Audrey Niffenegger

The other day me and Beth Dawson (on my MA with me, and no I can't be grammatically correct just for my blog) went to listen to Audrey Niffenegger talk at Camberwell University in London. If you don't know her work she wrote (and illustrated half) these books below:

and my all-time favourite (which started my love for Niffenegger):

We were enthralled with the talk and everything Niffenegger had to offer, she's influenced my work a great deal and I really look up to her style. Her stories delve into the imaginary and surreal, they're dramatic but delicate and she uses such dark subject matters which usually leave the main character broken. 

To give you some idea of how to read her quotes in this post; she had a strong American accent and a fierce look in her eye. She's a very clever, quick lady who isn't afraid to speak her mind. She has long red hair and wore glasses perched on the end of her nose. Here are some of my notes from the talk:

Niffenegger suffers from insomnia and was saying how in a way it's a kind of blessing because when she does sleep she has brilliant dreams which influence her storie. She writes down her dreams then works on them to create a story board and character depth.

'I'm a terrible insomniac. Whenever I get some sleep it's like a huge event, it's very exciting.'

The dreams the main character has of being pregnant in 'The Time-Traveller's Wife' were taken straight out of Niffenegger's diary, 'Directly from my secret file', as was also The Adventuress. 'The Adventuress was based on a bunch of dreams i'd had about a girl who wore no clothes but wore gloves and a skirt, like a little cartoon character who had no story to be in.'

'Siamese Twins' Self-Portrait, Niffenegger

Niffenegger showed us some of her paintings, mostly self-portraits, some from a series based on 'Teratology' (the study of abnormalities - defects and malformations).


It was a collaboration set between her and a group of friends, trying to visualise difference and the feeling of being outside of normal. Above is her self-portrait from the series.

'Prudence' by Niffenegger

Prudence was a character created for a story Niffenegger wrote to tie in with 'The Field Guide To Poisonous Plants'.

She's a girl suffering from anorexia who has dieted herself into a coma and is being enticed into death by a skeleton and his parties.

'One of the themes that runs through my books are people who exert extreme amount of control over their bodies.' Niffenegger

'I could draw skeletons forever.'Niffenegger

Erin Morgenstern 'The Night Circus'

Fiction and non-fiction writing as well as other artists are great sources of inspiration, i've tried to write down as many as Niffenegger mentioned. She really raved about 'The Night Circus', claiming it to be a brilliant read and one of her personal favourites.

Niffenegger said that Erin Morgenstern's description of this circus made no logical sense- it could never have existed, but the way she spoke about it - the visuals it created in Niffenegger's mind - were so strong that it didn't matter. 

Untitled 'Vivian Girls' Scenes by Henry Darger

Niffenegger referred to Henry Darger as an artist she has been heavily influenced by over the years and a great artist to look at. He's someone I've already spent time researching thanks to a lecture given by Margaret Huber(my MA Tutor, mentioned in earlier posts). 

He's classified an Outsider Artist, but he died before his work was ever seen. His landlords found his ridiculously large volume of work and decided to publish it. He used collage, stencils, watercolour and drawing to create a story which spanned tens of thousands of pages, entitled 'The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion'. 

People still question whether he was mad or just lonely. 

There's a documentary on Darger by Jessica Yu which is really worth watching,it's brilliantly narrated and describes every aspect of Darger's work and life through his art, his room he left behind and the neighbours who looked after him in his last years:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390123/

'Death of Pierrot' from Beardsley's 'The Yellow Book'

'I set out to draw like (Aubrey Beardsley). When you're a teenager you swallow your influences whole and try and become them.' Niffenegger

Audrey Beardsley was my sixth form crush, along with Man Ray. His work is highly provocative and delicate with ornate details, so linear and perfect.

He died young, I think of TB in his late 20's but the amount of work he did before then is just gorgeous. My Beardsley book is battered and I tried to become him for months before realising it wasn't going to happen! Sounds like Niffenegger had the same battle. 

