Drawn To Wild. Part THREE

Graphic Riffing.

OK my final ode to Andrzej Klimowski. Promise! 

A short riff with him via selected paragraphs from his book 'On Illustration'. http://oberonbooks.com/on-illustration.html I set out to find 47 pieces of brilliance from his writings. Not difficult but I've run out of time - you will understand why 47 pieces in a second.

AK - "Drawing is perhaps the most immediate medium through which an idea can be articulated. Illustration takes drawing into the narrative realm."

JC - Graffiti is societies release from social absurdity and a chance at personal expression. The numbing persecution of society and the corresponding frustration - perfectly orchestrated by the minds eye - leads to an unleashing of the natural forces of representation. 

AK - "The time within which an illustrator is given to respond to a message or subject is short. It's dramatically referred to as a deadline. Yet the speedy response to interpreting a subject is part of the quality and value of a good illustration. It should look spontaneous, fresh and vital. This is where its vibrancy and intelligence lies. And this, perhaps, is what the audience does not see nor fully appreciate. 

JC - One big buzz for the creative mind is time pressure. Like a sign saying 'Do Not Cross' - that you have to cross, time is a Ninja Warrior with one of those unbreakable swords that you know will break. It is an enemy as long as it stops you thinking and then it is your buddy that flies you through space to hero-dom. Only as long as the work is pure genius.

AK - "They may think that the illustrators dexterity is a pre-ordained talent. This is a misunderstanding. Spontaneity, dexterity and intelligence come with practice, just like the musician continually playing and practicing on his instrument. The musician also needs a good composer and an illustrator's art can only flourish when there is an intelligent and visionary client."

JC - Any audience is a part of the act. The two cannot function apart. Drawing for my own benefit has never been my thing. I've always done it because it's how I figure stuff but working with the audience puts it on fire. There is no feeling to match the creation of peoples inner thoughts - in front of them - within the gift of their own eyes.

My Very Own AK-47 in a safety case in my office.

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Drawn To Be Wild. Part TWO

Where do your ideas come from Andrzej?

AK - "Well I was walking down Queens Gate in Kensington when I noticed an unusually tall and slender young woman walking a few yards ahead of me. Her sprightly bobbing ponytails could be mistaken for antennae and I could imagine translucent wings unfolding from her rucksack. I quickened my step but before I could draw level to her, she turned and climbed a few steps entering a building. There was a sign on the door. It read: 'The London Institute of Entymology.' Sometimes life comes up with a ready made scenario; the imagination fills in the rest.'"

JC - Always looking around - and often feeling really clumsy by not seeing - I hate to admit to myself that I just missed the thing. I have always loved photography but know I miss the best shots by a few seconds. I don't see the shot until I have re-calculated a split second late - having just seen the shot when it has gone. Drawing can be like that. A big mark suggests a yet better mark but you would not have known it before.

AK - "Illustration lies somewhere between graphic design and painting. Its context is graphic design. An illustrators work will find its way onto a newspapers page, into a magazine, a book, a poster, on a webpage or a television screen. It will accompany text, illuminate it, comment on it, punctuate or counterpoint it. Its function can be reflective, provocative or decorative. It enlivens visual communication."

JC - I can't read long web pages. I just can't. I need the joy of a graphic to spice it up. To add piquancy to the mood or the idea. Maybe it's a Twitter generation thing (apparently everything is…) but most texts are so turgid and repeating (and repeating) that it's given birth to the need for images again. Everywhere. PowerPoint, Newspapers. Video. Anything but long texts without pictures. And now Infographics. And now I'm beginning to seriously loathe them too! (Well, bad ones)

AK - "What Illustration shares with painting is the desire for self-expression. It expands the imagination. Illustration is a pictorial lexicon, a new grammar. It has its own formal values, its own language, its own voice."

