Artist Talk – Hugh Ribbans in conversation with Marg Mayne

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Conducted by Marg Mayne, this artist talk features printmaker Hugh Ribbans discussing his background as a former creative director in London’s graphic design industry and his extensive exhibition history.
In an engaging discussion, Hugh provided insights into his artistic process, focusing on lino cuts. He expresses a deep fascination with line and pattern, considering it an obsession.

Hugh Ribbans was approached by James Freemantle to illustrate George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” a project he enthusiastically accepted. James Freemantle provided minimal briefs, allowing Ribbans creative freedom. The prints, showcased in the Storytellers exhibition, explore the narrative’s characters and events, offering a unique perspective on Orwell’s timeless commentary on power and control.

Hugh Ribbans showcases examples of his work, explaining the technique and the tools. He highlights the unpredictable nature of design evolution during the cutting process, acknowledging the need to adapt and make decisions along the way.
Hugh also shares anecdotes about his life in a series of prints for the “Good Age” project, where he portrays pivotal moments, including childhood encounters with an elephant in Faversham. Each image tells stories, like his stint as a butcher’s boy. The prints captured scenes from the cattle market, Faversham’s shipyard, and his transition from grammar school to art college. The talk explores his unconventional journey from a working-class family in the shipyard to a career in art, emphasising the unexpected turns life takes.

Recorded on 16th December 2023 at the Beaney in Canterbury.

★FIND OUT MORE
➡️ Hugh Ribbans: http://www.ribbans.co.uk/
➡️ Marg Mayne: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marg-mayne-19225528/
➡️ St James Park Press: http://www.stjamesparkpress.com/
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First of all I’d really like to welcome you to this um one of the artist talks as part of the storytellers exhibition um my name is mar mine and I have here Hugh rivens um who’s done a beautiful um series of of work it’s all of a piece called Animal Farm which

You’ll have seen in in the exhibition um and um uh what we’re doing today so I’ve got a chat with h we’ve got about an hour to do that um I’ll make sure there’s I’m I’ve got thousand one questions to ask him so I’m hogging the

Space to begin with and then um we’ll make sure that there’s room for you and the audience to ask questions later so um so if as we’re talking and something comes to mind you know note it down put in your phone you know clock it in your

Head so make sure that you kind of keep those questions as we go through um and then we we’ll we’ll take it from there um just before we kick off could I just ask whether and check whether everyone has um seen the work um as the animal

Farm piece you just yeah yeah and have you managed to listen to the audio no no no okay fine so that’s good that’s at least this notice where we stand and where what we can do so we can have a really good talk about Animal Farm which

Is a FAS in um story behind it of course um so I um it is a real privilege to do this interview with Hugh um I could tell you that um Hugh has been doing this actually all your life for all your adult life um but he’s been doing it

More after having a career as a creative director uh in a commercial graphic design work in London um I could also tell you that he’s exhibit exited at the guardian at the the guardian of the barban uh and at the National Theater and in numerous National print

Exhibitions um yeah I could also tell you that his work has been on the cover of so many books that you may well find that you in your book here at home you’ve actually got Hue ribbons sitting there without necessarily knowing it um but the thing I think that’s really um

That I do want you to know is that um one of the things that Hugh is um this is all born of what you yourself use called a fascination with line and pattern almost to the point of it being an obsession yeah somebody did um said of course that’s a trouble with you

You’re obsessed with line I said well you could be obsessed with worse things couldn’t you really but that was that was a comment was made by quite an elderly lady who was an art collector but she kind of was summing up my work you know and it was it is all very

Linear if you look at everything I do it’s very linear I can’t paint properly I can’t not a proper painter I have to draw a line and then fill it in if I do painting you that’s the sort of the way I work if I do paintings so it’s it is

Really leads itself to being perfect for a Lino cut you know CU that’s all very linear you got to cut the lines negative or positive so uh yeah obsession with line yeah well and that will come through absolutely the whole of the whole of the the discussion today so um

The work that you’ve got in this exhibition is um a series of prints which are made to illustrate the book Animal Farm do how how did it all come about yeah I was approached by uh Mr freemand over there who um had seen i’ seen some of my work I think from mervil

Editions that I’d sent and and uh approached me and said he was how’d you feel about doing animal farm and I said don’t know really no I was absolutely jumped at it and uh it it grew from there and and we just he just let it run he just uh I mean I

Don’t think he ever really apart from the cover he never gave me a brief or anything I would send him a visual and he’d send an email back saying yeah great you know that was his and that is perfect for an illustrator because if you are bothered by an art being an art

Director myself if you’re bothered by an art director he’s on your shoulder all the time when you’re working and you you think well they like that will they like that this this is right but you you’re much more relaxed much more relaxed if somebody’s letting you run with it you