She showed us a drawing she'd don titled 'Book Plate For Aubrey Beardsley' and described how she'd worked all summer with a quill and ink to try replicate his style. She had been ill with a bad bad earache for months and her Mum got her a book on Beardsley from the library, his erotic detail unknown to her- Niffenegger was only 13/14! He is pretty racy.

'Moths of the New World', Painting using title of one of her short stories, Niffenegger

Lastly, quote and link to an interview with Audrey Niffenegger in The Independant, September 2011:

'...She hit the big time with The Time Traveler’s Wife in 2003, she says, “I was teaching when the novel came out and everybody said ‘My goodness, a brand new writer!’ which was kind of hilarious, really. Now people say to me all the time ‘What is this funny little art habit that you have?'

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/audrey-niffenegger-on-art-writing-and-aubrey-beardsley-as-a-manga-illustrator-2362870.html

I leave you with my favourite quote I wrote down that day:

'The future looks after itself.'

http://audreyniffenegger.com/

Graham Rawle

'Everything I do is deeply rooted in my childhood.'

Graham Rawle is one of our tutors on the MA. The other day he gave a lecture on his work, this is a small injection of that very talk.

NIFF ACTUALS


This was a collaboration project. Products reminiscent of the 50's board games but all topsy turvy versions of their original product inspiration. Like above 'Autograph Paste-Ins Book' - here's the blurb:

And the website:

http://www.niffactuals.com/

LOST CONSONANTS 

If you haven't worked it out already, Graham is one funny bugger. 


Lost Consonants was a series he did for The Guardian which ran for 15 years even though it was supposed to be a six piece commission! Pretty sodding lucky.


He explained how important the sentence structure is when coming up with the pun - I get that - some people are so good at telling jokes but when I try repeat them I get it muddled and it's not funny in the slightest.

He said his mum was really good at telling stories and jokes and gave him this one: 'Every time the doorbell rang, the dog started baking.'

Scene taken from 'The Wizard of Oz' by Rawle.

THE WIZARD OF OZ

Graham illustrated and wrote a new version of the classic - we sold it at Waterstones it's a big, amazing hardback of a book - here's a video trailer of it's wonder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rMmPlFWpNQ

DIARY OF AN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER

A novel, written and illustrated by Graham. He wanted the novel to feel like you were looking in at the main character's diary, and by doing so, question the general layout of a piece of adult fiction. 


The book is inspired by 50's pin up magazines. Faces turned away from the photographer but personal attributes surrounding them.

'Graham Rawle's mastery of collage engages the reader with a series of visual clues. Scraps of paper and photographs, arranged on each page to look like a real diary or scrapbook, take the reader on a journey through Michael's mind as he uncovers answers to a murder that took place more than thirty years ago. Uniquely packaged as the journal itself, Diary of an Amateur Photographer lays bare the dark side of suburbia and is a testament to Graham Rawle's extravagant and eccentric talent.' 


Review on Amazon, which I shouldn't be promoting so lets say 'DOWN WITH AMAZON but good review'.

WOMAN'S WORLD

This, his second novel, follows a character who strives to be the perfect woman but never succeeds. 

How Graham had the patience to do this I do not know, me and Beth were sat in complete disbelief as he was describing how he made the book. He wrote the entire novel using found text. 

He came up with the idea after looking through old 50's magazines for these ideal women but being bought by old housewives with kids and no money in working-class England. He used larger text as stepping stones throughout the smaller, longer bits of text.

'The constraints of the exercise are the things that make it better.' 

Graham Rawle

THE CARD

And finally, his latest book, due for release in April 2012, about a man who starts collects cards and starts to create a story which he thinks is being told through the cards he finds.


Graham is a card man himself and has collected them since the dawn of time, he showed us photographs of his collection box and how he's trying to put together a pack of cards by finding them one at a time - I think I would cheat after a few years.

