FIRST, A FEW BITS ABOUT MYSELF....
I have had no formal art training, having started to learn by trial-and-error at the age of about fifteen or so. I was born in London's East End and began by trying to capture the street scenes around my home.
Below, I list the various professional jobs I've worked at as an artist but, in between those, I've also had a variety of so-called 'unskilled' jobs. I've been a hotel night porter, labourer, clerk, cleaner, park keeper, bus conductor, barman and the like. I also served two years compulsory National Service in the army (yuck).
Apart from my compulsion to Art, all my adult life I have been committed to and actively involved in anti-war/anti-exploitation campaigning. My main commitment has been to non-violent non-obedient direct action and I've both taken part in and helped to organise many local, regional and national demonstrations using this tactic. I have consequently been arrested many times.
(During the "first" Gulf War I was with 70 other international anti-war campaigners in the Iraqi desert in a peace camp between the opposing armies.)
NOW, ABOUT MY ARTWORK...
Although I've worked in most mediums, including oils, watercolour and pastels, I prefer to work strictly in tone. Pen and ink has always been my medium of choice.
I believe there is a distinction between art and craft. Craft is when we draw in order to create a pleasing picture. Art is when we draw in order to make a journey of discovery - a means of experiencing and expressing the intrinsic reality of the subject. Which is why I believe in drawing directly from life.
To do this is to feel the same breeze that is shifting through the leaves and grass in front of you, tug at the paper on which you are attempting to convey the scene. To feel yourself warmed by the same sun that is casting the patterns of light and shadow that you're trying to capture. It is to breath the same air in the same room as the person you're attempting to portray.
It is to experience and celebrate a shared reality.
While being well aware that Realism is presently seen as "Old Fashioned", I make no apology for the fact that, for me, it is the way I can best celebrate the actuality of being here. I find it amazing that, for however short a time, I am part of a very real universe. Just look at it! It's truly amazing.
I also recognise that some may see my work as anally detailed. But, for me, I cannot see the whole except as a harmony of parts, with each and every part as important as the whole. For me, the shape and tone of each single cobblestone and brick is as remarkable as the roadway or wall they help to form. Each furrow and ridge in the bark as incredible as the tree branch or trunk to which they collectively give shape. How can we celebrate the whole without celebrating the parts which form it?
How can we suppose our 'conceptual' imagery to be more profound than this actuality?
Well, anyway, there you are - that's what I think.
AND A BIT ABOUT MY 'PROFESSIONAL' WORK...
In addition to a large number of private commissions, I have worked full time, first, as an illustrator in a Whitehall Ministry. Later, in Fleet Street' as a picture editor and, later still as a freelance for a leading U.K. publisher of magazines for whom I produced weekly episodes of strip adventure stories for their teen mags. More recently, still freelance, I produced concepts and designs for features in theme parks both here and overseas. I've also done the usual mix of illustration and design stuff.
AND TUTORING...
I've always been only too happy to give help where I can to others developing their abilities in art. I am currently so-called 'artist in residents' at a local primary school (unpaid) and have set up and run a weekly drop-in Life Class in the Essex village where I live with my wife Sue. The class has now been running for over fifteen years.
WELL, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, THAT'S IT.
Cheers.....jimmy