Know and I just worked read the book A lot of times and I worked with the audio on all the time and worked it out that was the first one that I did which was the uh pigs on their hind legs for style um because I had drawn a lot of pigs

Because when I was an art director we had a pig account a pig feed account and so I had to draw quite a few pigs commercially so I could draw a pig half decently so that’s what it was based on and I sent that to James and he said guess what he

Said he said yeah great so that was that was how it developed and and they all went from there um but one of my problems was that when I said to my door I’m going to do animal farm she said but you you do quirky nice stuff dad you don’t do aggressive you

Know and I said well I’ll have a go so I had to get a bit nasty about it which is where the the major one uh came out as being the uh the strongest one which is a bit cartoony somebody said it was cartoony didn’t they but anyway it’s um that’s the

Aggressive one so it was it was getting a touch of aggression into it yeah they’re they’re beautiful um tell us about the cover because actually the cover is also of course the cover of this rather gorgeous catalog and if you have not yet purchased it they’re

Available for um uh outside but um yes so that so that is your cover but this is n you just got this book this book today fresh off the press number one I think just off it’s in a lovely first bet case which um it’s the same original

Size of the penguin paperback of George Orwells novel and um this this was the cover that um we did and that was one we had a brief from James he said I want uh he sent me a sample of some dinosaurs you know very handy you know and um

He said I want it to be a line a line of cup lots of detail and color a bit like where’s Wally and uh so you know that’s what we did and we that was the only real brief I had I think any other briefs at all and that’s that’s right

That’s what happened to it become a dust cover and what strikes me about the difference so this is a this is a a landscape and it’s got lots of details and we were looking earlier on but you’ll if you go back inside and look you’ll see each of those very red little

Hens each one is different and you know one’s lying pecking and one’s sitting up like this and so I mean the the the level of detail is just and and uniqueness to the the Lino is is just fascinating so that’s that’s a kind of that’s the typical ribbons if you like

Um but these ones are more portrait shes almost aren’t they so do you have a preference or you know I think the the these are obviously illustrating events in the story yeah and um again I was able to choose um which parts of the book I wanted to to

Illustrate the ones that appealed to me and um at the end of it and James had I he came to and said can you tell me where where all the illustrations go because you know I just chose him and I sent him the little excerpts from the

Chapter it was in and so that that was the um the lead through to illustrate events in the book you know like each one of you could say quote that’s old Major’s speech that’s working walking on hand legs that’s the windmill the Storm at the Windmill I love this one like the yeah

This was the meeting in the in the barn which was again the second one I did I think where you had all the animals and where I developed the characters to a certain extent because you got box of the old horse and and the pigs and the dogs and you kind of

Developing the characters for the rest of the book so started off with the pig and then did the barn and then we they all let from there you know and uh who’s who’s going to be we we who was going to be next you know well certainly

Not snowy who at this point gets um I think that’s the that’s the trosky character isn’t it that gets snowy gets believe TR I’m not don’t ask me about the detail and you’re probably read it and understand it more than I do but I think it was trosky that got sh chased

Off by the dogs yeah yeah yeah yeah and obviously old major um was probably um I don’t know who old major was uh Marx Marx that’s right car marks um and then of course the uh the uh snowball was uh yeah that was that was TR yeah yeah and

Um Stalin was the Napoleon Stalin is Napoleon yeah yeah does any any people remember Amal F do you remember yeah yeah yeah I mean it’s amazing of course it’s it’s a fable in its own way it’s a parable is a parable fa you call it um and I think what’s interesting because

You said it you said in in your audio you said you thought it was maybe rather boring cuz people thought it was boring because they did it at school do you think yeah well I I I was working on it at the same time as my um youngest

Granddaughter was doing it for gcsc so she was keeping me up to speed on it really you know said well no you got that wrong it’s this and this you know so uh but that was that was the interesting thing you know that um and she she was obviously bored stiff with

It because she’d got to do it for so um I I don’t know what I’ve sent her uh a postcard of the the uh I haven’t she hasn’t seen a book yet I’ve see her at Christmas and I’ll see if I’ll pass the test or not well I think it’s interesting I

Think it’s still that story’s got a lot to say now about not necessarily you know left and right wing or or communism something but certainly about populism hasn’t it and about high it’s quite modern really when you look at it nothing’s changed much really if you look at what’s happening in you know

Israel and it’s nothing’s changed it’s all about power and control of people yeah and uh demography demogra you know like you know I don’t know like like a trump and Putin and you know dem demagogues that’s what I wanted to say demagogues you know really really um manipulating people yeah he put his

Finger on it really he did yeah no definitely especially since 1945 it was um published yeah that’s right was really you know that’s stunning isn’t it to think that it’s still got relevance today from that long ago yeah so tell me because the you’ve brought your black

