Now, where was I?
trying to wrap my head around big ideas and figure out what's next
Last Wednesday, I closed the door to my Airbnb, boarded a train to Heathrow, and returned to Philadelphia after thirteen days in London. I had the idea that I’d spend the seven-hour flight sorting through my notebooks and thoughts, making sense of the week, and formulating a narrative that would make an excellent wrap-up here on Substack. The kind of writing that would put the entire experience: the work I made, the people I spent time with, the places I visited, all of London really, into context as I take it all in and move forward with my work.
Instead, on the flight home, I slept for two hours with my mouth open1 and I read about 150 pages of a novel2.
I was exhausted. In the five days since I returned, I’ve managed to unpack my bags and do laundry, but I haven’t written out any thoughts on London. Nor have I considered how collage might play a larger role in my illustration, or how I enjoy working alone but got a lot out of the week of working closely with sixteen strangers. These things came up a lot throughout the London Collage Project, but I think I’ll just get back in the studio and get to work, and see what happens for now. The big thoughts will have to wait.
That’s a wrap
I left off here with the exhibit of the collages we’d created over the week. The work was done, and it was time to show off. Les and Deb did a short interview at the BBC in the morning, and we had a nice steady crowd come through, especially in the afternoon. Some who’d been watching us through the windows over the week stopped by. There were collage artists and fans who had been following via Contemporary Collage Magazine and social media. Friends and friends of friends dropped in. Sam Arthur of Flying Eye Books (with whom I attended a football match earlier in the week) biked over. And
, an illustrator whose work I’ve long admired, and who happens to work around the corner from our studio in Hackney Wick, dropped by.
I sold the blue barge collage to an American living in London, who promised me she would get a good photo once it’s framed and hanging on her wall.
I traded one of my flower collages for a piece by Teri Dryden.
And I happily coerced
to take my red barge with him back to Australia.
Joel was the first LCP participant I met when I arrived. He and I worked next to each other all week, and we spent most evenings hanging out together. Lastly, Joel gifted me a small box of chocolate sardines, which provided the three fish at the bottom of the red barge.
After we cleaned up and closed the studio, most of us met for one last dinner together at Burnt Umber, which, at least for me, had become something of a headquarters for the entire time.
There are a lot of big thoughts to think about this week, about the London Collage Project. This week and these people will show up in ways I can probably predict and in other ways I can’t. One of the artists, Steve Snider, mentioned on our group chat that it was like an intense summer camp. Agreed.
Sightseeing
My friend Sandrine, who lives outside of London, was asking me where I’ve been. What have I seen? “Not much,” I told her. I’ve been locked up in a studio in Hackney Wick for nearly the entire time I’ve been in town. “Oh! You’ve been nowhere!” she replied in surprise. “Ouch!”
Ouch is right! While the whole point was the work, it was kind of weird that I’d been in London for ten days and had seen so little of the city. Of course, one could be in London for ten years and still not see half of anything. I’d made my way to Craven Cottage for the football match. I’d been to the Soane Museum, a gallery in Mayfair, and a few runs in Victoria Park. So by the time Sunday rolled around, I was ready to see something.
But what to see? I’d purposefully left these three sightseeing days somewhat unplanned, figuring that things would fall into place during the workshop, and as I got recommendations from friends and locals. Now it was Sunday morning,
and I were having coffee, and neither of us had decided on anything. A boat to the Greenwich Observatory? Portobello Market? Big Ben and Westminster? Cecil and I chose Greenwich, and we were off.
I dropped Cecil off at the bus back to Hackney Wick and walked to Waterloo Station, where I met my friend Sandrine, whom I hadn’t seen in 27 years. We had dinner and drinks and walked back and forth across Waterloo Bridge. Sandrine also gave me a sketchbook that I kept from my last year of college, but that I hadn’t seen since 1991. There is a whole story here. I’ll tell it later.
On Monday, I met up again with Cecil and Joel, and we visited the new Victoria & Albert Museum Storehouse. Cecil wrote up a terrific piece about this museum and our previous visit to the Soane, and the tendencies of artists to collect and attempt to organize things. Read that here.
