Peake's Pictures

I'm always fascinated by authors who are also artists and one of my very favourites is Mervyn Peake of Gormenghast fame. The Guardian features a slide show of his work to celebrate the acquisition by The British Library of the author's 39 Gormenghast notebooks, his complete set of original drawings for Lewis Carroll's Alice books and personal correspondence with author.  More about the collection here.

Chin Yew's Clouds

At Seksan's, just as we were packing up, a young man called Chin Yew came up to me and put his book in my hands.

The Boy Who Loved Clouds is whimsical and beautifully illustrated. I told him I could see the influence of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and he said that indeed Le Petit Prince is one of his favourite books.

I had no idea of the interesting story behind the book until I found Chin Yew's website and read this article in KLue.

He graduated from Lim Kok Wing majoring in animation in 2001, but due to a lack of job opportunities he found himself working a nine to five job in printing sales. Then he decided to break free in a spectacular way! :

In 2005, he rented a room near his house for 30 days, and bought 40 large four-by-four foot canvases. He then blogged about this whim, firmly stating that come August, he would paint each canvas within a month and blog an entry of the artistic and personal process daily. He soon found out that this escape was rather over ambitious.

Firstly, he had to leave his house in a shirt and tie, and make it seem he still went to work for the sake of his parents. As tedious as it sounds, like most, his dad never saw art as a proper job. Secondly, and most importantly, he would have to face himself as his biggest critic. For one, Chin Yew hadn’t picked up a brush since school – his techniques would be rusty, while his expectations of his capabilities still remained. “It’s a painful thing for an artist. I felt like I was dirtying the white canvases instead of beautifying them,” he admits. But he trucked on anyway. Focusing only on the colours black, white and red, Chin Yew successfully churned 40 paintings, spurring much interest and praise.

On his 30th day, he passed the torch to his friend who underwent the same project for that month of October. And ever since, the site has been hosting guest artists who want to try the 30-day project for themselves. Chin Yew himself has been annually tapping into 30-day series. In 2006, he explored The Boy Who Loved Clouds. In 2007 and 2008, he produced a graphic novel, I See So Many Butterflies,

It sounds like a sort of Nanowrimo for art! (Nanoartmo?) You can see some very exciting artwork from Chin Yew and others who have particiapted in the project here.

Amir Muhammad who knows a talented illustrator when he sees one has baggsied Chin Yew to illustrate his next volume of Politicians Say the Darndest Things. Let's hope his fortunes change ...

Fairy Tales for Grown Ups

Many of the pictures, with their echoes of fairy tales and children’s stories, might be described as “charming”, or even “cute”, but then on the next page the reader is confronted with an image that totally jars – a headless torso, a tree sprouting from the top of a boy’s head, a strange monster, or an unearthly fruit. ... It’s a dissonance that fascinates, and it can be found in the accompanying poetry, too. ...

... The book’s slightly other worldly quality is further emphasised by the quaint formality of Shahril’s word choice (for example, enraptured, partake, comely, reverie, perchance, methinks), items that have long slipped from the general English lexicon. And the poems themselves, often written in rhyming quatrains, are often reminiscent of Victorian verse. (Think Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll.)

From my review of Shahril Nizam's magical collection of illustrations and poetry If Only, in Starmag today.

The book has two different covers, so you can choose the one you like best!

Pak Samad's Land

I am much fascinated to learn that author laureate A. Saman Said is also a talented artist and more fascinated still to learn how he uses his sketches as part of his preparation for writing.

E.N. de Silva writes in Starmag today:

For Pak Samad, as he’s widely known, the manuscripts are experimental overtures that are parallel and almost second nature to his work.

“When I write, describe a place, create a mood, drawing helps to extends the possibilities of imagination,” said the 72-year-old in a telephone interview before the launch of Daerah Samad. “I can’t do without those scribbles; they form the heartbeat to my writings.”