JC - So many people I meet say they think in pictures. They do but why do so many people feel they can't draw. This often means that they can't speak in pictures so conversations seem to lack the element of story. In fact people just need to be encouraged to draw more and that way they will construct better stories. Dinner Parties would start to be enjoyable. (Well maybe)

AK - "Learning from Tomaszewski - he looked to aphorisms for his subject matter. Imagine this - depict the idea of "In unity there is strength", or the idea of a "Big Nothing" or a "Small Nothing" in a poster form."

JC - Wow! My kinda teacher! Just off to draw a piece of mind.

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Drawn To Be Wild. Part ONE

Illustrating. My Point.

"It was nightfall. I had 300k's still to go. Stretched over the blazing hot fuel tank of time whilst grabbing the handlebar of thought by the scruff of its neck. I'm sucking oxygen through my eyes to complete the picture. The storm clouds roll along over to my right keeping me in a petulant company. I know i'm flirting with a certain death if I get caught sleeping on this highway of creativity. I could now see the enemy on the hill ahead."

Nope that's not going to work. 

I like some of the images it conjurs and you are definitely still reading. It needs another picture though right?

Whether for business or pleasure most people scratch out a scribble or two to make a point. Usually it's quite an important point. A point so important that it could only be described by being drawn. Communicating what we think or want by clever words is capable of much applause. Verbal dexterity impresses me enormously but it's usually the visual that steals the show.

Drawing then is a serious responsibility.

It means making a mark. That's a choice. That carries serious risk. There are side effects - a health risk. But most of all it is a privilege - one of the most decisive acts in business. To 'draw a line' is to declare a decision. To bound a direction for a business by saying what's in and what's out of scope - it's a big step.

The skill of the person drawing becomes far more about thinking, judgement and expertise than art, flair or craft. To get both ends of that to work together though - is a real bonus because that adds to the overall idea. It is the real value of the whole calculation at a critical point in time.

I'm mad on Andrzej Klimowski at present. He is Professor of Illustration at the Royal College of Art. He's a dude. He's written much of what I think so I'm paraphrasing his stuff and then dancing with his rhythm. To jazz with the points.

AK - "Every work is a new beginning. It is a magical moment when a germ of an idea is formed. Often it is not a 'grand idea' - it can start with an anecdote, a small incident or feeling. A work can sometimes start without an idea, it can emerge when running through random images or words and making connections between them. Patterns emerge - the artist or designer gives the patterns form, creates structures that invite the spectator or reader to interpret them and give them meaning.

JC - I like to draw deliberate things. Things that evoke a reaction. I want a response. Agreement or derision - I can be happy with either. At least it makes people think. A great drawing is not about recreating a photograph. While that requires skill it can be very one dimensional and superficial. You will be depressed by the reaction it gets. Stretching peoples imagination and busting paradigms for a living is amazing.

The simple act of pen to paper is truly a mighty thing.

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Illustrating Irony

Brevity is such a wonderful idea. Irony - a close cousin. 

I suffered 45 minutes of being presented at last week. Unable to break the damned flow of the presenters schtick. Although I'm supposed to be good at it I couldn't  create a dialog with the 'presenter'. It nearly killed me. It was unpleasant. A relentless, rehearsed tirade and worse - done through a broad smile. Meanwhile I sat fuming - incapable of altering the persistent thrust of the attack. Ironic when the topic was an approach to creating powerful engagement with ones audience. Empathy. It was genuinely an assault on my senses. Maybe I was caught on a bad year. I thought I should draw how I felt.

The news is incredible right now. That’s how I felt.

The dirty little secrets of power and politics - the unravelling of media control on our lives. The diabolical (and extreme) statement in Norway. The death of the Euro. FIFA! The depravity and waste of Amy Winehouse. For me it is a visual cacophony. I have images of Lisbet Salander and dragon tattoos in my head. The work and writing of Andrzej Klimowski the only thing capable of lifting me out of my mood. My mind was on fire after reading him - making me want to shout out loud with inspired representations.

