On Thursday the 21st of November, I had a personal tutorial with Adam to talk about future plans/applications. Though my work, especially for this project, is largely story-based, the medium that I have chosen to work with has been linoleum, and I have grown to love linocut. There is a possibility that through this investigation of story, I may ultimately wind up in a printmaking path.

However, printmaking in the linocut fashion also has a relationship to paneled narratives because of the ability to re-stamp/repeat and to do so within the confined space of a block.

Adam and I discussed a couple of notions of the way that this story could go. Typically when I draw on an iPad, I will do a sort of visual collage of photographs, and reduce to opacity to draw them–almost like rotoscoping. Considering that I want to incorporate writing into this project, Adam proposed that I might try to find some sort of collaging/tracing mechanism in my writing as well.

So, I called my parents, and with their help, I created a little bit of a lexicon list around the semi-crystallize list of words/phrases that my brother uses to communicate, and the words/phrases that we have adopted into our own speaking habits. Speaking with Matthew is much more like a call and response activity rather than an actual unpredictable conversation, so perhaps incorporating that into the writing of this work will also be important.

Adam and I also discussed the final product that could be possible–particularly a graphic novel. The panel is interesting in terms of creating a visual rule of storytelling: the panel. Too, the subject matter concerns boundaries of a perceived reality, which is echoed in the use of panels/wherever it might be published. Perhaps the story will be bounded by the screen size if encountered on a phone. On the other hand, the creation of a physical object that contains a story re-emphasizes the value that people project onto objects. A book is not just an object, but a story. Similarly, for neurotypical and atypical brains a lot, objects contain more than their meaning. So, creating a book, which allows access to at least one meaning by being able to open its pages, might be a way to re-emphasize that. This may be a fetishization of the book and what it represents.

When I talked to my parents, they also reminded me that my brother went through phases where he would carry certain objects around–almost like an anchor. These objects included the following:

-ACT Prep Book (2017/2018)

-Green pillow (2016)

-Snorkle (Before 2005)

-Photo Calendars (Christmas 2007-present)

-Inside/out ball (2007-2010)

-Spoon (2000)

I am sure that there are more, but they will require more conversations with my parents.

The process of having these conversations was interesting in that it activated a transactive memory pathway. There were certain things that I can remember well but my parents can’t, and there are certain stories about my brother that I don’t have access to because I was too young. In terms of audience, then, these investigations may just have an initial audience of my own family.

I know the rough concept that I would like to illustrate in Investigate, but I have not yet entirely decided on one medium. In the last project, artifact, I discovered that I love linocutting–partially because of the methodical nature of the process and partially because of the texture and aesthetic of the result.

Last week, I went out and purchased a bunch of linoleum to cut as well as different colored inks, but I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do. So, I started with one of the icons that has gained some significance in my family with regards to my younger brother’s routines: Wendy’s Hamburgers.

Wendy’s is an American fast food chain, which has featured quite prominently in my younger brother’s sense of stability. Every day after school, it was necessary that whoever picked him up went on a ritual trip to Wendy’s and ordered the same set of items: one chili, one value fry, one all natural lemonade, one junior frosty, with hot sauce and two packs of ketchup. He wasn’t allowed to eat the food in the car, so he would wait until the car pulled up at our house and run to the kitchen. Then, he would take a porcelain bowl and plate from the cupboard. He would pour the chili into the bowl, crumple some Saltine crackers over them, and place the fries on the plate next to a pile of ketchup. Sometimes he would eat it; other times he would just leave it. But it had to happen every day, like an offering to the house. I had explored this concept in a previous attempt at an animation, but I decided to use it as a starting point here, carving the logo into a linoleum block.

This was an interesting experience to me because I had to carve the logo backwards in order that it would print the other way around. I quite liked the idea of creating a recognizable form that I couldn’t necessarily process in my own encoding but that I knew I could relay to others. My brother Matthew has a similar relationship to language. He has memorized chunks of words/sounds that he knows will communicate what he wants, but I am unsure that they are comprehendible to him beyond ends. Additionally, neither Matthew’s teachers nor the rest of the family have quite figured out if can read in the conventional sense, stitching sounds together to make letters. However, he is able to recognize logos and shapes of words that are tied to things that he would like. So, the task of creating this stamp backwards had an interesting resonance with my understanding of how Matthew sees the world.

Additionally, in making prints, there is a mechanistic connection to autism in that deep applied pressure often has a calming effect on individuals on the spectrum. In order to establish an image in linocut, one has to evenly apply pressure. It has a similar grounding effect in a way that the mechanism of printing and reflecting on my brother’s story trains me in a way to physically calm him down by building those same muscles.