The images illuminate the words in compelling ways. For instance, one of his manuscripts appears to detail the thoughts of a person witnessing the marriage of his or her youngest daughter. To this raw and personal rumination, which was initially crossed out and then rewritten, Pak Samad added a swirl of jagged and cursive lines that seem to illustrate internalised and torn emotions.

The author/artist most often uses serviettes in cafes as his canvas, preferring those in Dome, Coffee Bean and Starbucks because of their better quality! He says he has a collection of over a thousand of them and has kept the ones which most informed his work:

The array of serviettes, which run through the years, deals with a variety of subjects, ranging from whimsical self-portraits and elaborately penned prose framed around calligraphic blobs and swirls to detailed sketches of those symbols of modernity, a mobile phone, a bottled drink and a wristwatch.

But one of the more compelling sketches is the signature piece of the exhibition, depicting two elegant, willow-like trees shooting out of some shrubs.

Examples of more formal sketches. The words in the sketch on the extreme left tell the thoughts of a father witnessing the marriage of his child while the jagged lines surrounding the words graphically illustrate the strong emotions present.
A discoloured stain, perhaps of coffee, lingers at the side of the red- and black-inked sketch, which, to me, somewhat emphasises how Pak Samad’s creative flights of fancy had to be made concrete on mundane, every day objects like coffee-stained serviettes.

“This particular sketch was about growth, regeneration,” says Pak Samad.

“I can’t quite remember when I did this sketch but I do remember the mood, the feeling and the intention – and that’s all that is important to me.”

The exhibition Daerah Samad: 100 Sketches by A. Samad Said runs until July 15 at Galeri Petronas.

Raja Ahmad Aminullah delivered the opening address at the opening of the exhibition and you can read it (in Malay) on the Kakiseni website.

String Hoppers

Sharanya's posted up eating a $5 plate of string hoppers, I think of my father by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha over on our poetry blog : it's all about the power of food to define who we are and to bring back memories.

$5 for a plate of string hoppers? I used to pay - wait for it - £7 (almost RM50!) for a single utthapam when I was back in London, and it was nowhere near as good as the ones I enjoyed at a tatty hole-in-the-wall place in Cheras for less than RM2 ... but somehow still worth it.

My funniest food moment came one day at Heathrow when I was on my way back to visit my family in England. I got stopped by a beturbaned Sikh customs officer who wanted to search my luggage.

Out came all these little plastic bags containing dried leaves and powders and some stinky resinous stuff which he held at arms length suspiciously.

They're my spices, I pleaded. I need to cook my Malaysian food ...

It was such a funny piece of brown/white/asian/British role reversal!

The picture below is Romesh Gunaskera's drawing String Hoppers which I purloined from the South Asia Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive from which I stole pictures of his drafts some time back.

I'm feeling hungry now!

Writers who Illustrate

My interview with novelist/playwright/artist/illustrator Edward Carey in Starmag today. The brief was to focus mainly on his involvement in the Macbeth in the Shadows project.

Those of us who were lucky enough to hear Carey read from his novel-in-progress, (provisionally titled Little after the stature of it's diminutive heroine) on Tuesday night at Maya gallery really had a treat. The story is a delight, very darkly humourous. And I loved the way he became his characters as he read: the macabre doctor with a collection of body parts in bottles in his lab, the mother who becomes his housekeeper and later commits suicide, and the child, Marie, who narrates the tale. (Do drop by and read Minamona's account of the evening.)



Must confess I'm absolutely fascinated by what Carey had to say during my interview with him about the way in which his art feeds into his writing. He has more to say about the subject in this article .

Carey's first novel, Observatory Mansions, actually grew from a character he found himself sketching over and over, while wondering who on earth he was. This character was eventually given words and became the white-gloved Francis Orme who narrates the very dark adult fairy tale. There are nine of Carey’s etching’s in the book and he also had an exhibition in Ireland eighteen months or so ago of items listed in the eccentric inventory list at the end of the book.



When Carey came to write his second novel, Alva and Irva, he made an intricate plasticine sculpture of the imaginary city in which the story is set.

