posted: September 2, 2010

On Monday I traveled to MICA where I will be teaching the course Studio Remix, to create an adaptation of "The Snow Queen," by Hans Christian Andersen. It was an incredible and serendipitous moment when I got the call from Jose Villarrubia (thanks to a referral from my great friend Yuko Shimizu) to head the class along with David Drake, fabulous theater director and actor.
So many names.
My apologies, but it helps to frame the story.
Together we are working with our students to construct a version of Andersen's fairytale that is rooted in present day with some fantastical elements.
To stop and think silently to myself about it makes the project seem quite daunting, but as we concretize each step along the way, the anxiety that comes with tackling such an impressive assignment begins to wan.
This is such a relevant project not just in way of the meaning that we've chosen to derive from the story as being one of the protagonists' coming of age, but also that the illustration work that we are doing is being placed within a different forum. As the landscape of illustration continues to change, new opportunities are beginning to surface. It's exciting to be a part of this, for the students to witness and experience the breadth and new functionality of their work and collaboration.
I'm keeping the details vague, as the project has not yet been fleshed out entirely, however there might be options which favour a more multi-media approach when using their work.
I understand that animation and projections, and sounds effects and sculptures have existed for years, but I think that in a traditional Illustration learning environment those uses and applications have been held at a distance; not on purpose, but rather because there was no immediate need to combine disciplines. When the world is rich and there are so many choices, it's easy to create so much separation and so much categorical division because there is a demand for everything. But when the economy shrinks and the pool gets smaller, or perhaps alters its form -- what then?
No, I'm not suggesting that Illustrators become Jacks and Janes of all trades, but if we're to use this analogy maybe cultivating a relationship with that playful part of ourselves could give rise to innovation.
I'm hoping that these students will see and become inspired by the new role that their work will play, and align illustration in general with video and animation, with sculpture and fine art, and with graphic design and performance.
How exciting.
You can track the development of our production on tumblr.com
(Yeah, that's right, I wrote tumblr... I feel like I'm sleeping with my lover's cousin).

posted: July 5, 2010

The past year has been a bit of a struggle for me.
Things tapered off near the end of 2009, and then started up again with steady work in the new year. But now, other than one project that I'm revising, I really have nothing much lined up for the month of June. Typically, I'm booked about 4-6 weeks in advance, and turn down work (out of the fear of doing a shitty job if I take on too much).
But nowadays, things are different.
Editorial projects have decreased, and depending on the magazines, some of the budgets have been negatively affected, or frozen. Yuko says that the summer months are typically slower than other months (since some magazines double up on their summer issues). For me, summer over the past 3 years has meant Summer School (1-2 month residencies that happen every day) and so with that going on, I never really noticed the slow down of the pace of work too much. But now that I'm no longer participating in such programs, I'm becoming more aware of the break of summer.

If I were more business minded I could probably distance myself from what is going on right now, and realize that what we're in is part of a business cycle that trends up and down. So during those down periods, iit becomes important to reevaluate one's work, and possibly find a new place for it within the market, as well as new means by which to distribute one's work.
However, to be quite honest, on a visceral level, I feel somewhat like a lost 23 year old who recently graduated from art college with a diploma in illustration, and a full time job in retail, fumbling over my supplies, creating stuff - any stuff - hoping that it will carry with it my creative voice, and also appeal to a market that is willing to receive it openly.

I remember years ago, I went to Habourfront, in Toronto, to listen to Ethan Hawke read from his book "The Hottest State. " He said that many people gave him flack because they thought he was using his Hollywood clout, and wealth to realize a book deal. Although I believe it surely helped him, he also convincingly described how even with that type of support, he still had to go through the motions of creating something close to his heart, and then throw it out there for the heavens to receive it, or for the hyenas to maul. Whether or not he would receive a positive response was unpredictable, but in the meantime he described the experience of doing so (and possibly failing) like being on a boat and vomiting over the edge in front of onlookers. Don't get me wrong, I understand that having a shit load of money places him, or anyone else in his situation at a starting block further ahead of those who have-not, or who have-less, however, my connection to his story was more on a visceral level. How does one get past the procrastination, and the demons that whisper in one's ear that s/he cannot accomplish what they're setting out to do?
It's so easy to surrender.
Surrender.

We all know that the surface of our industry beneath us is shifting. It will be interesting to see who comes out of this recession intact, and thriving, and to also see the new faces of the younger illustrators who begin to appear, seduce, and then grow the industry in a new direction.
I have 2 interns right now, both of whom I am inspired by each time they enter my studio; part of the reason is that I receive from them a bright-eyed and openness to explore new things. My path since I was in school was to become an illustrator whose focus was on print.
But now, I see the limits of it.
Not many of us can control how much we get paid. Yes, history is on our side in the sense that we have established a basis for how much to charge, as well, we rely on each other, our friends and colleagues to help retain a price structure, but based on the interviews that I've read, and the comments that I've heard, the amount of money that we've gotten paid in editorial has not really changed in decades.

