Multiples

Plastic (mostly) models … mostly airplanes and ships but also some tanks and soldiers. Nearly all Great War and World War II warplanes and warships … a few German jets (I was never all that interested in speed). Even tried my hand at technical illustration but let it slide when I realized that there wasn’t much of a market for German fighter plane renderings. I had a few impossible-to-find kits which I’d had imported from Germany or Italy. Not sure how my mother felt about all the sheets of swastika decals that arrived in the mail (her family having been murdered by the Nazis in the 1940s). Only had one flying model — a balsa wood de Havilland Chipmunk — that terrified me and made me heave a sigh of relief when it smashed into a garage wall on its maiden voyage. This mania started in Don Mills and continued after we moved into deeper suburbia (aka Scarborough) where I had regular war games with my friend in his parents’ basement … I still have a vivid memory of our re-enactment of the Battle of the River Plate with the pocket battleship Graf Spee and the cruisers Ajax, Exeter and Achilles in hot pursuit. Eventually I tired of building and meticulously painting tiny fighter planes so I took them out into the backyard and blew them to smithereens with my BB gun … all save an Italian Fiat CR42 biplane and a model of the ill fated German battleship Bismarck.

45 rpm singles … I had a fair collection of these including rarities by bands like The Who and the Merseybeats (that my grandparents had sent me from England. I even had those early recordings by the Beatles. Also had a few Buck Owens and the Buckaroos singles which heralded my eventual switch to country music. Not sure what became of these records though I still had the Buck Owens ones in the early 1970s (because we played them incessantly on the Mouse Lash Memorial Sound System at McClelland & Stewart).

Drawing, Book Design & Handwriting … In 1969 I graduated from the Advertising Department of the Ontario College of Art … certain that I didn’t want to hitch my train to the world of Advertising! So after some 30 or more interviews I found a spot aboard the Design Department of book publisher McClelland & Stewart. Apart from knowing very little about the logistics of designing books it was fairly obvious that my handwriting was far and away the worst in the department. So I taught myself a serviceable italic hand (peer pressure of the positive kind) and continued to refine it over the years. I had started out with a rather slow and laborious drawing style but soon found that clients expected things to be cranked out at a furious rate … so I developed a faster style (initially influenced by Heinz Edelmann, John Alcorn and Milton Glaser). Back in the 1970s we often had to pre-separate artwork which I found most enjoyable. I designed covers, jackets, page layouts, text and picture combinations, coffee table books, cookbooks, textbooks, novels, books of poetry and even a 2000+ page set of encyclopedias … anything and everything that came along. Our household book collection grew at a burgeoning rate. I plan to eventually write some blogs about specific projects as I think of them.

33-1/3 albums and cassette tapes … there was a certain overlap between my collections of singles and albums … I had all the Beatle albums, many by the Rolling Stones and the Byrds until I discovered Gram Parsons and Cosmic American Music in the late 1970s which made my album collection skyrocket. Eventually some music started being available on cassette rather than on vinyl so I made the switch and bought a cassette player.
 

Sketchbooks … Over the years I have developed quite a collection and it’s still growing! I tend to carry one everywhere and sometimes I’ve been known to make notes or even draw something. Looking at old books sometimes gives me new ideas. Suspect this will be an ongoing project.

CDs and MP3s … I resisted CDs until I found out that some of the music I craved no longer was manufactured on cassette. I actually bought my first three CDs before I had anything to play them on. I built a shrine hoping a player would appear but I guess my faith wasn’t strong enough. One of my CDs was actually played on a national radio show in 1993 before I was able to play it myself. I have downloaded some music (rarely for free) but still prefer to purchase CDs.

Websites … No sooner had I weaned myself off the demon television then I found myself hooked on Cyberspace. First it was e-mail, list serves and message boards. Once I parted ways in 2002 with the company I’d been designing textbooks for since 2000 I found my energies being largely transferred to yakking away on message boards devoted to artists I liked (such as Robbie Fulks) and some that I could take or leave (such as Cat Stevens). Then there was MySpace and later Facebook. Sometimes it feels better just to get away from all that by writing something like this. I went from being the #1 poster on the Fulks board to having over a thousand Facebook friends. Am I addicted? Is the Pope Catholic?

Stuffs … So what does someone like me do when the work seems to have all dried up? Dream up book concepts (one of them exists in print ready form but it may never emerge … still hoping), make handmade greeting cards (all good practice) and write blogs like this!