And for Little (to be published later in the year) he reckons he will have completed several pieces of sculpture including a 4’6’ ventriloquist doll which wears a wig made from his wife’s hair, carved wooden masks and a wax death mask.

I told Carey that the strange gothic world of his novels and illustrations remind me of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, an absolute favourite of mine.



Was Peake an influence? “Yes," he says, particularly becasue publishers don't especially like to novelists who want to include illustrations: "Peake gives me faith to keep going on. I love his work.” Other writer/illustrators he admires enormously include Scottish writer Alasdair Gray



and Bruno Shultz, a Polish writer who wrote two books of short stories before being murdered by the Gestapo.



Carey also mentioned other writer/illustrators whom he greatly admires (and some of the names on the list really surprised me): Kipling, August Strinberg, Victor Hugo, Hans Christian Anderson and Robert Louis Stevenson.

My own interest in the way that art might work alongside writing springs from a great desire to try to understand how the creative process works for different individuals. I've experimented a little bit with drawing as a way into writing on my courses and have found that it leads to some of the strongest pieces of writing. I'd like to push this further.

Shakespeare in the Shadows

Monday learned about a very exciting project by Pusaka (Centre for the Study and Documentation of Traditional Performance in Malaysia), in association with The British Council. Called Macbeth in the Shadows, it involves the adaptation of Shakespeare's play for wayang kulit. The performance will be staged at the new Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre in September.

The project brings together one of Malaysia's top dalangs (shadow puppet master) Abdullah Ibrahim (also known as Dollah Baju Merah) ; British novelist, playwright and illustrator, Edward Carey; and poet, writer and translator, Eddin Khoo. And its aim is not only to carry on the tradition of wayang kulit, but to expand its vocabulary with new stories, puppet design and techniques of crafting. You can read all about the project in Starmag, this coming Sunday, and also my interview with Edward Carey: I'll post links then.



Carey and Khoo making puppets

Traditional art forms are in grave danger of extinction in Malaysia, and I thought one of the speakers at the press conference, YB Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, chairman of Pusaka, hit the nail on the head when he said: "The government as a whole should do more. If you don't keep this alive, then something more important will die too."



Carey's drawing of the witches

Carey echoed this when I spoke to him: "It's awful what's happening to the culture. Things should be cherished. Mak Yong and Main Puteri are in a very fragile state. It's so important the work that Pusaka is doing. ... in many countries Pak Dollah would be seen as a national treasure and it's a great shame that he isn't."

I have only seen wayang kulit only once, and it was an unforgettable experience. Badan Warisan arranged a performance by a group from Kedah and it was held in the space underneath the "rumah penghulu": the beautifully restored Malay house. I did not understand too much of the Malay because the dialect was so thick - but it was so fast paced and exciting and very very funny with many contemporary puppets being used.

And so now I'm so excited that Macbeth is going to be given the same kind of treatment. Maybe, just maybe, it will revive interest in this wonderful art form and encourage others to approach it in new ways.

Home on the Range

Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Profile: Annie Proulx

" ... she had also established an obsessively researched method of working: Every phrase is earned, double-earned, triple-earned. She conducts multiple interviews, about knife-grinding, for example, that may result in only a sentence; she keeps lists of names, from phone books, help-wanted ads (displaying a distinct taste for the unusual); she goes to every place she describes, painting watercolours of landscapes in order to fix them in her mind; collects impressions always, in case they are someday useful: "I have scores of different skies to draw on - I go to sky descriptions that have been written from the real skies that I see and pick out the one that works for me." She writes in longhand, because she believes writing on a computer produces facile prose."

"... Perhaps it is this intensity that brings many to the conclusion that the short story is really her medium; in Close Range, the Wyoming-themed collection that followed Accordion Crimes , she is appreciably more at home. "I think she writes some of the bravest short fiction I know," says Goldman. "She has made the American short story new." Proulx's attempt to explain the attraction is revealing: in the brevity of the short story, she says, "lies the scope, or the possibility of allowing something to be truthful or brutal. There are some wonderful short novels though, that manage to have a strange and excellent harshness." "