And white prins um and as as they’re in the exhibition but this is in color how does how does that work tell us a little bit about because about the you know how you move from black and white to color how how do you well we had we had in

Between uh the Lio cuts which I I just sent the original looc cut prints to James James freem manle who printed it all letter press by the way uh with metal type setting and it’s all done in the old traditional way but he has a digital wizard who was able to do color

Separations right so I I would have the the black and white and um the uh the digital wizard would add the color I just show you say with adding the green and the red there so they’re all scanned and then made into line blocks to put on the letter

Press machine and print off so you you’re going through computers you can’t avoid computers nowadays but it comes back to being printed traditionally again so it’s quite a traditional publication but with the um tell me if I’m getting wrong will you it’s all it’s all sort of produced

Traditionally but you have to go through the computers to get the images yeah yeah so could you talk us through so one of the thing I mean I I’m I’m I certainly I remember doing a bit of Lineo cutting at at school and probably like you know bleeding my finger the

Same way but could you talk us through because it it’s fascinating the actual I suppose from my perspective it’s about when you’re creating the the the the Lineo when you’re cutting the Lineo you’re seeing the world in negative aren’t you and then you have to put it

On to get the positive image so could you just show us a few examples of your yeah the C yeah you want pass these right they want have a look at them this we could use that one couldn’t we don’t give it to Tina she she doesn’t know

Anything about it at all I think you ought to take it up to you pass me that one of of the major and I can hold that out while people are looking yeah first thing about it you’re obviously working left to right so whatever you do is is rever in reverse

The other way so if doing lettering you got to do it reversed that’s the first thing you got to learn and then you’ve got negative and positive cutting which uh is when you when you know what you’re doing it’s quite obvious but a lot of people don’t get their head around it

Straight away do they they really struggle with can you tell me again what’s a negative and what’s a positive cutting and I said well if you cut it it’s a white line and if you leave it it’s a black line you know but it’s it’s quite difficult to grasp until you do it

A few times yeah no it’s really and are there different depths to it or it looks like some of it is cut it’s cut very deep and some of it is like more it’s not no NE not necessary to to go deep as long as you you it all be the

Same same level yeah but um sometimes you cut a bit deep by mistake yeah yeah yeah yeah I forgot to bring any Lio tools have we got any Lio tools on you Tina um I forgot to bring any tools with me but um they’re they’re basically

Little there’s a gouge and there’s a V and there like little tiny chisel chisel which um can get you really quite fine detail so so something like this and appreciating this is this is more I’m going to say simple but it’s a more it’s a smaller and more graphic design than

Some of your very highly detailed ones so um how long would that take you onair would it be possible to answer that question do you do all once you come back yeah well the whole thing with um this sort of thing is getting the design in the first place it’s like everything

It’s preparation you’ve got to get the design right before you’re going to translate it onto a piece of liner because once you start cutting that’s it so probably half and half the time half the time is designing okay and then you transfer it to the block and cut something like that I don’t

Know a day or two you know to cut that carefully you know um it’s it’s a long process something something like that would take month at least a month and you’re designing as you go yeah and so and you do design as you go then the things that one yeah yeah

With those imagine you can’t work it all out you know you just what am I going to do there I got no idea I’ll go to bed think about it tomorrow no that’s that’s um yeah that’s fascinating so um yeah and then my other question around this is because this is all

Printed on your own restored Colombian press is quite special actually well I think it is yeah I mean it’s um you know quite fond of it really so just tell us a little bit about col what does it look like where did it come from what’s you know high

High was Colombian was invented about 1820 I think in America by a chap called climber and uh this it’s very it’s no as the E Eagle Press it’s got an eagle on the top for sort of a counterbalance and then he moved moved the uh equipment or I don’t know if he

Came I think he came as well to to England and Scotland and um mly Scotland and they were made under license here um not in America but they always called the Colombian press because of the eagle and the English edition uh version is the albian which has not got anything on

It just a just a counterweight no no eagle or anything so that’s that’s but the the Colombian press I got in 1989 having done PR making at College in here in Canterbury um and I was working as a graphic designer with another chap who I happened to be at college with and it

Was the day Edward bordon died and I said to my friend I see Edward bordon died and he yeah that’s terrible isn’t it you know and I said I wonder if he wants his press and I was left carried on working then my mate came back with an exchange in

Mark you remember Exchange in Mark and he said said there’s two in here I said what he said there’s an albian and a Colombian and this chat that I was working with lived in Norfolk at the time and so um he bought the one and the other one was in London he

Bought the one in London I bought the one in Nori so we had to take the one from London from a garage that was using it to print posters for their Shaban outfit out trips we took the the albian to norfol and then went to chromer and

Picked up the Columbian and brought it back to London so it was a and that was how I got the Colombian I think it was £4,000 in 1989 oh it’s more than a car yeah yeah probably a small Heist really wasn’t it well I don’t know it was it