Here's a gem of an interview Graham has added on his website. Come on Guardian, publish it in 'The Weekender', he's hilarious.

http://www.grahamrawle.com/

http://grahamrawle.blogspot.com/

Letterpress

Before I forget, we had our Letterpress induction at university on Thursday. It was too logical for my brain to comprehend but even though I trailed behind the the other two classmates at a pathetically slow-paced, teacher-aided speed, it was still really enjoyable and, similar to bookbinding, uses so many old tools that haven't needed to be updated. 

Type is a much overlooked part of book making and illustration. Your type needs to fit with your illustrations and work with their pattern, choosing a specific type and using it well is a really lengthy process. The letterpress workshop is run by Sat, a small quiet woman who obviously adores the workshop and each piece of individual type.

Below is our sheet. It might look small but dammit I spent 30 minutes getting my type together so it's one dear sheet! Above is a photograph of a hand out we were given depicting the layout of each type drawer and the thicks and thins you need to put in between each of your words so that your type sits right in the box for printing.

The Three Little Pigs

We're on our third project on the MA at the moment, I thought i'd use this as an opportunity to run through each of them so you felt up to date with what i'm doing.

The first project was 'The Surprise Project' where we had 6 images to create a sequential narrative which had to involve a surprise of some sort. I made a small book which told the story of a man, woman and their doomed relationship in 'The Hair Book' (check old posts). It was my first book, or piece of sequential work so it was quite basic.

The second was 'A Cautionary Tale', a collaboration project between full and part time students on the course. We were given two weeks and a group of five of us made a video called 'Use the Bin'. It showed a man littering then proceeding to get attacked by an unruly, frustrated bin. We used letterpress, stop-animation and photography to create the piece, then added sound to the final video.

This third project is 'The Narrative Project'. We have been given a classic text (this year we're using 'The Three Little Pigs') and have to create our own version/re-telling of the story. 

I found a story of a Cartographer based in rural France in the 16th century, taken from a book by Graham Robb, entitled 'The Discovery of France'. I've taken artistic license and changed the original story of The Cartographer so that I can feed in the pigs theme.

A cartographer was murdered when he visited a remote village by the community because they weren't used to travellers and thought he was a bringer of evil and bad luck. He's going to be my wolf and the villagers the pigs. We know that the wolf isn't the one in the wrong and the pigs are ignorant, have misunderstood who the wolf is and what he wants and so kill him.

I've taken photographs of the whole process, from before the project to the final piece, to show you the steps I've taken and the work that goes into creating even the most basic of books.

Deadline is wednesday! Excellent.

Stage One: Collect ideas

Stage Two: Brainstorm ideas for story.Pick one.

Stage Three: Type out story and create a story board based on it, just sketching.

Stage Four: Start to make the artwork

Stage 5: Develop artwork further. Decide on lighting and composition.

Stage Six: Play around with sequence and story board again, with thumbnails of artwork.

Stage Seven: Print the pages and bind. Add text before or after printing, depending on your chosen type.

Andrew Motion

Ok you have to bear with me on this post because its going to be long but truly excellent I promise. I saw 'Patience (After Sebald)' at Duke of York's Cinema (for the 'Brighton film festival') a film based on 'The Rings of Saturn' by Sebald and his work behind the book.

In it, various poets, authors and artists all spoke about Sebald, one of these being Andrew Motion - Poet Laureate until 2009. 

He read a verse of his poem 'Field of Mirrors', it was amazing and reminded me so much of 'The Cartographer' (previous MA project, mentioned in earlier posts) and his plight. 

I found the poem online and want you to read it too, because it's beautiful and destroying which sounds dramatic but it is. 

THE VILLAGE of Orford, five miles south of Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, survived for centuries as a fishing port; now it is separated from the sea by the river Alde, and by a strip of land known as the Ness. The Ness is ten miles long, stretching from Slaughden to North Wear Point. It is overlooked by a 12th-century castle, and is also known as the Spit and the Island.

All this is true;

what else can I tell you?

During the First World War, the Armament Experiment Flight of the Central Flying School was stationed on the Ness, which became a site for parachute testing and, later, a firing and bombing range. In the late 1930s, Orford Research Programme was founded, and the Ness became a Listening Post and a centre for experimental work on Radar. In 1946 it was taken over by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, which closed down in 1971. The Ness was then cleared by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit. It was sold to the National Trust in 1993.

