Illustration Friday: wheel

c. Susan Sorrell Hill

The Illustration Friday word of the week is wheel.

Have I mentioned here that in my twenty- and thirty-somethings, I worked as a Graphic Artist? I designed logos, posters, beautiful wedding announcements and stationary with fancy, illustrated borders. I made art for greeting cards, cartoons, product labels, signs, T-shirts, and generally anything that had art and lettering on it. In those days, the work of fine artist, illustrator and commercial artist were all mushed together, and computers had not yet arrived to complicate the scene. Graphic Artists wore all the hats.

With the advent of the computer, a whole new set of skills was suddenly required, and finding myself unwilling to learn them, I traded my Graphic Artist hat for making “art for the wall.” I never (well, almost never) looked back.

I like being a painter (as opposed to a Commercial Artist): I am more temperamentally suited to Inner Direction than Art Direction, and I work more creatively at my own pace. But having discovered Arthur Rackham, Trina Schart Hyman and Lisbeth Zwerger in my graphic days, I also adore illustrated books. Alas, the world of publishing has changed just as dramatically with the advent of the computer and digitally rendered art. It is indeed a brave new world. I’m still trying to find a way into that world without sacrificing my own sense of what I should be creating, and without retiring my paints and papers. Perhaps I should be “beating my own drum” in this rather public blog, but the truth is, I don’t have a clue where my work fits these days…

This year will mark my sixtieth birthday, and I am noticing in more and more places the ancient message: Life is a circle, Life is a wheel which turns and returns. This is the philosophy, in fact a spiritual belief, that all things arise and pass away–and inevitably will return again. I am encouraged that what has been “out of fashion” will inevitably return as the highly-touted Vintage and Retro, that Made By Hand, Beauty, Meaning, and Figurative Realism will all make resounding comebacks, that although old people will pass away in their time, new babies will be born, that wars will begin and peace will be found once more…that night will come and that the sun will rise in the morning. I am encouraged to believe that Art made with an old-fashioned brush and paper will once again be highly valued and find a wider audience (even if it takes longer, costs more, and I don’t know how to scan it or tweak it in Photoshop). I’m waiting, somewhat impatiently I admit. In the meantime, I’m painting.

 

Herb Shop logo, circa 1982      (pen & ink and Press-Type)      Remember those rub-on sheets? For a stroll back through memory lane, or an “Oh my God, I can’t believe people actually used that stuff” experience, visit this excellent post by Steven Heller.

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