We're long past the days where advertisers paid loads of money to buy space in a magazine; there are so many other outlets nowadays for companies to advertise, which means that unless editorial takes a turn and all these publications morph into a multimedia format where companies begin buying ad space in the form of motion graphics/commercials within the magazine itself, I'm not sure how else our print editorial industry can expand, because advertisers are the reasons why many of these magazines function. And so, if the readership of these books, and magazines, and newspapers are diminishing, chances are that we illustrators will ultimately be on the receiving end of all of this. And even if this happens - if magazines translate themselves into an digital format, will the benefits be carried over to the illustrator? Will our prices and budgets have to be adjusted for a new editorial format? And if so, will we be getting paid more, or less, or the same?
I don't know.
These are some of the things that I've been thinking about, and as a result, I'm trying to make my work more experiential. I'm exploring projects that make me uncomfortable even if it has or doesn't have an illustrative application; I'm making tons of mistakes along the way, but each step that I take, these mistakes seem to be minimized. I've hit so many blocks and wasted money that could otherwise be spent in more productive ways. However, I keep telling myself that if I build it then it will come. Right now, I think it's anyone's game.

* The images above entitled, Machoman are for a group show that I'm in called, "T Minus 20," at the Christopher Henry Gallery, this Thursday, July 8, from 6-9pm. Location is at 127 Elizabeth Street, between Broome and Grand in Nolita.

posted: May 6, 2010

Sometimes when I'm sitting in class and listening to my Fiction Writing Professor talk about the process of writing, my mind begins to drift; not in a way that I fail to hear what he's saying, but I start to align his words alongside my craft of drawing and illustration. I have a terrible time with labels, assigning and boxing things neatly (or not -) into some kind of space and then call it a name. You'll notice that I switch between the words, art, and craft, and illustration, and design, and drawing in many of my posts -- and when I do, I think it's because I'm starting to see them more and more each time as being extremely similar to one another in a sense that they share so many of the same traits. Although there are many people who I'm sure can clinically delineate the difference between each of these disciplines, including myself, ultimately, I'm beginning not to care so much any more.
 
When I was 13 years old, I clearly remember saying out loud that I wanted to draw for a living. Back then, I had no clue what I was talking about because I didn't know anyone who made money from their drawings. When we moved to Canada, my father worked in a factory and my mother did data entry at her first and only job for decades. Drawing was not practical in their eyes, and as a result I could not foresee that it would take care of me.

There were moments when I thought that I would give up on drawing. In third year art college, I almost dropped out of school even before the semester began. I wanted to, I needed to move out of my parents home, and so I thought that I would stay working full time at a clothing factory in a suburb of Toronto to save up enough money for rent. Had I done so, I have no clue where I would be now, fortunately for my sake I snapped out of this delusion of mine, and with the help of my brother and sister, stayed in art college for the remaining years, and then moved out shortly after. During this time, I probably drew more feircely than ever because I guessed at that moment, that I had no other choice. In a way, I cast all of my hopes and frustrations into this particular discipline wanting so badly for it to lift me out of the place that I was in.

I drew some more.

I look at my drawings and wonder if are they good or if they are not. I understand that if the drawing has been commissioned by someone else, that there are reasons that make it successful; that in addition to the aesthetic component, that it needs to communicate an idea and have a concept, and satisfy a viewership. I know all of this, I believe it, and I teach this to my students: content is paramount. But when I distance myself from my work and really stare at it, surface and content together, the parts of it that are not so good begin to reveal themselves to me. I have always fantasized about being a great artist, like the ones whose books I keep on my shelf. They are the ones who are able to manage shape and line in such a way that make me feel that they have exclusivity to use them. The ones who employ colour with such beautiful ease, as though they were the ones who gave birth to such colours. But I know that for many of them, or at least, I tell myself, that I believe not all of this came easily for any of them. Not any of this came quickly either.

I recently opened up Charley Harper's book, the one that was put together by Todd Oldham, and it made me feel good because the pictures in it reminded me - it reminds me of why I draw. The photos of Harper's work span his entire lifetime, showing images of drawing as the content. The way in which he relates colour to one another is magical and the restraint that he holds in his brush when rendering the details of the figures and objects convinces me that there is a reason and place for every mark that he puts down. And even though he is one of these artists who I have come to revere, I am learning to appreciate the work that he is done as just that, work that he has done. I try to remind myself now of the importance of the act of drawing, drawing for drawing sake, not drawing for money sake, nor for the sake of fame, or for the sake of trying to be like someone else. These things grow less important to me.

And so I draw.

