars, stars, toothbrushes, writers, female pop singers, rupture trusses without anyone batting an eyelid, or making from the theatre pit the tiniest simplest protest. The pit must remain permanently and totally hypnotized by stupid rubbish.’
Louis-Ferdinand Celine:
Bagatelles pour Un Massacre
1937
And illustration? What’s the point of arguing for a resistance in terms of "radical" expression. Illus-trator!! Go turn into a bag of worms. Zero future, If they can sell Mai-kovski like cereal they’ll do it. All artistic capability stops when there’s an ounce of money to be made. All the tutti-frutti ragtail of flunkey editors, art directors, marketing heads, etc. . . . the more chronically conservative they are. the better they’ll rule and the longer they’ll rule. You’ll never stir skulls like these even with an oar. It’s an escalator straight to the base-ment. You’re not there to dream but to listen to death rattles . - . it’s handcuffs!! Line up on the line!! That’s advertising. "Cafe de la Morgue." There’s nothing any-more of intelligence or intellect of interpretation. Radical today? Just another coterie as inbred as the fattest agencies . . . jittering junk-heads, fashionable, flippant and ephemeral as maggot agencies are constipated and conservative. Either you take the position as artist to shoe the stars from another universe or else you ventilate your brains on the options handed you by high geared head breakers. Radical??? Not for long. You’re only a handshake away from being flied down, ironed, melted, glazed, starched, and mashed by these fathers of happiness. It’s no longer noon at 2 o’clock. Tell yourself that the next time you impale your-self on a grain of hope.
TERRY DOWLING
Terry Dowling studied illus-tration and ceramics at the RCA and is now Head of Graphics at Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic.
ROBERT MASON
There is little contemporary illustration I can totally admire: among the few people I feel are really TRYING I would count Sue Coe, Anne Howeson, Liz Pyle and Carolyn Gowdy . . . four women. For the precious few illustrators whose efforts I respect at all, personal work is as important as commission-ed work. I feel that, if ever I stopped producing the former, the latter would expire very quickly. My work has moved away from a total concern with private jokes and masturbatory obsessions; I am now starting to try and reflect more directly aspects of what I see around me, but this is a lengthy process and I’ve only just begun.
I have no interest in or sym-pathy for aestheticism divorced from content. Apart from anything else it’s lazy. Aesthetes, "decorators", seem to ignore or waste vast areas of their brains; generally, I feel, because "pretty" = "money" d rather see 25 "bad" drawings which try to comment/ question than one techno-flash meisterwerk devoid of real humanity and intelligence. Unfortunately the college system continues to place more emphasis on style, and less and less emphasis on content and analysis. This is a tragedy which has its roots in the ordure of rank commercialism — a phenomenon I hate as much as aestheticism, and which finds its credo in the widely-held idea that the only success worth pursuing is financial. Bullshit. Education ought to be education and not merely the quickest route to a fat bank-balance.
Illustration, in conjunction with the other media, shapes and re-flects society. We therefore have a duty to comment, to shock, to inform and suggest. WHY then the perennial obsessions — as typi-fied by 95% of the entries for this and every other year’s annual —with pussy-cats and bunny-rabbits, Debbie H. and David B., cocktails and gingham, inter-galactic battle-cruisers hovering over the planet Varg in all their awesome non-existent detail? We’re big boys and girls now and it’s 1981 . . . an ex-Hollywood movie hick has his finger on the button, a new Vietnam is starting to simmer, our beloved P.M. ‘s secondary career as arms-salesman is flourishing. On a more parochial level, art-education (among so many other things) is being emasculated and shaped to serve the establishment rather than question it.... ESCAPISM SUCKS. New Roman-ticism is a waste of time and energy. Who needs another royal wedding? Repeat runs of Coronation Street? A cruise-missile base on the door-step? YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRAW.
ANNE HOWESON
The imagery in my work is deliberately personal, it also has a narrative side, usually deriving from a written source, or particular experience/idea. At the same time I’m interested in form — the colour, light and composition through which emotion can be con-veyed. If the final image works as illustration as well, so much the better: I don’t make this one of my aims.
Nonetheless, I value the visual experience of earning my living as an illustrator; there’s much to be gained from the discipline of dead-lines. and of working with materials and within contexts one wouldn’t normally choose.
But my concern for individuality tends to limit my professional potential as an illustrator, and excludes me — for the most part —from the mainstream of commercial work, against whose preoccu-pations with style/technique and comparative impersonality my pictures must appear eccentric and rather too intense.
I’m not sure I mind about this —I want to do good work more than to be a commercial success — but it disappoints me that the potential for this individualistic approach within illustration is not more widely recognized by those people with the power to make use of it.
LIZ PYLE
AWARDS: Awarded Wil-liam H. Ely award. Phila-delphia College of Art, 1978. Second prize, The Folio Society Competition, Royal College of Art 1980.