How can I put it? I want to be brief.

What should our response be? Well, on the media story "Don't write crap!". That would seem to sum it all up. Along with "Surprised about Murdoch? Really? Was it really news that our politicians are so corrupted?" On Norway. "Is there a more wicked problem than competing religious ideologies? On FIFA - "Smoking Gun?" On the collapse of Europe? - look at what actually goes on in Bruxelles in our name! And on Amy - well "RIP" Amy - we will all miss you.

Powerful engagement with one's audience or cynical exploitation of the senses? I guess I am overly sensitive to having my senses abused. There is no subtlety to that and it pains me because I draw for a living. I need empathy and brevity to get it done.

What would Andrzej draw to sum this all up?

AK - "Visualisation of intangible ideas or thoughts is a collage of notions. Clashed together from memories, suggestions and fragments of the mind. Found, archival material, springing a visual surprise on the viewer and encouraging him or her to intellectually or emotionally process the effect and arrive at a possible interpretation."

JC - I think he would find optimism and agony in some kind of embrace. The bittersweet affair of paradox. It may have a dash of eroticism - a doorway to oblivion but as the ultimate illustrator he could not fail to catch your breath with sadness woven into graphic truth.

AK - "The immediacy of drawing is what characterises good designs and illustrations. They give the impression that something is being acted out before your eyes - the energy of the drawing process still evident. I see the illustrator as a transmitter, one that receives messages and transforms them into images." 

JC - As an illustrator I am reeling from the last few weeks. All my senses have been assaulted and i'm awash with adrenaline. I have long loathed the plain truth of societies sickness and tried to put thoughts down just in my own vain attempt at reasoning it all. I want to draw my own personal Guernica for the 21st Century but I know I won't have the time. Nor would they give me the facade of the Houses Of Parliament as my ideal canvas. Facade is a funny word.

"Drawing is perhaps the most immediate medium through which an idea can be articulated. Illustration takes drawing into the narrative realm."

JC – I found out that I cannot draw without telling some truth or other. Some story. It is not possible for me to put pen to paper without a journey or conclusion of some sort. This drawing below took me 8 months. It was not a creation of brevity. It is 4 feet by 3 feet and done in a 0.4mm Rotring pen. Remember them?

AK - "The time within which an illustrator is given to respond to a message or subject is short. It's dramatically referred to as a deadline. Yet the speedy response to interpreting a subject is part of the quality and value of a good illustration. It should look spontaneous, fresh and vital. This is where its vibrancy and intelligence lies. And this, perhaps, is what the audience does not see nor fully appreciate. 

JC – It works when there is pressure. To be told I couldn't draw people was a day I will never forget. I actually don't go in for drawing 'people' that much. I prefer surreality. That didn't mean I could forget the day I put pen to paper to prove them wrong though either. That keeps me looking for things that I can't do.

AK - "They may think that the illustrators dexterity is a pre-ordained talent. This is a misunderstanding. Spontaneity, dexterity and intelligence come with practice, just like the musician continually playing and practicing on his instrument. The musician also needs a good composer and an illustrator's art can only flourish when there is an inbtelligent and visionary client."

JC – Now I do what I do. I like the tune it plays. I enjoy the sound of pen on paper. When the paper works. I create drawings a hundred times bigger than the one above in a day. That's a fresh kind of brevity. But only when the pens work! http://johncaswell.posterous.com/apple-please-make-pens I wouldn't be able to do it at all if people didn't listen and watch what was going on. That’s empathy.

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Imagine Nation.

Developing. A Photographic Memory.

Wherever I go there are people with smartphones - festoons of small high powered cameras snapping at my heels. Really. I've seen images of my heels. I studied a bit of photography at college. I've forgotten it all. I love my Leica's and also my iPhone though. They go with me almost everywhere. I never forget them.