This is also true;

what else can I tell you?

In the reign of King Henry II, when the village still faced the sea, a local historian recorded the capture of the Orford Merman. This Merman was kept in the castle, where whether he would or could not, he would not talk, although oft-times hung up by his feet and harshly tortured. Eventually he was released into the harbour.

This is also true;

why should I lie to you?

In the late eleven-fifties

when the river and the sea

were still in one another's arms

and lived in harmony

there came a summer day so hot

the sea seemed hardly wet,

and the fishermen remained at home

until the sun had set,

had set and rustled up a breeze

and high tide at the full,

so just like that their sails were out

beyond the harbour wall.

A mile offshore, before the shape

of home had slipped away,

they hushed, and cast their clever nets

like grain into the bay.

One hour passed. Another hour.

The house lights on the land

began to jitter and go out;

the dark to deepen and expand,

and silence in a steady flood

rushed round them silkily

and even filtered through their nets

to calm the rocking sea.

No iron-filing shoal of fish

criss-crossed the rock-strewn floor,

no oyster winked, no battling crab

stuck out an angry claw,

the clear-cut worlds which make the world

lost all their difference,

the sea was sky, deep down was high,

and nonsense seemed like sense.

Enough like sense, at least, to mean

that in the red-eyed dawn,

with courses set and sails poised

to catch the first wind home,

it seemed the sort of miracle

that no one thought was rare

for one of them to haul on board

his streaming net and there

to find a merman large as life -

a merman] - half death pale,

half silver as a new-made coin

and fretted like chain-mail.

* * *

For a million years one life simply turns into the next -

the spider hangs between driftwood and sea holly,

the kestrel balances exactly over a shrew,

the hare sits bolt upright and urgent, all ears:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

But a new thought arrives and the island is invaded -

a radio mast stands up and starts cleaning its whiskers,

a field of mirrors learns to see clear beyond the Alps,

a set of ordinary headphones discovers the gift of tongues:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

Work goes ahead smoothly but no one breathes a word -

a slim needle is sensibly embarrassed by the red,

a pressure gauge puffs out its cheeks but is always steady,

a bird-walk of mathematics knows just where it is going:

there is no reason why any of this should change.

* * *

Not rare? Not like a miracle?

No, not until he spoke,

when feebly as a rotten thread

the spell that held them broke

and every clear-cut bit of world

snapped back into its place:

the sea was sea, the sky was sky

the merman's face his face,

which slid between its salty lips

an eel-dance of a tongue,

a tongue which could not fix or shape

the words it splashed among.

This made the fishermen afraid;

it told them they had caught

a devil deaf to every law

their own religion taught,

or else, perhaps, a different god

they could not understand

but had to honour and obey

when they returned to land.

* * *

To create an explosion is the point of all this,

an explosion neither too soon nor too late,

an explosion precisely where it needs to be

over the head of an enemy. Not yet.

Scientists arrive to test triggers for the explosion,

triggers which must boil like hell and also be frozen,

triggers which must shake themselves silly and still work,

still know how to create a vacuum. Not yet.

Weird laboratories spring up for these triggers,

Chinese pagoda-roofs which will protect the triggers

and which in the case of an accident with the triggers

will collapse and bury everything. Not yet.

But it turns out that the vacuum cannot wait to be born,

the vacuum feeds itself on the very idea of discovery,

wants to swallow the whole village and show

the explosion might as well already be over. Not yet.

* * *

They made their choice; they froze their hearts;

they bound the merman's wrists

and wound him tightly in their net

with clumsy turns and twists;

then turned towards the shore again,

and just as sunlight came

above the crescent harbour wall

they brought their trophy home.

Wives and children crowded round,

mouths gaping with surprise,

and gaping back the merman cried

baleful, senseless cries,

cried tears as well as sighs and sobs,

cried gulps, cried gasps, cried blood,

cried out what sounded like his soul

but never cried a word.