Was quite a lot of money but I thought I just got to have it somebody said you got to get this so I did yeah yeah yeah no that’s um yeah Special so you mentioned Edward bordon so he was he really is one the the person who you

Quote as your one of your biggest influencers yes certainly and what is it about cuz he he didn’t just do prints he also did drawings but what is it about his work that well I relate to it because I like loo cson and everything but he was he was he wasn’t really I

Mean he could do everything but he was a Jobing graphic designer which is what I treat myself I’m a designer who does print making and that’s basically what Edward Bon was you know because he just he had to earn a living and bring a

Family up as we all did and um he did did what what what was commissioned and um it did some pretty good stuff and so I relate to it more than I do say to a a painter or to um the sculpture or anything you know and that one that we

Looked at actually the one of the in the in the Stables was because there’s a very there’s one of his which was the cattle market and this is sort of this my favorite Lano cut it’s a lanoc cut he did which was turned into a color lithography print right um is the Cal

Market yeah and it’s uh yeah it’s Priceless now it’s about that big in color and and it has got what somebody says to me happy little cows in it and i’ I’ve carried on with the happy little cows and you just before before we started you just mentioned about um uh

Being part of an exhibition at his Museum yeah I managed to inag on my way into an exhibition that’s going to be on in the Higgins in Bedford which is where the old Edward bordon archive is all his work is in there and uh the the Ed

Exhibition is going to start in uh February and it’s called Edward and me and it’s people that have been influenced by Edward bordon they chose a piece of work and it has shown their their work that’s been influenced by it so I’ve chosen animal farm and the

Cattle market and and they they’ve gone for it you know so and there’s some some really notable people in this show heard people like David gentleman Angie Leen you know they’re sort of like very very very influential people well they’re they’re lucky to be in a

Show with you oh sure that’s true I’m sure that’s why they’re in it really yeah exactly so this exhibition is about storytelling and of course this is you’re Illustrated a story but the other thing that you and I talked about was this wonderful um um series of four

Prints that you’ve made which is a good age um that’s right and we got some of them to show you now do you just talk through the kind of the concept of where it came from yeah the good um I think it was and bridges who said you ought to go

In for this if you remember because it with the qualification to enter this it was with the Devon Guild of Craftsman um you had to be born before I believe it was 1950 so I thought yeah I qualify for that that’s all right you

Know so I’m in you know that you had to do something that reflected your your age it was called a good age because it was just to encourage older people to keep going you know keep on keeping on as Alan Bennett said so I I put this idea up of um

Four um images of my life which is I’ll give you one of these when you leave um and I I realized spent all my life near water you know faam Creek um Canterbury River star River temps and now back to where I live now

Which is uh cona Creek you know and so I did just four pictures and um called the good age and it’s just all little anecdotes of my life and as I was working on it um things were coming into my into my brain you know and you you

Got the whole the Lio cut there and you’ve done a little bit in the corner and you’ve got no idea what you’re going to do you know you got a river there done the river that’s done um but then you said well I I’ll do that I’ll have

That elephant there you know I’ll have yeah I could do I remember so so happen and it always was little stories you know all stories coming out of one’s life you know that’s we’ve all got a life and we’ve all got a story yeah yeah yeah and I love the idea

That that you know our lives do go in epochs of you know ages of our of our how however long or short they may be I just wanted to lift this one up that you brought in and maybe we could talk through a few stories yeah one this way

Oh here we are so this one can you stand up yourself this is this is the first one isn’t it about your childhood Fabish um 1943 yeah it’s really 194 right to 1959 this is and it’s just I mean and you we you you’ll Hugh’s brought cards

You can take a card and and look at the detail itself but I mean even just looking at this we could we could sit for hours even more if we’d had a kind of beer in front of us but um Poss there’s a few that are really you tell

Us about the elephant you say people always ask there’s an elephant first thing you say is why is there an elephant in that street and I I used to live in Westgate Road in faam some of you from faam which was a bit bit rough in those days but um in

All Alleyways and I you know was sauntering down the alley I was about 8 saering down the alleyway one day and there was an elephant coming down the road with a man and I just stopped went beatling back to see my mom up the alleyway said mom there’s an elephant in

The road and she said yeah yeah of course yeah of course there is and it was an elephant going making its way from the train station to the meadow at the end of West kuit Road where there was going to be a circus everything else coming on Lor’s

But the elephant had to come on the train he was too heavy um and one of my neighbors you can see here you can’t see it from there but came out with a loaf of bread and and just held it and the Elephant just took the whole loaf of

Bread and at it in one go mom had a whole loaf of bread in one go that’s brilliant so that was the elephant was for and was a lovely little picture of the love of bread being fed there so you you can see that was m