Automatic cameras seemed to take all the craft away - they made it possible for anyone to snap a great shot. Well maybe. That's not such a bad thing but it made it less intriguing for me. It stopped me from being that bothered for a long while. Now the buzz is back.

The whole world has gone visual.

I've become hooked on photography again. 

Perhaps as much because of what it teaches me about myself as much as it is a creative thing. To me the creative part is no longer the snapping bit – it's the observing bit. Coupled with the pressure bit. And now I'm a bit worried that there is an obsessive bit. It's all about the bits these days. A bit.

Link photography to sharing (Instagram/Extragram - building a bunch of folk who seem to appreciate it) - 'say cheese' - and you have a whole new way of communicating 'you'! If that's your thing of course.

Where this goes? - who knows. What's with the shares? - who cares.

All of this has reminded me about what I notice and what I don't. And what is intriguing and valuable in the litter of everything. In fact I can easily see art in the litter. Litterally.

I've always loved graffiti. I love what it represents. To me life and looking at everything is to observe the graffiti of life. That’s how I experience my life. The wabi-sabi, the mess, the chaos, the disarray of it all. That's what make it natural and vital. That's what drives me and makes me want to grab it.

Interesting thing - noticing. It's like a drug once it grabs hold. I've noticed.

Thing is it tricks you. Did I notice something that isn't there? Something that wasn't said? Well that's something else I think. That's projection of a kind. It's dangerous. Projection is wishful noticing. Projection is a big part of photography but only when you are proud of what you have and want to show it off.

Noticing is a special skill and brings responsibility. 

To notice is in some way to judge something and if recorded faithfully then that's a good thing right? I store it in my brain in chemical pixels. What I'm noticing is that an image is a tiny record of an experience that was in my mind - I wanted to grab hold of it in case I lost that thought. Or I thought that I wanted to share my thought with people who might like it. Or I could get back to it again as if it might spur me on to something else. The literal nucleus of an idea. That one dot - a single but nuclear power. A carousel of chemi-pixels. Mercurial. Gone.

I need to be sure my photographic memory is in good shape before I'm ready to publish an idea – a shot. I need to be happy with it. I need to make really good decisions about it. It always needs more work before it meets that projector.

It's also increased what I notice in language. I think I have increased what I notice when listening or reading. The meaning of a word or phrase is also an image to me because I represent it in my mind with those crazy atoms. The pictures are in a mad orbit - and my mind always wants to pick something from them. I mix them all up.

Mixellation.

That's a whole lot of pixels! Each pixel a time-bomb of stimulation. All likely to send a surge through my visual cortex without warning.

Watch out Cloud my memory is on its way.

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News Corpse. Balance Or Compromise?

What's that sound?

It's the thud, thud of grudges and scores being settled. 

It's an unpleasant and highly predictable pounding noise. Pound. Pound. A flurry of punches. A slurry of lunches. It's the pounding of flesh. The smell of sackcloth. The crispy underfoot crackling of ashes. Rotten stinking flesh. The political parties scoring points, the competitive press scoring points over each other. Everyone jockeying for the best place to crow from after the apocalyptic meltdown of the free press.

The blogosphere/mediaverse is having a field day trying to make sense and predicting an outcome of it all.

Dual standards at dawn anyone?

Well what do I know?

Clearly a very very small amount. If anything. Most of what I believe has to be an illusion anyway. It's all all so bloody deja vu. My fixed bias and sceptical mindset defends what I know while my conscious mind tells me to chill the fuck out and learn something!

I'm in a very strange place on all this right now. Like everyone in the UK I hear the daily chatter of political parties feeding on the body of News Corp with a sickening righteousness and hideous lack of grace. But actually it's really quite refreshing. Like somebody has taken the cork out of something. And yet I also hear the chess pieces slithering in the grasping hands of the evil Murdoch Empire. May your source be with you. Until your grave. 

I live near Wapping and I can hear the Pound. Pound, Pound of it all live. (Becoming less ker-ching, ker-ching, ker–ching.)