So what’s next? … I’m no futurist so I don’t really know. As Rodney Crowell said, “I’m still learning how to fly.”

http://www.duvidoodles.com/index.html

Fads and Then Some

My arrival in North America managed to coincide fortuitously with the brief but widespread Davy Crockett Craze. All over the continent young boys felt an overwhelming urge to wear buckskins, coonskin hats and moccasins while carrying flintlock rifles and Bowie knives. The cause was a three part Walt Disney series which ran on consecutive Sunday nights about “the king of the wild frontier” which started in the backwoods of Tennessee and worked its way down the Mississippi River to a suitably heroic ending in Texas at the ill-fated Alamo mission. Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen (as Davy Crockett and his sidekick George Russell) were our heroes of the moment. So long as I didn’t open my mouth to betray my British accent I fit in swimmingly. I don’t think I actually had any fringed buckskins but I did have a pair of moccasins, a faux coonskin hat, a fake powder horn and a plastic musket. All my acquaintances looked exactly the same as I did (more or less … some managed to finagle their parents into taking the buckskin plunge).

            While most of the boys were immersed in this epic historical tableau, their female numbers were becoming obsessed with Elvis Presley … they all came to school sporting Elvis binders emblazoned with vivid fan shots of The King’s sneering visage. I never cared too much for Elvis … still don’t.

            Once Davy, George Russell, Colonel Travis, Thimblerig (the Mississippi gambler who had been picked up along the way) and Jim Bowie had all bitten the dust (and gone on to become the stuff of legend) at the Alamo, the fad slowly worked itself out. I wonder whatever happened to all those muskets and coonskin hats?

            While waiting impatiently for the next fad to get underway (I was never very competent at hula hoops) I chanced to see John Huston’s film of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Soon after as I was returning from an expedition in the Don Valley I came upon something stupendous — a discarded white metal object (I always took it for a vase but who keeps flowers in a metal container?) that looked almost exactly like Captain Ahab’s prosthetic leg in the movie. I seized it and took it home (wondering what I might say about it should I meet anyone I knew). I squeezed my foot into it — it was perfect — but something was missing. A harpoon. It just so happened that we were going to the Swains’ in Guelph that weekend. Len Swain was very handy and had a well-stocked workshop in his basement. He asked if there was anything he could make for me and without hesitation I said, “A harpoon please, Uncle Len.” So Len set about making my dream come true with a long piece of dowel, a plywood “blade” and some electrical tape. Can’t remember if Len added the rope or if that was the doing of my father and I once we returned to Don Mills. I was now all set with my peg leg and a hearty harpoon … any whales that had the temerity to show themselves in my part of the world didn’t stand a chance.

            Nobody at Norman Ingram Memorial Public School had any idea what plots were being hatched in their midst. Eventually my parents took me to Wasaga Beach for some lakeside fun. I arrived with my harpoon and peg leg and starting scouring the horizon for telltale cetacean spouts. I must have seen one (or at least had a whiff of land where there be no land) for Dad had to retrieve me from the lake where I was hurling my harpoon out and reeling it back in with the rope. He threatened to never bring me there again if I insisted on bringing my Moby-Dick props.

            I was briefly excited to learn that a good friend of my parents worked for a whaling company but my crest fell when it was revealed that he was their accountant.

            So ended this phase of my childhood though Moby-Dick was bound to roil again from time to time as you will see.

            I also had a Bowie knife at some point … Dad’s old hunting knife … though I managed to lose it in a muddy stream (much to my father’s consternation).


http://www.duvidoodles.com/index.html

Theo Dimson & Me

(Written in January 2012 upon learning of Theo Dimson's death.)

1969 … an easy year to pin down as it’s when I graduated from the Advertising Department of the Ontario College of Art. I must have gone for more than 30 interviews (one of our instructors, Bob Mitchell, had given us a list of people to see about work … he suggested that if they didn’t have a job they may well know of someone who did) and at some point I found myself at the door of Reeson, Dimson & Smith in the office tower at the southeast corner of St. Clair and Avenue Road where I was bound to have the second most memorable interview of the lot (the most memorable being the very last one that actually netted me an underling art department position). I was beckoned in by Theo Dimson himself who looked much trendier than I had in all my time at OCA — I recall him being a symphony of flamboyant bell bottoms and colourful paisley patterns. Theo was very friendly and affable. The walls were festooned with very impressive samples of the studio’s work. After looking through my portfolio, Theo said something about my work being evenly split between design and illustration and that someday someone would make me choose one or the other — and that I shouldn’t let them. Nobody had ever suggested this to me before. I realized that it made a lot of sense. I thanked Mr. Dimson and returned to my quest for employment. With this nugget of knowledge wedged deep within my head.