M match let’s see what else I got here I’ve got oh this is a good I I love this one it’s like this um a little somebody on a kind of butcher bike being chest by dogs with a scarf lying in the back yeah that was the when I was a butcher boy

About 14 um I used to deliver meat from a butchers in West Street in faban and uh the first day I was there they were loaded me up because I had to go out to gravy it’s quite a long ride with all these different joints of meat

For the farmers and their workers and they loaded me and there you that’s for so and so and that’s for so and so and there’s your bones my bones you you’ll find out so recycling I went all the way around did all the all the stops did all that and

Then the last one was a farm which is nearly out to see Suter and I open the gate and as soon as I hope there’s two big dogs come shooting from out the corn and I thought ah the bones I’m chucking these bones and I did it for about three years

I think and every week you might have to make sure I have I got my bones because they they had me off the bike right so that was the bones yeah um what else we got here um I don’t know oh this is this is the cattle market actually

It’s another CLE Market we live Westgate Road overlooked the cattle market which is now aore close just a but it was a big very big cattle market twice a week with all the other the pigs and the animal and we used to chase in and out

The pens when nobody was there and get chased out that was our um our fun it’s what we used to do the big thing in Fabish was the shipyard ah yes yeah Shipyard well it’s Mr Maloney yes he lives he lives where the ship was um and

One of the things about the shipyard was there was this is an interesting story you like this one there’s a crane there was a crane on on the creek that was operated by a man called punk and he was blind my grandfather was a chief foreman and this crane was on Rails

Operated by hand and PK move it up a bit move it down move it up and Pon would do what he was told and one day my my grandfather was just leaning on the rail like this and the crane started moving and he was pun and by the time he

Stopped pulling he had his two fingers off really yeah wow that’s quite a story that yeah my grand there was sitting always sitting there with but I I managed to miss going to the shipyard by a passing the 11 plus getting to grammar school and then

Getting to art school that was the uh otherwise we had three generations in the shipyard lobs Granddad said a f place to work boy yeah part until you lost my fingers fly so that and so that that’s quite interesting really isn’t it that you know you came from a family that was

Working in the shipyard and you ended up at at art college you know I mean that wasn’t necessarily you know the the most stable you know environment or job that maybe your I was at grammar school you see first a member of the family to go to grammar school and family used to

Treat me so you must be po you’re at Grammar School and they’re all little workingclass people um but um what was going say well it’s was just about it was unusual then to go to art college oh you went to grammar school they might

Have wanted you to I was going to be a policeman okay I got all the papers I was going to go my father was very proud he was got me down to be a police cadet at Maidstone you see and then I you know you have those medical tests with

Color and um we had usual routine one and I said what’s that I said house no I said number two and we all these different color tests you know you have all these color tests and um at the end of it he said you’re not thinking of

Going in the Air Force are you no no or the police well yeah I was actually well you won’t get in so went back to uh so I can’t apply my art teacher said you could always go to art school I said well really he said yeah you’re going to

Get the art prize didn’t you know so color blind you got art school why wouldn’t you that I mean what it’s a natural thing is it really yeah yeah yeah well perhaps maybe black and white Lino cut black and white that’s why that’s why I do black I stick with

Black and white where I can yeah perfect red and green can be a problem so um yeah and then the other the other thing that comes out in here not it’s oh actually let’s just look at this one I’ll put this down this one over there is then Canterbury so it goes

Faam Canterbury faam Canterbury College London yeah and then Cora then where now okay yeah so I’m just going to move this back all right while we’re I can all of the little pictures have got a narrative on the back so you can see what or something so the um the Canterbury one

Is that one there we obviously we’re in cter so it seemed a good thing and um this is when you’re at art college and the thing that what’s lovely about this as well is on the back of um um this little f up is is some key words that um

So so if you’re looking it’s almost like a little puzzle you can do of a Christmas thing hot picking I wonder where I can find the hot picking so you can you can check out the keywords it’s a really lovely thing um and the one of the words that struck me about Canter

Was I’m just going to find it which was um the art student life very exciting and very terrifying Dash girls everywhere so I’d like to know more i’ like more there were a lot of girls yeah we had um there weren’t many people that went to Art School in those days there

Was I think about 13 in the year um the graphic design students anyway um and two were boys the rest were all girls who all of whom were older than me and all of whom had done a level art I was only 16 had done O Level art so a pretty

Good start really you know I was trying to cat I was playing catchup all my art school life and that that seemed to be what I was always doing trying to play catchup especially with life drawing remember the life drawing one yes second day I

Went to uh college and um I was a bit late and you get to Canterbury College of Art walking through the corridors and um said to one of the I didn’t know where I was first year where are the first years and she said through that door so I opened the

Door to be confronted by the the 12 girls all sitting around this nude woman all drawing during the life drawing and I I i’ never you know is talk about an introduction to life drawing and they also as I walked in and sat down never to be forgotten this is a

