I’ve just finished a piece for Autocar magazine: a buyers’ guide on the Jaguar S-Type R. One paragraph goes: “Such is life with Jags: every one I’ve owned has been a balti bowl of gourmet good times and e-coli lows. Pops to the shops have evolved into epic road trips, while romantic nights out have invariably ended in roadside recovery. I want to love them but, every so often, they fry my guts.”
“Every so often, they fry my guts” made me laugh out loud when I wrote it. I have no clue where it came from, or whether it will make it into print, but I laughed when I wrote it and laughed when I read it again the next day. This is the joy of creating for a living.
The painter, Brian Rice, said: “We make art because there is something inside the creative person that needs to get out. The poet, musician, actor, and visual artist all have a desire to express what they feel and to create something of great value. It’s a type of therapy or a form of meditation. Many do art for the pure joy of it.”
This resonates heavily with me and with those I know who regard their creativity as “doing” art. We don’t take part because it’s easy money.
Example: running around a freezing Californian hilltop photographing a 911 in the pitch dark is not something Jamie Lipman needs to do to pay the bills, but does he want to do it? More than anything. I’ve lost count of the times our shoots have evolved into festivals of flashbursts, whoops of joy and lengthy bouts of invented expletives, as what Jamie is seeing in his lens is just so good. Delight in creating new and thrilling swear words is something Jamie and I share at the deepest level of our friendship.
Many artists inspire me. Sometimes the fact that they are making a living doing what they love is enough, but mostly the arrangement of selected words on a page, the use of light in a photograph, or the choice of colours in a painting really gets me going. I was recently introduced to a painter whose work gave me a buzz. Her name is Anna-Louise Felstead.
A graduate of St Martin’s and the Royal College of Art, and no stranger to historic racing herself, Anna-Louise has a love-it-or-loathe-it style. I find her work bright, snappy and energetic, but some commercial artist friends who saw Anna’s material in a thread on impactbumpers.com were not as inspired: “Maybe if you’re into naive style paintings, but I could paint better than that when I was at junior school” said one, while another wrote: “a very bad caricature of Quentin Blake style and form at best.” Critics can be cruel!
I read to my kids every night, and part of the fun is sharing the illustrations. Young eyes don’t much care about line or perspective. They want to soak up atmosphere and engage with some personality in the work. It is only as we ‘mature’ that dimensions, perspective and what is allegedly right and proper take over.
Averse to rigid convention, I’d much prefer to invest in an offbeat and enthusiastic style that forces some emotional involvement, than a bland print from a poseur who can barely manage proportions. This kind of thing.
To me, Anna-Louise’s work is amongst the most unique in Porsche and classic/historic racing. As much as I see and enjoy the aesthetic, I can also feel her hunger for the subject, bursting with a zealous thirst to investigate the arrangement of classic shapes and contours.
In the same way that my self-entertaining (and untrademarked) word wankologist works perfectly in many day-to-day verbal abuse or pressure relief situations (see what I’m doing there)(and also there), so Anna-Louise’s developing style fits the bill for new and interesting output, when so much of what’s available is stale as prehistoric pitta bread.
Better to DO ART like Anna-Louise and catch a few arrows along the way, than sit half-arsed but unpunctured, in a pile of framed-up drab that counts for absolutely nothing. More power to Felstead’s elbow for keeping it real. Yes elbow, not legs.
You can see more of Anna-Louise’s work on her website. Or if you’re in Cornwall, visit the Peapod Gallery in Port Isaac. She has the life of Riley down there – obviously worth checking out!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Spot on, Mr. G.
As you know, a battle I fight all the time. I figure if I can do it, it ain't art. But if you can't get The Artists around you to get off their duff and do anything, something is better than nothing. Caring and interest doesn't always trump talent. but talent without interest is useless.
Spot on you too mate. Something interesting is better than nothing, especially if it inspires others to go one better, or even try to keep up! Anna-Louise is on her way to Monterey as we speak, so if you see her at work this weekend then say hello.
Same goes for anyone who is on their way to Laguna. It won't kill any of you to say hello and pay the artist a compliment. I'm sure she'd love to meet you. Do it for the community!
Best regards and good wishes to all of you who are trying to keep it real.