What is actually going on in my head – what do I really make of it all?

Well of course I loathe the dumbed down society that all of this industrial and political mediocrity has created. I see society continuously and insidiously fed and watered by a cynical media - one that grows fat from the lowest common denominator of celebrity trash talk - passing off as news. All in league with each other. Literally in each others pocket-phones.

I loathe the corrupted politics of our society which we all know is bloated and protected by the turkeys who hate Christmas. I am fatigued by even discussing the unfathomably complex systems/policies/traditions that keep us locked into this abominable condition.

My own take on all this sounds cynical - even to me. And I think we ain't seen nothing yet. Maybe we never will actually see it all - but surely we all know how this goes by now. Bribery, corruption, busted, scapegoats, nod, wink - situation normal again. 

How will this all get resolved? Do we want that normal again? Will it ever be resolved in societies favor?

So. A Question Of Balance?

We will see some new dynamics to be sure. Outrage by society has been measured by the amount of noise on the wires. Twitter, Blogosphere, the Zeitgeist all up in arms. Murdoch has flown in to put sparkling water on troubled oil. The media is cowed and backing off at speed in expectation that somethings been rumbled. 

All of this to be balanced against the oh so predictable back-cloth. The so called 'we' are deeply 'disgusted' and yet oh so implicated. So after we have fed on it until we have sated our appetite for blood - it will probably all die down for a time - and then the primal urges of commercial reality will rise up again under new branding – and all of it under the name of reason. 

Will 'we' get the ultimate prize? A better society encouraged by a more intelligent press? A press less besotted by sleaze and trash and in turn driven less by 'marketers' seeking easy audiences who are (in turn(!)) attracted to read sleaze and trash alongside advertisements for their clients products (often also sleaze and trash)?

Or. A Question Of Compromise?

Will we get bored with it all and, as usual, shrug and forget - accept something somewhere in the middle. Will we just get fatigued by the feeding frenzy? Will we sigh and just let it all happen like we did with the Financial debacle of the economic crisis of 2008. (Our memory lasts 3 years?) I worry that we might. Will we get frustrated/confused by the clever language of the usual commentators? Will we be blinded by the bias and self-serving agendas of the players weaving deliberate confusion and fog back into all of this. Who will be the protector of truth in all this. Not the NOTW right?  

Making a decision seems a final thing. Making a balanced decision of this nature seems a bit far away. Making a compromise would be a massive missed opportunity. A compromise just rambles on and on – like this post.

Better the devils we know? Agitate to make it better? Hope that society wakes up and votes by not buying into any of this? So is that a question of balance or compromise?

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I've got myself into a real Metz!

A good friend gave me an idea. Well it's her idea but I really want to steal it. I am stealing it! - 'Flash Mobs for learning.' Thanks Betty!

OK so I need a Flash Mob!

Learning is the operative word. It's an idea in its own right. We hear a lot about our individual learning styles and of course that's a big factor. We can only really ever speak personally - and for me I've never - ever considered what my learning style is. So I tried to figure it out.

Firstly I realised that I learn by trial and error, mostly error, but it's certain that unless I put my hands, eyes and attention onto the real thing, I find I haven't really learned it. I may have read the guidebook or seen the video but until I do the 'thing' - I don't think I ever really learn the thing.

So then I moved my thinking onto the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge.

Learning explicit knowledge (E.G: Reading text and diagrams in a book on how to tie your shoelaces.) is different to tacit knowledge (Actually knowing how to tie your shoelaces). The 'tool' of knowing how to tie my shoes has stood me in great stead. Now I know sheep shanks, bow-ties, windsor knots, reef knots, slip knots and nooses. Especially nooses!

Apply that idea of learning to how to use a fairly sophisticated flashgun!