Very lovely you see if you can spot the live drawing class on the cter when where you get it yes there’s all all sorts in there that that um that you’ll want to you’ll want to look okay um so I’m just going to stop there and see whether there are any questions coming

From you go um the Landscapes do you draw on landscapes that you’ve known for I’m thinking actually of Animal Farm or are they completely from your head Landscapes that I’ve known yeah I’m thinking of the back the backgrounds that are yeah I think over the years i’

I’ve kind of developed a vocabulary of of um with Lino cutting of trees and flowers and plants and that they you see that with a lot of people’s work they they tend to have a s Trad Mark image for things you can see if you look at lot of people’s work you can

Identify um you can see it’s that’s you can see it’s atina hagger for instance you know because she does stuff certain way and and we all do it a certain way and so you and that vocabulary obviously comes from your background but um I don’t do sketchbooks I never haven’t

Done sketchbooks since College really I’m be guilty about that but um some people are drawing all the time and I draw every day but it’s usually a design I’m drawing not sketchbooks but no it’s it’s it’s the sort of vocabulary of landscape that I leaned on so you you

Can draw as a designer you have to draw a lot of stuff from memory MH and so that develops a certain technique yes so that’s quite good yeah and do you think if you’d been in just following that question if You’ if you’d been living in Scotland would it be different from I

Mean it seems to me no it seems to me your Landscapes are quite kentish actually there’s a sort of sometimes it’s the the marshy the flatness and sometimes it’s that wield you know the the and the give it away that’s true true yeah but literally the shape of the

Land is is quite um it’s got that those two things about can yeah I do like hills and we’re not very hilly around here we got Hill the old hill we got a few you know and I I used to struggle up Borton Hill every day to college in my

Old scooter my my old scooter so quite hilly yeah do you PR oil based or water based print making I’ve tried waterbased and I can’t get on with it unfortunately um it because they’re quite big prints most of the time by the time I’ve Inked Up half of it it’s dried

When I get to the next bit and so um I I you do water do you water no I think most print makers stay with oil based you do based yeah bit both a bit of both I I can’t get on with waterbased no I really can’t believe that you managed to

Get all the way through that for a whole month without thinking oh whoops that’s not what I meant to do or oh I don’t really like that though so is there room to alter things a little bit I mean do you find ways can you find can’t Al you

Cut bit more out than you work no once you’ve cut it you can’t really order it I mean I when we do workshops um and people make a mistake or slip or something and I say well try and work it as though you meant it that’s that’s

Sometimes you do you do overcut or whatever and so you try and turn it into something as though you meant it yeah yeah yeah so one of the things I also this I was interested in the scale so obviously that’s much larger than this than these

Um and then Eric bordon used to do really big ones he was quite famous for doing very large ones wasn’t he yeah he did he did do very big ones I think he used to put it on the floor and I another BL us to walk about while and it

To print it you know right he didn’t his press was no bigger than mine like doing grips like treading grips was EXA Shing but I have I have done meter meter square ones which have been printed with a steamroller in Margate um w we did um we did a

Tiger an elephant and a roll and uh they are a meter square and uh they’re really good fun to do they take ages to Ink up but um they’re really really good fun to do so sorry I just tell us just slow down you did that with the

Steamroll I didn’t I didn’t what’s exactly like a man in a steam Steamroller yeah and and what where in just it was done in Margate as part of the the the old print Festival they used to have down there wow in the street wow amazing yeah and you used to get there

Um early on and then you get all the stuff ready and then sudden you hear this you smell it before you saw it coming around the corner you’d smell the steam coming he come and do the printing and and one year we had we did it about three years one print uh Steamroller

Drive really got into the printing you know and he would he got kind of crafty about it you know he was like I’ll just I’ll move back another inch if I come down here h i just catch that bit down there you know but he really was got

Into printing with a steamroller which was quite imag imaginative absolutely that’s right but they are nice prints when they when they work so you and actually you just reminded me because one of the you you did tigers and I did a tiger a tiger and then you said two

Other things an elephant you go yeah and the third one was cockroll okay yeah so rolls one thing but the tiger you do have quite I mean not not in these ones but you do have quite a lot of would I call exotic or tropical animals

In in your in your um yeah I did a lot of animals I did a lot of animals at one time yeah I was into animals yeah yeah and what what got you into doing that tigers and palm trees and you know they’re very another whole set of I mean

As it is like a sort of parallel vocabulary isn’t it it’s lovely yeah well the um the tiger is a classic thing because again Edward bordon that did a Fant we’ve seen it a fantastic tiger lanoca and I thought well I got to do

One of those you know um which I did but um nowhere near as good as him obviously but it it’s it just was a natural thing to do so they are very linear cuz tigers have Got Stripes all over them did you know that lines patterns getting them getting so really

