{With Dixie. Long ago.}
It has been a day of interviews of two different kinds and I have the feeling I have spoken a great deal about myself. One was a radio interview for the Dear Dad poetry publication and the other was seeing this interview published on the Inside Out blog.
Were you creative when you were a kid?
Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison: We both were — like many, like all —
creative as kids. We drew constantly, making up fantastical worlds
populated entirely by mice (me) or of some weird invention, building or
place (Louise). Louise tells me she would build enormous villages from
Lego, with her brother Gordon, that covered the entire floor. I, when
not drawing, spent time sewing costumes for toys and making creatures
from felt and wool.
When you were given this theme of ‘childhood and playtime’ for the
exhibition, did you draw on your own past or did you look on the
childhood of kids you currently know as inspiration?
We drew largely upon our own, before sprinkling the dish — the various
collage pieces — with red herrings, added to taste. There are elements
drawn directly from both actual childhood days and elements selected
for similarity in feel.
There is a tiny white rabbit seated at a table surrounded by three
foxes eager to know him better (in our print Tiny as a soul, there
comes the rabbit), and there is a girl riding an ostrich through Venice
(in our print Moving forward in the way of all things). These are all
the kinds of scenarios one dreams up as a child. These are all the kind
of scenarios one, equally, dreams up today.
There are French-speaking animals throughout, characters from the
Ballet Russes, and in one work, There are cities one will not see
again, new cities that resemble both Cairo and Brittany are entwined
together. In our new artists’ book, Sleeping during the day, there are
hares and rabbits and seahorses escaping as — in the distance — a
volcano erupts, and Neptune enters the room by way of a passageway
concealed as a fireplace. There are collaged elements from books we
read as children and characters from an Aesop fable as illustrated by
Arthur Rackham. There is Tom Thumb in there, too. It is fun to dream up
these scenarios, to make anything possible, to move our characters
about on a giant paper stage.
What’s one thing about childhood that you’re not nostalgic about at all?
Looking back, it all reads well — though I do not miss dragging my
guitar along the ground as I walked to school, consequently wearing a
large hole in its base. Nor do I miss playing team sports. Louise does
not miss being encouraged to eat certain foods at teatime — brussel
sprouts and spinach being the main offenders. Nor does she miss having
to keep a tidy room.
(Should the above seem familiar, it no doubt is. Collaboration can be like that.)
(Meet some of the artists featured in Playing Field, Craft Cubed’s childhood-inspired exhibition. Thanks, Lee Tran.)
{There are cities one will not see
again en route to the gallery wall.}