A 150 page guide of explicit knowledge in 6 languages about a vast array of modes and settings, instruction and definition - not one element of which 'teaches' me what I want to know. Like really know. You know, like the key idea of how to balance the amount of light the gun produces with the available light in the room!

Learning for me is NOT to be done 'In Camera'!

Learning (for me) is the deep and meaningful application of what it is I can get to know - but in an applied and richly understood way. Practical, hands on and with someone who has been there before. Eyes and ears open. Able to interact freely with someone who doesn’t patronise me. In public if necessary.

So then I realised that I don't want a guidebook I want a coach/mentor or personal expert who can show me how it works but who I trust and probably respect too. That way I would learn. That's my learning style.

So how do we get to that level of support, teaching and learning so that I understand my new flashgun!!! 

Flashmob! Now for chrissakes!!!

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Is it possible to learn how to have ideas?

Initially let's just imagine that the idea is neither good nor bad - think about IDEA - the idea of that word even. The Idea of Idea.

Sit still and think about that for a minute. Think about what Albert said in one of the worlds best ever quotations!

“Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas. A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

How do the ideas you have even happen? Whether the idea was 'to go on holiday' or crack a complex business conundrum - the idea still has to emerge. Have you ever thought where and how that happened?

The mind is still mostly unknown to us humans - so we can only really use our current language and concepts to even have this discussion. But basically it 'drags' bits of 'data' into view - into the minds eye. Ergo the more input - the more stimulus - the better chance of successful ideas. Right? Hmm. Well I'm not so sure about that.

Other factors need to be considered I think. 

The quality of that input is certainly important - but also crucial is the value and relevance we ascribe to each chunk of that data. In addition there is a curious constant - a mercurial 'dynamic-ranking' process going on. Let's call that the 'context' for our decision making.

Depending on this context there is a bias, a lens applied to the way we think. The mind then 'games' the data against its own paradigm (frame of reference). This happens in a heartbeat. Suddenly the idea is there. Half formed or less. Sometimes it can't be grasped. It's often like a dream that disappears the moment you wake. The mind will base the 'idea' on all this stuff going on. But more importantly on what it feels is missing.

So an idea being birthed has to make it quite a long way but what sparked that initial explosion, that spark to occur? To me it is the void, the gap and a given need - these factors force me to 'think' and that draws on my mind to (almost) immediately pull on the resources it has - and in so doing come up with yet more creative 'ideas'.

The question though is can this process be learned (or indeed improved) in some way? (We are all born with the ability to think)

This intrigues me so I list the principles which are important for me. I think they are vital to the seeker of better ideation. Those who want to learn. I want to see if we can add or improve the pool of idea wizards!

1. Obsessive curiosity for everything. Everything that's relevant to your field of study and everything that potentially could be. That's everything!

2. A palpable consciousness that everything you currently know is merely context for what you didn't know. And when you know something new you are prepared to re-assess everything.

3. Comfort with the antithesis. Get ready to embrace the unacceptable. Be cool with what you don't like or understand. Just because it's an alien concept to you doesn't mean there isn't a lesson in there somewhere.

4. Exercise your brain every day. Try to discipline your resident cynic, your sceptical demon, your default behaviours on certain things. Be prepared to widen your definitions on the words and phrases that you dish out every day.

5. Become conscious of your own ideation process. Try to sense when you are having an idea. The chances are it's not the right idea - yet - but if you follow it and let your mind free to explore where it went or came from then you might find a richer seam.

6. Learn to feel your brain 'thinking' - it comes from your whole body but the brain is the place all the adding up gets done.

7. Define the values that contribute to being an 'idea wizard'. Humility, Persistence, Curiosity, Humor, Eclecticism and so on... Figure out what drives your own version of these values and causes you to bring on better ideas.

8. Constant benchmarking. Ideas are a joyous thing. They are the raw material of life. They bring refreshment to conversation or solutions to the planet. Check in with them to see if you think they have value when compared to your benchmark of acceptability. Then raise it!

Any ideas?

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