Sasha met us for coffee, and we all finally said our goodbyes. I’m going to miss everyone from this weird project. But Joel, Sasha, and Cecil were the first three I met, and the three I spent the most time with. Bookends.
I spent Monday afternoon in Soho doing some shopping, where I didn’t buy any more pens or art supplies at The London Graphic Centre or Choosing Keeping, nor any books at Foyle’s or Forbidden Planet. But I did buy the nicest pair of shoes I’ve ever owned. Les Jones, the organizer of our collage week, was wearing a nice pair of wingtips one day and told me they’re Loakes, made right there in England. So to Loake I went, and I left sporting a proper pair of English Brogues.
Afterward, I walked to Marleybone, where I attended a talk with artist Oliver Jeffers and writer/professor Martin Salisbury at Daunt Books. Martin wrote a book back in 2007 about new work in children’s book illustration called Play Pen that featured my work, and I was glad to finally get to meet him.
Tuesday was my final day in London, and I’d decided to make it count. After coffee one last time at Burnt Umber, I made my way across town to Abbey Road Studios, and, yes, I walked across Abbey Road. There are a lot of things to do in London, and I chose this. Sure, I like the Beatles just fine. But something drew me to this. I have an affinity for space and time. I liked standing in the playground of my fifth-grade school in Little Rock two years ago, at exactly the spot where my friends and I used to play Star Wars in 1979. I like thinking about the people who used to live in my house, built in 1911, and would wake up, come downstairs, and have breakfast. They did the same things I do, and they do them in the same place, but their version of it must have been so different from mine.
And, so, I walked across Abbey Road. Right there where John, Paul, George, and Ringo walked across the same crosswalk so famously on August 8, 1969.3 I suspect there are a lot of other places in London where something else happened at some other exact spot, but not many have the visual recognition of Abbey Road. When in Rome.
From Abbey Road, I took the Tube to Buckingham Palace, walked along St James Park, across the Thames, to the Tate Modern, and then back across the river to St Paul’s, where I caught the bus back to Hackney Wick.
I’d debated spending the time doing the royal palace things, and even spending any time in art museums. Even after two weeks, my time seeing the city was limited, and honestly, I’d have been perfectly content sitting in a park or a pub and watching people, or walking around yet another neighborhood. In the end, I’m glad I saw the Palace and the museum. But I’m especially glad for the walk between them, where I got one of my favorite photos of the entire trip.
That last evening in London, Tuesday, I spent with my friend Sam, from Flying Eye Books, who took me to the football match ten days previously and whose family invited me into their home for the best meal I had while I was there. We met for Indian curry and Tandoori at Tamila, Kings Cross, and walked over to a place called German Gymnasium for one last drink in London, a Boulevardier, before leaving.
I’m sure whatever I write here over the next few months will refer at times to London, and the London Collage Collective. I suspect that I’ll mention the city and the work we did in regular conversations. Maybe things I illustrate or write will have a connection in some way as well. For now, I need to clean up the studio, get my head wrapped around the three illustrated books I have on deadline, and reply to a few emails.
Oh, and I’ll start a couple of new collages I have in mind. I have some ideas. Big ones.
Thanks for reading.
Do you do this on airplanes? At least I don’t drool anymore.
The Two Towers, being the second part of The Lord of the Rings. I read The Hobbit in April, and launched directly into LotR. I hadn’t read these books since before the movies came out in 2001, and it’s difficult not to picture Alan Lee’s and Peter Jackson’s versions of the story in my imagination. So I’ve been looking at a lot of other illustrators’ LotR work lately, including Cor Blok. I might write an entire post about all of this.
Or, at least, supposedly Paul, right?
Sounds ideal, Brian. And now I can't wait to hear more about this sketchbook you've been reunited with. Roman and I participated in an Oulipo event here in San Francisco way back in (checks blog) 2013. Very talented individual.
A wonderful account, and glad to be a part of your London Collage Project experience. One day, people will be recreating photos of us drinking IPA at Barge East. Ha!