This made the fishermen afraid

again, it made them guess

the merman might have come to them

to put them through a test

and they, by cruelly catching him,

marooning him in pain,

and putting him on show like this

had blundered into sin.

* * *

Then the triggers are ready, they neither boil

nor freeze, they spin at any speed you please,

and are carried off like gifts in velvet boxes.

Then the bomb disposal men pick to and fro

with their heads down, each one carefully alone

and quiet, like pioneers prospecting for gold.

Then the radio masts die, their keen whispers

and high songs go, their delicate necks bow,

and voices fill up the air without being heard.

Then the field of mirrors folds too, its flat glare

shatters and shuts up, cannot recall the highest Alp

or anything except types of cloud, come to that.

Then the waves work up a big rage against roof tiles

and breeze blocks, against doors, ventilation shafts, clocks,

and moon-faced instrument panels no one needs any more.

Then the wind gets to work. It breaks into laboratories

and clapboard sheds, it rubs out everything everyone said,

clenching its fingers round door jambs and window frames.

Then the gulls come to visit, shuffling noisily

into any old scrapmetal mess, settling on this for a nest,

and pinning their bright eyes on bare sky overhead.

And in due season flocks of beautiful shy avocets -

they also come back, white wings scissored with black,

calling their wild call as though they felt human grief.

* * *

They wound a rope around his net

and dragged him through the square,

up the looming castle keep

then down the castle stair

and down and down and down and down

through wet-root-smelling air

into a room more cave than room

and hung him there.

Not hung him up until he died,

but hung him by his tail,

which shone like silver once

and crinkled like chain-mail,

then built a fire beneath his head

to see if he could learn

the language that he still refused,

plain words like scare, like burn,

and other words like agony,

like hatred, and like death,

though hour by hour not one of these

weighed down the merman's breath.

This made the fishermen afraid

once more; it made them see

that somehow they the torturers

had set their victim free.

* * *

The waves think their hardest task

is to work each stone into a perfect O;

the marram thinks all it must do

is hold tight and not trouble to grow.

There is no story, never a point of view,

there's nothing here that's trustworthy or true.

Each grain of salt thinks it is able to see

over the highest Alp with its pure white eye;

the sea holly thinks it alone

can support the whole weight of the sky.

There's no clue, never a word in your ear;

there is nothing here that is justified or clear.

Winter storms think they will bring

the worst news anyone can bear to be told;

the east wind thinks it can certainly blow

colder than the coldest possible cold.

There is no code, never an easy cure;

there is nothing here that is definite or sure.

* * *

They cut him down. They hauled him up

the whirlpool of the stair,

they dragged him past their wives and children

gawping in the square,

and silently, as though the words

they used to know before

were all dead now, they carried him

down to the shingle shore.

They slid him tail-first in the sea

and washed the bitter drops

of blood-crust from his finger ends

and salt-spit from his lips,

and all the while, still silently,

they watched the tide bring in

a brittle, dimpled, breaking flood

of silver through his skin,

then open up his glistening eyes

in which they saw their fear

rise up to greet them one last time

and fade, and disappear,

disappear while they stood back

like mourners round a grave,

and watched his life ebb out of theirs

wave by wave by wave.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-field-of-mirrors-a-poem-by-andrew-motion-1414484.html

And a quote from Motion (link below):

'My poems are the product of a relationship between a side of my mind which is conscious, alert, educated and manipulative, and a side which is as murky as a primaeval swamp. I can't predict when this relationship will flower. If I try to goad it into existence I merely engage with one side of my mind or the other, and the poem suffers.

'I want my writing to be as clear as water. No ornate language; very few obvious tricks. I want readers to be able to see all the way down through its surfaces into the swamp. I want them to feel they're in a world they thought they knew, but which turns out to be stranger, more charged, more disturbed than they realised. In truth, creating this world is a more theatrical operation than the writing admits, and it's this discretion about strong feeling, and strong feeling itself, which keeps drawing me back to the writers I most admire: Wordsworth, Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin.'

http://www.uktouring.org.uk/andrewmotion/