EXHIBITIONS: Group exhibitions at Royal College of Art 1979, 1980 including "The Sex Show", "The Paper Show", etc. The Folio Society com-petition, exhibition, Royal College of Art 1979, 1980. "Lines" exhibition, illus-trators Gallery, London 1979. "Valentine" exhi-bition, the Workshop Gallery 1979. invitational exhibition, the Neal St Gallery, Nov. 1979. "The Shee Show", invitational exhibition, Neal Street Gallery, April 1980. "Alternative Transport Show" Association of Illus-trators Annual Exhibition, London 1980181. European
Illustration, London,
Paris, Amsterdam, 1981.
I consider myself a painter/narrator. My pictures tell their own stories by fragmenting an idea and narrating its parts instead of the whole understanding. This exposes the mystery and ambi-guity which underlies the basic action. The result is a full personal interpretation which parallels its origin.
This dissection and analysis is a result of my interest in science. I first studied to be a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 where I was disillusioned by the lack of creativity and over-whelmed by the competition. After one year, I then transferred to the Philadelphia College of Art. I started out on the illustration course because I liked to draw, but I ended up being well versed in "style-making". When I finished the course in 1978, I was just beginning to realize what kind of pictures I wanted to make. So at this stage I knew I was not ready for "style-marketing" in New York.
Instead, I headed for London with a box of transparencies know-ing that I might find a more concordant atmosphere. I went to the Royal College of Art where I was given time and encouragement to unlearn all of the "rules of illustration" that I had previously been taught. I became aware of the connection between my interests and imagery; that I could create my own "science" pictorially. Also I learned to make use of more inherent means of expression, such as colour and form, which I had neglected since I was young.
At the same time I was being published in several magazines and newspapers even though my work was in transition. The result was that I treated the commissions in
the same way as my own pieces. Since 1978 I have continued to work as an illustrator in England, Canada and the United States and I am presently living in New York City.
MIKE LITHERLAND
After 1st year of General Graphics I specialized in illus-tration, encouraged by Terry Dowling. and later by Peter Bailey.
July 1975. Leave Liverpool, move to London, attempt to freelance. At this point in time my work was split into two distinct areas, line drawings tinted with photo dyes, and collage work tinted with coloured pencils. Subjects were of a slightly macabre nature.
Sept. 1976. Start a three year illustration course at the Royal College of Art. The two separate aspects of my work fuse together, becoming a mixture of drawing, printing and collage techniques. Some freelance work for various magazines, including the Sunday
Times, and Observer magazines. June 1979. Degree Show.
Everybody seems to be inundated with offers: I get the total of one book cover as a result.
Since that time I have had various freelance commissions including an LP cover, book covers and edi-torial work.
I taught vocational graphics at Salisbury College of Art, where I learnt more about graphics than I ever did at college. I now teach vocational illustration, full time at Richmond-upon-Thames College. I try to encourage the students to be bold and original and not to be frightened of experimenting; origin-ality, inventiveness linked with suitability being the prime concern.
Although from my personal experience with the majority of art directors, experimentation and originality are the last things they want to see. Safe familiar art work still rules the day, airbrush, and photorealism abound. Any young hopeful who comes along with a portfolio of fresh, exciting experi-mental work, generally has a bloody hard time, whilst the no talent bums who just imitate the estab-lished people grab all the work and all the money.
To sum up: illustration, as an art form, should be in a constant state of change, expanding into new avenues of thought all the time. To a small degree this is happening, but only because of a minority. In fact if it were not for the encouragement and protection that the RCA gives to people on the fringe of established illustration, we in Brit-ain, would be in the same mess that American illustrators are in, (Liz Pyle excluded of course).
If change is to take place, the illustrators can not do it alone. All of you art directors out there will have to wake up and give new people with new approaches a chance.
GEORGANNE DEEN
From a letter to R.M. dated 28.2.81.
"Illustrators are most effective when they shatter your illusions, destroy your self-confidence. wreck your health and get inside your mind . . . or make you do the St. Vitus Dance. Since you asked how I’m paying for gas these days I’m working on some cards and selling silk-screen prints and jumping through fiery hoops. Since you may not speak Spanish the first two words on
‘Two Terrible Texans’ say "Hola. Pepd" meaning "Hi Pierre!" or "Felicitations Moisha!" Mr. Potato, Head is a favourite toy — do you all have him? In my old age he stands for a sadistic man or more precisely [censored at G.D.’s request]. You may not quote me. Goodnight."
Blurb from "Art Direction" mag., dated Dec. 1977.
"Georganne Deen, our festive cover illustrator, hails from Fort Worth, Texas. Of her magical, inspired, detail-laden cover she write the following: ‘This is Venus of Manhattan, whom I let trick me into leaving Cowtown by promising me all kinds of juicy illustration work.’ Her Holiday Toast: ‘I dare you to give this person a job.’"
SOL ROBBINS
1980-present: United Nations Anti-Racism Exhibition, N.Y., N.Y.
Portfolio ‘80, N.Y., N.Y. publication featuring new artists selected by art directors: Robert Priest, (Esquire Magazine); Paula Scher, (CBS Records); and Walter Bernard, (Time Magazine).
Brookhaven Academy, Morristown, n.j. art teacher for mentally handicapped.