Into you know the lines of the Lions of the tiger I did a lion once but it weren very good cuz Lions don’t have any Stripes so you know no good yeah no that’s f um and then the other thing that you do a number of quite a

Lot of is um is your sporting interest so we didn’t really talk about that but I started picking up on the fact that football seems to feature a bit well football is is featured um in the um the Fabish one because I played for a couple

Of um teams on the wreck mostly in in back in the back in the days and uh the team I played for most was I heard of it probably very very famous called the white heathens was the that was the name of the team that played um and I I was only

A boy but again I was probably the time I was doing the butcher round and uh I’d done the butcher around in the morning and uh was having a little bit of a break at lunchtime and there’s a knock on the door and as a bloke I knew from the

Being in the park where I was kicking the ball around and he said you doing anything this afternoon I said well not really he said would you will you come out and play for the white heathens and uh and I I was only say 15 and and got

Kicked to bits by these big men but I stayed with them so yeah and there’s quite a lot because I’m a big cyclist so I didn’t tell you I told you what I was toing but I didn’t tell you what my cycling so I really love but you’ve gone lots of very nice

Cycle um I say lots but a number of very lovely um images of cyclist cycling yeah I I don’t I’m not a big cyclist I but I I just got into cycling yeah the cycling images yeah and I’ve got actually um I’m going to do another one next year

Because I do a calendar every year and it was the Alum the Pussycat this year and I’ve already got an idea to do a load of cyclists on it next year so I might do a cycling Canada next year was thinking ahead you see self motivation is um if nobody comes in with

A job then it’s up to you to self motivate and that’s that’s the secret to keep me going yeah yeah well and and well and and what is that because we did touch on that earlier about motivation and you talked about the Devon Guild them um that they deliberately were targeting

People who were kind of later on in their career in order to keep keep keep going right you know still got lot to say lot to do yeah there were quite a lot of old um Crafts People some of them even older than me who were doing it Tom

Chap did a load of tapestries and all that sort of stuff yeah it’s a question of just keep on doing it you haven’t got time to you haven’t got time to get older if you keep doing stuff you know yeah yeah yeah it keeps that sort of the

Dynamo keeps going they keep kind of yeah yeah my wife is um um um a singer but also a songwriter and um she wrote a um a song called beauty of Youth and one of the lines in it says you think I’m old I’m well rehearsed which I really like like do

Not underestimate might use that one yeah yeah yeah well you’re welcome just just just copy quote so when you left art school yeah you um do you find it successful easy to find work within art or to find work as a designer would you You’ never had to scratch

Around I was very lucky to meet somebody who was an art director who lived in Fabish and and said I’ll give you a trial in an agency in Halburn and I went up there and did three 3 weeks I think and at the end of it he said yeah we’ll

Take you on so once you’re once you’re in you’re away you know you just got to get the first start and and then I went from three advertising agencies design groups um corporate advertising corporate companies about 12 years I was and then I went freelance and U all in

All um it was from 9 yeah 1963 to about 2006 I think it is on here 19 63 2001 I was a designer I living as a designer yeah but I I didn’t do do you speak with feeling you couldn’t get a job can’t get a job or I’m I fine art

Student in my final year parttime fine artist Fine Art and um my peers are struggling to get work yeah yeah most of them I think I think it’s far more difficult nowadays I mean it’s so much more difficult I mean Peter had a good career in but he he never gets started

Now no I mean he he was he was the same era as me and we were lucky weren’t we we were lucky because there was a small London was like a village almost and designers um kind of knew each other a lot of them knew each other and it was

Um much more e much easier in those days yeah and and why I’m going to say but why why was it e is that because Technology’s made it made it something like design has made design more accessible to a larger number of people because you know in a way or or what was

What was easier I think it grew in the um the 80s ‘ 80s ‘ 90s more and more people became designers and spread that way I think and of course now graphic designer is a different different animal yes yeah very different totally different animal I mean everything you

Do now is in computers and we were lucky when Peter and I were because Peter was at canpro as well we had to do all the traditional skills you know which um they don’t seem to need need in these days they just need to do Photoshop and

In design and those things yeah how what advice would you give for um a student leaving University right now well I mean I don’t know much about um modern modern day design or modern day uh practices really that’s the trouble um I think you just got to keep banging away at it it’s

A bit like acting or anything really I think I don’t I don’t think there’s any any magic um you need load load of luck really to meet somebody I think that’s that’s what you need more than anything load of luck because the jobs that are advertised they seem to get huge amount

Of applicants and they get snapped up very quickly my my granddaughter and has just got a job in an advertising agency and I think she she’s been applying for on and off over a year for hundreds of jobs eventually got one and it was just just plugging away you know and that’s

All you have to do really it’s over subscribed yeah yeah that was a tough tough tough gig and tough world to make is a tough world it’s probably true of every job’s as question um I just wanted to um ask if you could say more about uh subject

Matter um with thinking about loo um you touched on it a little bit when you refer to the rather do a tiger than a lion but just you know what in your mind lends itself or doesn’t lend itself in terms of what you were communicating or yeah quite quite often it’s things that

Happen um I got one called um it’s called out and it’s a cricket match but I I was I was lucky enough with my son to be in Sydney cricket ground when England you wouldn’t believe this we won the ashes distant 2011 I think it was and I

I was enjoying the the last day we just won the ashes and everyone was applauding and everything and my son shouts in my ear over the crow said you got to do a Lano cut of this and and I did that’s that’s what my my family

Always say we got to do a l and this this is called out and it’s just a the whole cricket match and it’s Sydney Cricket CR and um it uh it was inspired just by something happening and quite often it’s things that happen that inspire you

Yeah you can find a way to find those shapes in there because of oh yeah you do you do because I suppose it’s the um design background comes in you know I mean you you design your way out of things you know that’s what you do you know you just keep sketching sketching

Away and you design your way out of it um because you’re in charge so it’s not it’s easy really it’s not very difficult you just got to have a little bit of imagination it’s like a chronic is it recording events yeah yeah yeah sometimes in recording events yeah

Yeah do you transfer drawings to the Lineo and then cut them or do you just cut without any drawings on the L um usually I I’ll work it out and transfer it with carbon paper and then draw it again in quite a thick felt tip because

I when I’m doing workshops I said draw in a felt tip cuz you never count a pencil line but you can count a felt tip line but that something like that size um I roughly knew where the river was and roughly knew where you know the top

Was and the Horizon and everything but I didn’t know where I was going to put stuff and so it was really quite quite worrying sometimes to I used to go to bed worrying about what I was going to put in that space I’d left you know and that’s probably over

Over over done done with the art school there there’s a lot of art school but then you see that’s cbury was four years at art school so yeah and changed my life I mean just totally changed my life otherwise I’d been making ships on a river still though oh on a

River yeah with the animal farm you said they you know your ideas you you’ve had things where they wanted something different how you well you mean not the animal farm project you mean something else something so if James was the perfect client as I understand he was what was

The what was your most disruptive client yeah you did you did get um and Peter would bear me out with this you’d get halfway through a job and they changed the brief or oh no it’s changed and so you had to be pretty quick on your feet

Which is all good training for doing this sort of thing you know um yeah you you you don’t always get the brief it’s not all the way sailing through they changed it quite a lot yeah it’s been so interesting getting into different bits of your work and and

Enjoying so many of them and me thinking oh if I’d like to have a hue ribbons which one would I like to have and then I thought well that’s a perfect kind of desert island question to ask which is if there was one work out of all your

Many works that you would you know if you were going to desert island and you could take one which one do you feel like has given you the most satisfaction which one’s closest to your heart which one would you take well the the uh the

Print that I was most that meant most to me I think was probably about 1990 cuz I was just got this this Colombian press I only done Lino cutting at an art college not to any great level I supposed I did past the examine it um but I got the

Press and I was trying to work out how to use it and while being a graphic designer and I wasn’t getting very very well very far really very well and my wife at the time was making leap leaps ahead cuz she was also a print she is a

Print maker um and I I was just trying to crack it all the time and then I I got a piece of driftwood from sea Sala and I cut a cockroll shape and it had a very heavy grain that had been lifted by the Sea and I printed this uh

Grain and cut the cockroll out of it and then I printed some colors underneath it with Lino about three or four colors and then the last pull was the The W the wood grain going on the top in black and I remember pulling it back the the the

Wonderful reveal when you pull it back you know and I just even my jaw dropped because For the First Time Ever I’d actually produced a half decent print you know and uh I remember walking down Garden Path with it like this my wife was in the kitchen she

Went nailed it it’s still probably the best print I’ve done it’s a wood it’s a wood cut and I printed so many of them I just flattened the block I’ve still got it but it’s virtually like that now so yeah the wood cut it’s called wood

Even though it’s a cockroll it’s made of wood and you’ve got the clue there’s a clue there wood and I got that one I got that one yeah so that would be the one perfect yeah all right H it’s been a real and the animal farm book and the animal F yeah

It’s been a it’s been a real Delight to talk to you it’s been great to um Hugh’s arrived afterwards so and we’re not having to rush out of the room so if you want your catalog signed or anything signed he’s here to do that um we’ve got um he’s

Kindly brought around these if you’d like to have one of these come and help yourself they’re very lovely I mean they’re really beautiful kept me occupied for several hours and um um and then you can also have a closer look at the line or Cuts or anything else that

He’s brought with him today so um thank you very much for coming and thank you to Hugh it been a real pleasure thanks for your interest [Applause] not