Soon after I lucked into book publisher McClelland & Stewart where my first employer, Frank Newfeld, was also a designer/illustrator … so he wasn’t going to be the one to make me choose. Over the years I designed many books and even got to illustrate some of them plus I diversified and did some magazine and newspaper illustration. I continued to see work by Theo Dimson … he even did a book jacket design while I was still at M&S (for a corporate history of Eaton’s). We were all very impressed by the quality of Theo’s finished artwork. Then in 1988 personal computers appeared and took the book industry (and everywhere else) by storm but I decided not to join and instead develop my career as an illustrator. I was told by a number of production people that if I didn’t get a computer they wouldn’t be able to use me to design their books anymore. So that was that. I lapsed into a sort of Luddite wasteland for a decade … at some point I threw out all my Letraset, gave away my photostat camera, waxer and discarded all my type catalogues. Didn’t need any of that stuff in my new job description of illustrator only.

One morning in 1999 I awoke (in the midst of a couple of design jobs that had shown up that I was woefully ill-equipped to handle) and remembered Theo Dimson’s warning from so many decades before. Head smack! I’d let it happen and I was no longer a designer. I’d allowed “them” to force me to make that choice.

I bought a computer, scanner, printer, programs, etc and I once again set up shop as a designer. It didn’t take me long to get back into the swing. Interestingly virtually all the people who had made me choose seemed to have disappeared. I now use my computer for both design and illustration applications.

I was very sorry to learn that Theo Dimson has passed on. That is one very impressive legacy of design and illustration that he left behind. RIP.

From Dimson's Facebook page....

See life as a 10 year old
Dress like an 18 year old
Think like a 25 year old
Beautiful women are my elixir of life

http://www.duvidoodles.com/index.html

Reunions

Thomson C.I. … at which it sank home that the only people I had ever had much in common with at high school were Don, Denise and Ann. There were several teachers that seemed to remember me … not always in a good way … one teacher pointed out that one of our classmates now looked older than he did which was impossible. A female classmate revealed that she was already a grandmother while some of us were just starting to breed. Missed the next one … not intentionally. And it was rumoured they'd be tearing D&MTCI down. But it's a year or two later and that hasn't happened yet. So we may yet get another kick at the can.

OCA … I was quite frankly appalled when informed that a limited OCA reunion was just going to consist of us boomers from the 60s and that it would be a nostalgic evening of 60s hits. Did that back in the 60s and it was now the start of a new millennium and nostalgia was never really my cup of tea anyway. So for starters the food was all Thai food … I doubt there were any back when we were at art college … Chinese yet but Japanese and Thai eateries hadn’t really become commonplace here yet. It was great to see the old guard … Stewie was there with his new wife, Ginny, Carol and an assortment of others. Many of us were stunned by the spicy foodstuffs. Then the music began. It was a far cry from nostalgic which was fine by me. There were strange acts culminating in a quartet called Random Order aka Three Dykes and a Fag. By now all the OCA people had disappeared … including my ride home who I’d come downtown with. I looked around and discovered I was surrounded by hordes of tattooed and pierced lesbians. I was definitely the Odd Man Out so I quietly exited the club and made my way home. On the subway I suddenly realized that I had indeed had a true Sixties Experience … I’d listened to some brand new music and I was going home by public transit … both things that I did regularly in my teen years. Those who left early missed the Real Nostalgia.

http://www.duvidoodles.com/index.html

HOKORI!

New project … I think I have enough material to produce a searing cautionary tale about something that's happening in our neighbourhood. Can't go into it right now because some names will have to be changed to protect the guilty. The writer will be the infamous Clayton B. Ashley and the illustrations will be by yours truly. A sketch is included to whet your appetites. Ashley was so thrilled to be offered this project that he rattled off a poem on his trusty Underwood:

Hokori! Let the carnage begin!

Oh, Priestly … do your worst!

Besiege us with thy mighty din

But take that wretched cross down first!

Ashley tells me this book needs to be more wide ranging. He's suggesting it starts at 1988 when Shaw found himself in the Wilderness after he refused to jump aboard the Technology bandwagon and nobody can possibly know where it will all end. Time will tell.....

http://www.duvidoodles.com/index.html

Time Travel

Just found this blog over at MySpace … 2008? That's so long ago … half a decade … and me wondering when we're going to do another … must be the end of that line.

