LIFE AS A HUMAN

Re-Writing

Returning Forward

I’ve started work on a new book. I can’t say much about it for want of various cats escaping from various bags, but it feels really good to be back with a pen in one hand and a pencil in the other.

After nearly six years of painting and working on apps, returning to books is a Cheshire Cat’s homecoming. The merging of words and images is second nature to me and this book— which is a long way from completion—seems to be emerging from its fog in the guise of ‘an epistolary time machine mystery’.

Over the years I’ve thought a lot about the union of text and art—the avalanche of questions that Griffin and Sabine spawned made that inevitable. “Why do you think people relate to your books? Which comes first the writing or the art? Where did you get the idea from?” Like all good questions they tend to lead to other more penetrating questions, questions for which the soul demands perceptive answers.

I think it is as important for an artist to write as it is for a writer to make art, partly because it broadens the individual and partly because it engenders experimentation. Living in the realm between two forms of expression requires constant invention, which demands mental and emotional adroitness. An internal flexibility that hopefully helps one scramble out of the pit of predictability that specialization is inclined to dig around one.

Before text, our ancestors existed in a realm of pictures, their dream-life and waking-life were essentially made of the same components. When we started using words we activated the other side of our brain, but in so doing we became enamoured with our capacity for logical thought, causing us to half-turn our backs on our previously learned pictorial intuition.

When word and picture marry, the left and right sides of the brain operate simultaneously, and a means of expression is available to us that bestows far more than the limited view of existence that one-sidedness can ever give.

For me, the alchemical marriage of art and writing offers a meeting ground where my two primary methods of comprehending the world can coexist and out of their coupling comes a creative stream of consciousness that hopefully will sweep me towards the end of new my book.

Photo Credits

First posted at Nick Bantock’s Blog

Guest Author Bio

Nick Bantock
Nick was schooled in England and has a BA in Fine Art (painting). He has authored 25 books, 11 of which have appeared on the best seller lists, including 3 books on the New York Times top ten at one time. ‘Griffin and Sabine’ stayed on that list for over two years. His works have been translated into 13 languages and over 5 million have been sold worldwide. Once named by the classic SF magazine Weird Tales as one of the best 85 storytellers of the century. His paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages and prints have been exhibited in shows in UK, France and North America. In 2010 Nick’s major retrospective exhibition opened at the MOA in Denver. His works are in private collections throughout the world. Nick has a lifetime BAFTA (British Oscar) for CD Rom ‘Ceremony of Innocence’, created with Peter Gabriel’s Real World.

Produced artwork for over 300 book covers (including works by Roth and Updike), illustrated Viking Penguin’s new translation of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’.

For 20 years he’s spoken and read to audiences throughout North America, Europe and Australia. He’s also given keynote and motivational speeches to corporations and teachers state conferences.

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Blog / Website: www.nickbantock.com