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Degree, School of Visual Arts, N.Y., N.Y. media arts receiving advanced training in gouache, acry-lic, pen and ink, oollage, and pencil. I was editor and contributing artist to the school’s editorial paper. Received Rhodes Artistic Achievement Award, and cash prize.
Dear Robert,
Sue had contacted me to send some slides to you for the magazine. By my understanding, you also request a short bio. Well it will be short since I’m too young to have a past.
I was born December 6, 1956.
My education was pursued at Bergen Community College; Paterson State (both in New Jersey); Parsons School of Design; and School of Visual Arts.
I won the Artistic Merit Award at Paterson State. At SVA, I was selected for two media arts shows at the SVA Gallery in Soho; founded, contri-buted as artist and editor to Targets, (SVA’s short-lived poli-tical paper); selected for SVA’s media book juried by Robert Priest (Esquire), Walter Bernard (Time) and Paula Sher (CBS) and won the Rhodes Family Artist Award (cash).
In my professional life I’ve worked for Esquire and contributed art for the United Nations World-wide Anti-racism Convention last June.
Sincerely
Sol Robbins
P.S. I would like the slides re-turned. Keep up the good work.
Mr. Snow.
As a freelance artist and recent college graduate, my objective is to
make quality pictures that can meet your mind and needs. This requires pictures that are mentally affecting as well as artistically arresting and still suit a variety of textual uses. I try to make illustrations for edi-torial, investigative, political and social articles portraying ideas and events, in an intriguing manner.
Thank You,
Sol
CAROLYN GOWDY
My drawings are narrative. I try to find words or images that will best articulate the thing I want to say. They may be inspired by a literary source and/or by a personal response or observation.
Hopefully, ‘the way of approach to a piece, commissioned or other-wise, emerges from a way of per-ceiving the environment which may develop and change. I think I’m always continuing to develop clarity of vision, both in regard to my work and relationships to other people, and that it’s important to keep this vision alive.
I’m interested in technique, but I’m even more interested in ideas. in thought process. Perfect ideas survive imperfect techniques and cheap reproductions. They can create change.
I would like my work to continue to keep reasoning and to pose questions, but still not to forget the greatness of being alive, to contain healthy amounts of energy, sensu-ality, and humility.
As Pablo Neruda writes:
It’s good to have a change of clothes
of skin of hair of work
let us make a profession of being earthbound
let us touch the earth with our
beings.
BLAIR DRAWSON
Born Winnipeg 16110143. Educated Ontario College of Art, Toronto 1963-88. Dropped out of drawing I painting course in 3rd year, began book illustration. Editorial illustrator 1975 onwards.
I am Canadian. ..I am an aging white heterosexual male, 37 yrs old, hair black, eyes brown, beard blue, shoe size 11 . . . . The prominence of my philtrum is often remarked upon . . . certainly solitary.... These days I prefer you Englishmen over the Americans, since concept and expression play such a large part in what you do. Many of the Americans, on the other hand, seem to pay attention only to technique, and as a result I find a lot of their work rather cold and emotionally vapid."
SUE COE
PERHAPS THE MOST deserving of all the contributors in this issue to be called "radical", Sue Coe was a student at Chelsea and the RCA before her self-imposed exile to New York. A seminal influence on
later generations, her output over the last decade has been consis-tently aggressive in its form and critical in its content. A sometime tutor at the SVA in New York, Sue’s commitment to her beliefs ensures
a constant conflict with the powers-that-be. Her hit-&-run visits to London are too few — when are you coming again Coe?
R.M.
ANDRZEJ KLIMOWSKI
Born July 1949 in London.
1968-72 studied painting at St Martins School of Art, followed by one year Advanced Graphics course specializing in film ani-mation.
1973-75 post-graduate work at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw under professor Henryk Toma-szewski. During this time he also contributed drawings and designed covers for the satirical magazine "Szpilki".
1975-80 Worked for several theatres in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Lodz, Hamburg and Rome design-ing posters and programmes. During this period he also designed posters for the cinema in Poland. In 1977 and 1978 he was awarded the Key Art Awards in the Holly-wood Reporters annual international film poster competition / Los Angeles/. He was awarded the first prize for the best design of a poster for Russian films screened in Poland during the years 1975-78.
In 1980 made the film "Dead Shadow" for the Lodz Short Film Studios, the film was shown at the International Short Film Festival in Cracow. At the end of 1980 returned to England where he works as a freelance graphic artist and film maker and is a visiting lecturer at Canterbury College of Art. He is a member of Transcorda.
Individual exhibitions: 1978 Con temporary Posters Gallery, War-saw. 1980 Galeria Wielka 19, Pozna6. 1980 Teatr Wsp6lczesny Gallery, Wroclaw. 1981 Galetia Grazyny Hase, Warsaw — 2 man show with Danuta Schejbal.
RODERICK JUDKINS
I illustrate my own writing because that way I don’t have to think — did the writer want it done that way or like this or like that; I just do it. I always work from my own photos too, so I don’t have to compose anything, don’t have to think — oh that should go here and that down there and that over here — it’s all there for me. Only use black and white and grey now too, so I don’t have to make any decisions about colour.
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