We put our 2008 church musical to bed on Feb 1, 2 & 3 ... the final week was incredibly intense ... rehearsals all weekend, Monday and Tuesday nights, (Wednesday off for some reason), dress rehearsal Thursday night ... opening night Friday, second performance Saturday, closing with a Sunday matinee. Phew. This show was so far beyond anything we've done before that I'm not sure where we go from here. We can't really go back to our casual modus operandi. The secret was having a REAL director this time around ... our previous directors were fine but they were like me ... part timers. Gerald was the real deal and he informed us that he saw no difference between amateur and professional theatre. It all had to be top notch. So no parts with two or three people grouped in front of a closed curtain ... in fact there was no curtain. This time the play happened in the church proper rather than on the stage in the auditorium. Friday night was a bad snow day in Toronto ... we only had around 100 people in the audience ... but they were really enthusiastic (as shown by their having braved the perilous driving and impossible parking). The weekend calmed down weatherwise and both performances were pretty much played to packed pews. The play was the creation of our director (Gerald Isaac) ... based on four plays by Stephen Schwartz: Godspell, Pippin, Children of Eden and Wicked ... our version was called SCHWARTZSPELL. There were 25 of us in the ensemble cast ... there were some 30 songs, several intense dance numbers, two keyboardists, some percussion, lighting, a smoke machine ... all played out in the sanctuary of St Clement's church.

Synchronicity

One day in 1994 I was perusing a magazine rack when a copy of New York magazine jumped out at me … there was a picture of Anna Nicole Smith with a title superimposed over her that read White Trash Nation. Having just received a copy of the White Trash Cookbook I felt I’d better snap it up. While reading through it ravenously I came across a small picture of a cute blonde lady hiding behind a Gibson electric guitar. This had nothing to do with the theme of the issue. I read the accompanying article and learned that this was Sara Hickman of Texas. Seems she’d had to sell her house to pay for the rights to her own music. This didn’t sound right. And she had a new record coming out soon called Necessary Angels. Decided I’d get it to check her out.

Soon after I visited a small local record store. The clerk said he’d never heard of Ms. Hickman and I was about to leave when I looked at a tall stack of CDs that had arrived that day and at the very bottom I was able to make out the title Necessary Angels. “I’ll take it!” I said as the clerk started working away at getting it out from the very depths of the pile. The New York article had described Ms. Hickman as being the distaff Lyle Lovett but with better hair. Since I was already a Lovett fan this seemed to make sense. Loved the CD from start to finish … later found her two earlier releases (Equal Scary People and Shortstop) on cassette in the same store where the clerk claimed he’d never heard of Ms. Hickman. Major talent with a powerhouse voice.

So soon after I was at a small club (no longer in existence … may have been called The Reverb) to see another of my favourites (possibly Joe Henry) and in the stairwell was a large Necessary Angels poster … seems Sara Hickman was to be  appearing locally in the very near future. I was there waiting with a friend and his wife. Sara had a cold and wasn’t in perfect performance mode but it was still a great show (and I learned that one of the songs on the new record was inspired by Jane Fonda). It turned out that this appearance was a media splash and nobody expected many people to be there who weren’t record execs or reporters. But there we were enjoying ourselves immensely! Sees someone else was appearing after Sara and since I had to get a rough ready I decided to stay.

But my friends left and happened to meet Sara near the exit. Robert explained that we weren’t media types and had come specifically to see her perform. Sara was so grateful that she gave Robert a big hug (not sure how his wife felt about that). I didn’t find out about this until the next day. Rats.

Anyway Sara and I corresponded for several years and eventually even became Facebook friend — whatever THAT means. But it all started with that New York magazine cover and a cookbook.

Down & Outrageous

Dang all this up and down inclement weather anyway! A couple of days ago I realized that my trusty boots had given up the ghost when I could see daylight through them as I was about to put ‘em on. No wonder my right foot had been getting damp of late. The last couple of days of alternating freezing rain and wet snow meant that many of my normal routes had become virtually impassable … certainly with leaky boots and the alternative … my regular walking shoes. After getting more than my share of severe soakers I was drying the shoes beside the fire thinking about what I could do (the obvious solution was to buy some new boots but now that we are a single car family it’s not that easy getting to a shoe store). So the next morning when I had to make my way by foot to my bank I came up with a brilliant idea. I’d wrap my shoes in plastic grocery bags then it wouldn’t matter if I stepped into a deep puddle. I somehow decided this made me look like a Wehrmacht soldier on the steppes of Mother Russia. So I set off for the bank. As I entered this house of commerce I began to have serious misgivings … maybe what I looked more like was a homeless street person. Oh dear. But it was too late to turn back. So I approached the teller … who just happened to be the bank’s manager. Did my business and left (with various people staring down at my feet). Later when I told my wife about what had happened she was mortified. (And I didn’t dare tell her about the manager!) So I just came back from Yorkville Mall with a brand spanking new pair of boots. Probably will just have them broken in as the weather turns for the better.