In actual printing, I experimented with a variety of different colors, and I tested how long I could use a stamp before having to re-apply ink to have a recognizable image. Then I went back in to see what I could print over/draw over.

I found that when I went back in to work on top, the stamp entirely changed. However, when I printed in different colors over non-white, it completely changed the atmosphere of the stamp.

I also created prints by printing from the stamp on paper and then taking a ‘negative’ by using that print as a stamp.

I liked the idea that there could be iterative destruction as one got further and further from the original stamp to see how far one could stretch the initial dip of paint. I think this illustrates the falling away of reality that is perceived when one does not engage in a ritual which re-establishes a physical reality.

After experimenting with these messy compositions, I accidentally discovered that the roller retained the image of the stamp itself. When printing in lino, I use a roller to evenly distribute paint on the stamp. However, I discovered that if you roll paint on the stamp for a single rotation, there is an imprint left on the roller itself.

I thought these were interesting in light of the fact that they were completely unexpected, but that the contact of the stamp embeds the image into every tool, creating a ghost on the instrument of transfer. For me this had implications with regards to what it means to be a relative of a person with autism to enable these routines. They become important to the person on the spectrum, but they also become an embedded part of our own routine. The stakes aren’t necessarily that our sense of stability and reality fall away, but they are certainly that a person that we love might have a meltdown.

This made me realize that as I investigate these qualities of my brother in illustration, I am also investigating myself and my perhaps non-neurotypical approach to understanding this issue.

On Thursday, the communications pathway went on a trip first to the Design Museum and 180 the Strand to get some ideas for finding a contemporary practitioner.

In my investigation of both places, I did not find the contemporary practitioner that I will write about, as I found Tom Gauld through publications that I love, but I was very interested in the role that illustration played in certain exhibits, namely at the Design Museum.

I also realized that I really love complex collections of objects, and this is something that I hope to incorporate into my work, with minute details. Whether I am making comics/illustrations for adult audiences or for children, I found that the complexity of illustration has brought me to revisit compositions to find new crevices of them.

I found myself drawn to the illustrations that were incorporated into a video about the idea of the Smart City. They juxtaposed a sort of illustrative rotoscoping with simple, flat colors, amplifying the contrast between the pen work and the color.

I didn’t catch the name of the artist who did the illustrations in the video, but I will have to go back and check:

After, the design museum, we went to 180 The Strand to see the exhibits there. I found those successful in an opposite way of the illustrations at the design museum: I loved how so few elements when isolated and blown up into a whole room could create an experience.

Here are images taken from 180 The Strand :

I loved that there was a physicality to the light when it was the only thing in the room, and how scale and darkness made everything magnificent. There was a social anonymity to the experiences at the strand that made absorbing them with a group all the more interesting. Even though in their above ground exhibits, there was a simplicity and repetitive nature to each ‘beat’ of the three installations, I had this urge to stay to see all of the permutations of the light and sound in space.

The first two exhibits were a bit like a magic trick that provoked a ‘How?’ which only encouraged further interaction and exploration of the material of light. The last piece, which were sound recordings of different habitats displayed on three screens across three of the four walls of a dark room, was entirely transparent about the how, (audio recording of animals from different habitats), but the visualization promoted a ‘Why?’ Why different colors? Why engage in darkness? Why a shift from smooth lines to second to second sound prints. There was also a pool of water beneath the screen which reflected from the ground up. Why?

It is interesting to me that I preferred simplicity/minimalism in installations and complexity in illustrations/smaller scale images. Both create a perception of immersion, but in entirely different ways.

For Stage II, our major piece of ADAS writing will be focused on writing about a contemporary practitioner within our field. I was debating between a couple of different practitioners looking at different cartoonists and illustrators that I have discovered from reading and submitting work to The New Yorker: Olympia Zagnoli, Will McPhail, and Tom Gauld.

Eventually, I ended up choosing Tom Gauld, as he wears many hats as an illustrator, cartoonist, and writer, which is the lexicon that I hope to one day master. Additionally, he happens to be based in London, so I thought I might reach out to say hello! (Though, it was a shot in the dark.) He actually responded via email which was absolutely mad. It turns out he is quite busy working on a book until Christmas, so he won’t be able to meet any time in the near future. Nonetheless, I was overwhelmed by the kindness of his quick response.

I have been drawn to his work for a while, as he did one of my favorite New Yorker covers of all time.

