A quick paper cut I did for the missus for valentines day. I don’t really subscribe to all that to be honest, especially not the ‘off the shelf’ affection we all get rammed down our throats every year by every supermarket, restaurant, gift shop and florist. Still, all that said, it’s a nice excuse to make a little something different that will put a smile on someone’s face. I’ll be experimenting on lots of little projects like this this year, nice little affordable ‘bits’ that will be available to buy in the Freak Show online shop. Hopefully a nice style will be developed over time but in the meantime it’s just nice to be working on completely different things in very different ways.
The type is a little rough around the edges, but I’m learning to be more forgiving with little things like that, especially after reading a great book called Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I seriously recommend this book to anyone involved in creating any type of art, very well written, funny and extremely inspiring. Some great sections in there about the negative effects and often fruitless nature of striving for perfection. Humans by nature are far from perfect, and with your art being a reflection of yourself you should also allow your work to reflect those imperfections and concentrate more on simply producing more work instead of sweating over making a single piece as perfect as possible. I think that the presence of imperfections are what gives something originality, you needn’t bend over backwards to iron out such flaws, accept them and allow them to add character to whatever it is you’re making.
Speaking of imperfections, I recently finished a brilliant book by one of my favourite authors, John Wyndham. The Chrysalids is a tale narrated by a young boy named David, living in a simple, God fearing farming community many years after the Earth has been left devastated by a nuclear disaster. The effects of the fall-out have a firm hold not only on farm life, but on the people born into this post-apocalyptic world. Whole fields of ‘imperfect’ crops are burned and children born with any sign of a mutation are seen as an act against God and are banished, or worse. As David and his friends grow older, they become aware that they have been born very different to the rest of their community and live in fear of discovery, communicating between themselves in a very secret and unique way. It’s a fantastic book and as with most of Wyndham’s books, (Day of the Triffids, Midwhich Cuckoos) it comes in a great selection of covers if you can be bothered shopping around.
