Progress chasing and art

Weather was terrible on Saturday so we drove to St Davids. In the Cathedral refectory there was an exhibition by an illustrator Jackie Morris. What caught my eye was a sign inviting me to visit her website to follow her attempt to meet a publisher's deadline. A terrific example of creating a narrative which is interesting to follow which is different from the work itself.  I keep spotting examples of this kind of thing. Very difficult for an agency to emulate. Who is going to 'fess up that the client turned down the second amends and went back to the office in a strop. Or that we know we really haven't cracked the brief yet. Though this would be interesting to a lot more people than we would like. Ad agencies are incapable of being truthful about how they come up with ideas. Until in their opinion it has been a staggering success...

When I visited the blog/journal truth to tell I found it a lot more interesting than the exhibition. What it communicates to me is what an outdoor person the artist is and how her drawing comes directly from her love of nature. The exhibition was OK but just what I would have expected in a venue with an interest in folk culture and art. Any illustrator would have been fit the bill as far as the space was concerned. Actually she's better than that.  Children's books are full of illustration.  Seeing where the art comes from is much more compelling. I'd like to see a book where the paintings are side by side with photos of wildlife rather like in her journal. I particularly like the fact that when she gets fed up she draws to get the blues out of her system. Look at the hares at the bottom of the page. Again you wouldn't know that about the pictures unless she told you.  Bet Apple wish they'd been nicer to her. Isn't this exactly the kind of person you want onside?

The other thing of note was that when I took a quick shot of the notice about the website I had got some verbal from a friend of the artist who obviously thought I was engaged in some kind of artistic theft. With a mobile phone??  Later I found I should have paid the Cathedral a quid for the privilege of taking an image of anything on the premises. Ah well.