I draw because I enjoy simply moving the paint around on the page, and stylus on the tablet. I enjoy mixing colours and arranging them next to each other to create patterns. I enjoy making marks on the pages and allowing them to twist and turn into something figurative or abstract. I draw because I have things that I want to say that I might not be able to express through words, through actions. I draw because when I do, the world around me falls away. I draw because it makes me feel good.

*This post was inspired by Joan Didion's essay, "Why I Write."

posted: April 4, 2010

I've been thinking a lot about transition recently.
Now that we're a quarter of the way into 2010 (can someone tell me how the heck that happened?) I'm beginning to take some inventory of the work that I've done to this point, both commercial and self-initiated ones. I've begun to challenge my level of thought, wondering how to weave in new methods of working and thought into my studio practice.
As I grow and change, so does my work. I wonder if part of the reason why I am so aware and active about reshaping my present and growing it forward is because I was a late bloomer. Growing up gay in a suburb of Toronto fucks with your mind and so you create a moniker, a type of persona for your own protection and for the protection of your family. No, it's not living a lie, but it is a lot of pressure to place on any person who is so young, to make them so aware of the fact that there is a profoundly negative component about themselves that they can't change. There is no comfortable place for them in world, and as a result they crawl into a fold within themselves and present a new face, a new mask, full of creases, tucks and pleats. I was still me, but I had to shield myself from the cleft tongues of those attackers who would try to stab me with their sharp words. Moving forward, I know that I carried my awareness forward, and used art and illustration as a means to express parts of myself that otherwise would have remained dormant inside of me.
Fast forward ahead to my twenties.
It was during this time when I probably experienced a considerable amount of change in my life - so much that I needed to mark them down somehow, to have those life episodes manifested in some tangible form; I felt that I needed to concretize them to remind me of where I had been, and how far I had come.
In my late twenties I took 7 weeks off, to travel to Europe alone, and then to New York, it was about 6-7 years ago I think. I'd been working my ass off for about 3 years, post undergrad, trying to plant myself somehow amidst the community of those illustrators for whom I revered. I began in Paris, took a train into Bilbao, purposely to see the Guggenheim twice, there was an exhibit by the sculptor, Alexander Calder. Previous to this moment I felt no affinity towards his large mobiles. They were just a bunch of pieces of metal that were sprayed with shiny or matte paint, stuck together in various ways, and then hung up on the ceiling. But when I walked into the gallery space which housed so many of Calder's work, both massive and tiny, I began to feel incredibly changed and moved. The sculptures swung ever so slightly as if they weren't moving at all; if I were to walk quickly through the room, I bet I would not even have seen any movement within them, but standing beneath these monoliths and staring upwards like that, I could see the subtleties of motion. Maybe cranking my neck back like that, and staring straight towards the sky was another reason that I felt moved by his work. It's no wonder that when people are seeking out answers or relief, whether religious or not, they turn their heads up towards the sky.
As usual, I went off tangent, I didn't mean to get stuck writing about Bilbao. From there I traveled into Spain, then Portugal, back through Spain and final into Italy, where I spent my last few days in Rome before flying back to Toronto. During this time, I was having many thoughts about leaving Toronto. This sounds very cryptic, I know, but things in my life, both career and personal, needed to change. It's strange when you spend so much time alone, it persuades you to consider your life in a different way, in ways that you otherwise may not have, had you been comfortable within a spot with all of your trappings to keep you safe. Traveling to Europe and staying for 4 weeks alone, meeting some people along the way, but not really experiencing any deep connection with anyone, forced me to think about things at home. I thought about the kind of work that I was doing, the partnership that I had with my first agent, the relationship that I had with my boyfriend of two years, and the kind of illustrator that I wanted to become.
When I arrived home, the first thing that I did was ride my bike throughout the city. I don't know why I did that. I mean, I had traveled so far and seen so many interesting things, met people from around the world, and yet the first thing that I did was ride my bike through downtown Toronto. Shortly after that, I decided to get a tattoo; a half sleeve and chest panel of a tiger, my lunar symbol. I was in a rush to do so because I felt so inspired and both psychology and creatively beaten down and emancipated by my trip that I needed to mark it somehow. No wonder why so many people turn to astrology for guidance (I'm not one of those people who believe in star signs and houses in the sky, but at that moment, I couldn't think of anything else that I wanted to mark my body with; the only thing that I could think of was a tiger - I wonder though, if I were a rabbit, would I still have gone through it?).
Six months later, I left my agent, broke up with my boyfriend and the started to prepare my papers for my move to New York. Part of me wondered if my doing so was escapist, that my feeling of being overwhelmed by the questions that rose during my travels, about my life, about my career, about my past and my present state of happiness caused me to want to lift myself out of the place that I was in. But all I could remember was that I wanted a new life... I wanted a new future.
* I have to give props for the title of this post - it was inspired by the lyrics from the song "Apparitions" by Matthew Good Band.

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Chin is teaching at TutorMill, an online mentoring site for students of illustration!