Gauld’s illustrations and comics cover a wide range of topics, from literary giants to fictional giants and from science fiction to everyday life. He incorporates humor into his work with a signature deadpan style. The scale of Gauld’s work spans almost as greatly as his subject matter, from full graphic novels such as Mooncop (2016) and Goliath (2012) as well as regular, short comic strips in online publications and previously mentioned standalone covers in partnership with several magazines such as The New Yorker, The Guardian, and New Scientist. Notably, his work has a life in both the digital and physical print spheres.

Initially inspired to self-publish with the discovery of Mat Brinkman’s OAF, he started turning out narratives with one of his colleagues at the RCA. And, his work is influenced by many contemporary cartoonists including Willam Heath-Robinson, Gary Larson, Roz Chast, Richard McGuire, Ben Catcher, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Jochen Garner. Perhaps one of his most notable influences is Edward Gorey, who’s images posses a similar, silly dry sensibility and a heavy use of texture.

Gauld’s work is delightful and smart. His images are often highly complex, but they are made upof very simple elements/geometry, particularly his figures. Additionally, he uses very simple, flat color palettes, adding texture with black ink, yet it remains clean. The narratives he works with are vast and silly and wild. The story seems to be at the center of his images, and in an interview he said that he uses drawing “almost like a font for storytelling.” This is how I see images relating to my concepts as well, particularly with my cartoons. I am not particularly interested in what my pieces look like so long as they convey the joke. However, his forms are quite simplistic, which obscures pieces of identity including body type, gender, and ethnicity.

This sense of realism/real proportions is something that I do try to keep in my work, and I generally avoid using a lot of texture. However, I do hope to expand that lexicon as I experiment with my visual storytelling style.

I love Tom’s work. As a cartoonist, I actually have surprisingly short attention span for entire graphic novels–perhaps because I get lost in the repetition of character from frame to frame on the same page. However, Gauld makes an impeccable design practice out of it. I am especially drawn to his larger collections of smaller narratives and standalone illustrations. His characters are visually very simple, which makes the humor easily readable and his style instantly recognizable. As a visual persona, he only has to make micro-edits to the templates of his characters to make a substantial change or to turn them into a recognizable figure, such as Kafka. However, in the backgrounds and in his character building, he is able to create lovely little worlds in and of themselves.

I look forward to reading more of his work in my further research!

Sources:

Dan Wagstaff, ‘Q&A with Tom Gauld’ The Casual Optimist (23 August 2011) http://www.casualoptimist.com/blog/2011/08/23/q-a-with-tom-gauld/ [Accessed 18 November 2019].

https://www.tomgauld.com/about

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/gorey_edward.htm

TOM GAULD

Tom Gauld

On Monday, we launched project IV and the first project of Stage II. It’s good to be back in action, and I am excited to start this more independent phase of the work.

Throughout Stage I, I had been developing a hunger for narratives and narrative illustration, but for whatever reason, none of the projects really shook out such that I had the time to dedicate to a longer, full story with character and world building.

This project, that is what I would like to investigate. I have had a story in my head for a while about my little brother, but I haven’t known how I wanted it to shake out. I think I was quite intimidated by the writing component of narrative development and how it feels very different from my idea of illustration. However, this project, I hope to explore story-boarding and writing to put all of these things together.

In addition to experimenting with narrative, I hope to explore different illustration techniques as well as working with color. In the last project, I discovered that I loved the texture and versatility of linocutting, as well as the implications of the stamp. The fact that you could have one ‘icon’ that needs to be pressed into the paper to leave a mark raises interesting questions about the limitations of iconography and terminology in general. When concepts are actualized as words or images, they crystallize in a sense, but that does eliminate other nuances of the idea. The fact that the resulting image is also flipped to what you carve creates an element of surprise in the transfer as well, which draws attention to the biases of our own eye/handedness in carving.

However, when I experimented with linocutting before, I largely worked in black and white, which is partially because that is all I happened to have on hand at the time. With this project, I want to work more with color and texture. Somewhat accidentally, I fell into working in black and white.

Color will be important to this story of my brother. A lot of my pre-existing work modifies and warps pre-existing iconography. However, this project I am going to try to present a descriptive story to illustrate my brother’s particular iteration of autism. Autism has some visual marketing associated with it, largely looking at puzzle pieces, but its main marketing is through the use of the color blue. This color also has gender implications, as autism is more common in boys than girls and my experience with it is through my brother.

I have done some visual work about my brother before and his phobias/afflictions, but they largely turned into an unfinished animation.

https://www.brookeabourgeois.com/video.html

Some stills from the previous animation: