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Irish Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
David Gentleman's Lessons for Young Artists: advice for living well, for people of all ages
Lessons for Young Artists Author : David Gentleman ISBN-13 : 978-0241692813 Publisher : Particular Books Guideline Price : £20 Is art a mysterious manifestation? Are artists somehow different, living strange and rarefied lives? How does a work of art come about at all? For David Gentleman, it is a simple question of just doing it. 'We make art because it's interesting, and it keeps us in touch with reality. And you get better if you stick at it,' he writes in the introduction to Lessons for Young Artists. He also mentions the often forgotten insight that 'art should be enjoyable'. But do you have to be young to appreciate this book? Most people would be young these days to Gentleman, who turned 95 this year, and has been drawing daily for nine decades. In fact, you need to be neither technically youthful or even have aspirations to a career as artist to benefit from this quietly, yet richly wise book. An engraver, stamp designer , book illustrator, polemic poster maker and painter, Gentleman is the unassuming face behind many images you may know surprisingly well. There is the series of Penguin Shakespeare book covers from the 1970s, the platform murals at Charing Cross Underground Station, and the iconic Stop the War Coalition poster from 2003, as well as his more personal paintings and drawings. READ MORE Alongside illustrations of all these are the 'lessons', and the book could equally be called Advice for Living Well, or even How Not to be Bored. For Gentleman, art is a practice of looking closely at things, of giving up perfectionism, of trying over and over again, of self-forgiveness and trust, and also of ethics – such as the time he declined a lucrative Post Office stamp design commission because Margaret Thatcher disapproved of his industry-critical approach. Detailed – although not exhaustively, or exhaustingly – under headings such as 'start small', 'travel light', 'don't put work off' and 'try and look at a subject from different angles'; a picture emerges of how to live a creative life in a world full of distractions and false goals. He is also spot on about dealing with procrastination: 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'you can feel so anxious about getting it right that you are reluctant to start.' Lessons for life, and plenty of good advice for young artists too.
Irish Times
a day ago
- General
- Irish Times
Tree Hunting by Paul Wood: a supremely fascinating book that seeks to channel our frequently unarticulated love for trees
Tree Hunting: 1,000 Trees to Find in Britain and Ireland's Towns and Cities Author : Paul Wood ISBN-13 : 978-0241502051 Publisher : Particular Books Guideline Price : £30 I recently observed an exchange of views on one of the social networks, to do with the felling of the tree that grew in the Sycamore Gap in the north of England . The trial of the men accused of destroying this local and national landmark had concluded in convictions , and now there was a buzz of comment: this was a case of sheer vandalism, the convicted men deserved prison, the loss of the tree was a tragedy, the whole episode was a sentimental storm in a teacup. One particular opinion caught my eye: that the felling of this particular tree was in fact no great loss, given that sycamores are ubiquitous in the landscape, and are not even a native species. I felt that this comment surely failed to recognise a fundamental fact: that we can indeed love individual trees, and experience the loss of a familiar tree as a bereavement. As Paul Wood has it in Tree Hunting, 'Our passionate response to trees' destruction shows how deeply we know it is wrong: to lose them feels heart-wrenching – outrageous, even – as though we were losing parts of ourselves.' Wood's supremely fascinating book seeks to channel this frequently unarticulated love, and to offer it a fresh focus. In paying attention to specific trees that grow today across urban Britain and Ireland, he invites us to appreciate more fully what we might otherwise simply pass by. [ Nature therapy: How to get your 'daily dose of trees' Opens in new window ] He has roamed these islands, and made his selection – and the result is a kind of illumination, and an exercise in mindfulness. And of seeing in global terms, in that so many of the trees planted across our landscape – like the fig, the mulberry, the sweet chestnut, and of course the sycamore – do not naturally belong here, have been imported, owe their presence to chance and to the vagaries of fashion, economics, and colonialism. READ MORE Ireland receives much attention in Wood's book, and it is gratifying to see many familiar friends – such as the spectacular Tree of Heaven growing beside the glasshouses in Dublin's National Botanic Gardens – spotlit in its pages. [ The Tree Hunters' Glasnevin focus is gratifying but it barely glances at the calamities created by colonialist adventurers Opens in new window ] But it is the less glamorous trees that particularly claim attention in this book, and that urge our feet to go wandering, and our eyes to look again with pleasure and appreciation.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Nova Scotia House' Reimagines London's Queer Life and History
LONDON — The British journalist Charlie Porter, who has just released his debut novel 'Nova Scotia House' (Particular Books), owes a lot of what he's learned about writing to fashion criticism. The former menswear critic of The Financial Times who has also penned two nonfiction books about clothing and style, says writing about fashion shows helped him process information, work out what to put where, and how to keep a reader 'tickled.' More from WWD Designers Toast 'From the Rez to the Runway' Author at Bookmarc Party French DJ Michel Gaubert Has Written a Book Kylie Manning Explores Time, Light, and Motherhood in 'There Is Something That Stays' at Pace Gallery 'Everyone has an idea of what a fashion show is, but the reality of it is so weird. Most people never get to go to a fashion show, so they don't really understand the weirdness of it. It's an education of processing information and just sitting there and listening to stuff and thinking about it,' he says. His book follows a similar pattern. There are lists and thoughts from the point of view of Johnny, a 45-year-old gay man reflecting on his life in the East End flat that belonged to his deceased lover, Jerry, who died in 1995 from an AIDS-related illness. The opening paragraph starts with a list of clothes that Johnny is ticking off in his head. 'Two pairs of sneakers, a pair of boots. Two coats — a waterproof and a duffel, back of the door — mine, not his.' Johnny is 19 when he meets Jerry, who is 45 and HIV positive. Porter says his aim was to document queer lives in the 20th century and to write about sex, love, HIV/AIDS, desire, counterculture, nightlife and community. 'So much goes undocumented because people lived closeted lives and the media was pretty much entirely homophobic. To actually find primary sources where you get an actual sense of being with a [queer] person is really difficult,' he contends. Porter uses the character of Jerry to pass down knowledge to Johnny of a life before the HIV/AIDS crisis. He touches on the 'philosophies and experiments' of queer men in the '60s and '70s. 'I'm very aware of the lack of passing down of knowledge, because people died. There were few people left to pass this chain of knowledge shared between generations,' he says. The Johnny character is partly autobiographical. 'He exists today. I wanted to write about someone my age who came to London at the same time I did,' says Porter, who, like his characters, lives in East London. But that's where the similarities stop. 'The house came first because I was thinking about a council block near where I live and I thought about who could be living in those flats,' he adds. Porter describes the house that Jerry and Johnny live in as if it were a character. He describes it as a sanctuary of love, while the garden acts as the home's beating heart. 'Houses can affect a relationship, and I wanted to think about [the characters] living in a space where their lives flowed with a garden that was westerly facing, so they got sunlight and could grow their own food,' he explains. The conversations and overthinking that take place in Nova Scotia House four years prior to Jerry's death shape Johnny's character. '[Johnny] is an exploration of who I could've been. He has emotional intelligence,' says Porter. When Porter arrived in London in the mid-'90s, he was terrified of experimenting with queer life in the city, and instead put all his energy into his journalism career. He was offered a place on the fashion journalism M.A. course at Central Saint Martins by Louise Wilson, the legendary course director for the M.A. fashion program who shaped the careers of designers including Lee Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane and Simone Rocha. 'I couldn't afford the course, so I had to get a regular job,' he says of securing his first job as a researcher at The Daily Express newspaper before moving on to The Times of London, Esquire U.K., The Guardian, GQ U.K. and Fantastic Man. After leaving publishing, he began writing books. His first, 'What Artists Wear' (Penguin U.K.), was published in 2021, followed by 'Bring No Clothes' (Penguin U.K.) in 2023. He's been writing fiction since 2008, although 'Nova Scotia House' is his first published work. 'Someone very senior in publishing in 2008 said to me, 'There's no market for gay fiction.' But I just kept writing for myself,' says Porter. Life has moved on since then, however, and he's already writing his second gay novel. Best of WWD Carmen Dell'Orefice, 93: The World's Oldest Supermodel Redefining Timeless Beauty and Ageless Elegance [PHOTOS] Donatella Versace's Daughter Allegra Versace Beck: Fashion Moments Through the Years [Photos] A Look Back at Vanity Fair Best Dressed Red Carpet Stars
