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OVERLAND is out now!

Order a copy here!

Welcome to Overland! Where the California sun shines down on synthetic grass and plastic oranges bedeck the trees all year round. Steam billows gently from the chimney tops and the blue tarpaulin lake is open for fishing…

Hollywood set-designer George Godfrey has been called on to do his patriotic duty and he doesn’t believe in half-measures. If he is going to hide an American aircraft plant from the threat of Japanese aerial spies he has an almighty job on his hands. He will need an army of props and actors to make the Lockheed factory vanish behind the semblance of a suburban town. Every day, his “Residents” climb through a trapdoor in the factory roof to shift model cars, shop for imaginary groceries and rotate fake sheep in felt-green meadows.

Overland is a beacon for the young women labouring below it: Queenie, dreaming of movie stardom while welding sheet metal; Kay, who must seek refuge from the order to intern “All Persons of Japanese Ancestry”. Meanwhile, George’s right-hand Resident, Jimmy, knows that High Command aren’t at all happy with the camouflage project...

With George so bewitched by his own illusion, might it risk confusing everybody – not just the enemy?

Overland is a book like no other -- to be read in landscape format. Based on true events, it is a novel where characters' dreams and desires come down to earth with more than a bump, confronting the hardships of life during wartime. As surreal and playful as it is affecting and unsettling, no-one other than Graham Rawle could have created it.

Tri Pact Conference King's College, London.

The Tri-Pact conference on copyright and intellectual property at Kings College last week gathered some really interesting speakers and panelists. Here is a great blog piece by Owen Gallager, one of the speakers, who writes an account of the day's event.

Cinematic Bricoleurs

I'm speaking at a conference this Friday January 8th at King's College, Strand, London. It's about

REMIXING, RESTYLING AND REPURPOSING IN CONTEMPORARY FILMMAKING PRACTICE

This one-day event - delivered as part of the AHRC funded Tracking IP Across the Creative Technologies project - will explore key contributions to the field of remixing, restyling and repurposing existing audiovisual material (sourced from archives, and both the commercial and public domains) in contemporary filmmaking practice.

I'll be talking about my new Woman's World film project. Event details here.

New Year's Resolution

Keep blog updated.

Tom Phillips in conversation

I came across a recording of me in conversation with the wonderful Tom Phillips. I had not heard it before. He's a very clever and interesting artist. I can't believe that was over seven years ago. Here is the link.

This is a recording of Tom Phillips in conversation with Graham Rawle on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of works from A Humument, curated by Jane Furness at the Keillor Library, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Please note : the talk lasts approximately 38 minutes.
Recorded on 6th October 2007 Hawthornden Theatre.

Teal Triggs - Woman's World

I'm extremely flattered to see that the highly influential Teal Triggs has been sent into 'literary and design heaven' by Woman's World, one of the books she talks about on this recent posting on an interview about her bookshelf on It's Nice That. Teal is Professor of Graphic Design and Associate Dean at the Royal College of Art.

Visiting Professor NUA

I've been made Visiting Professor of Illustration at Norwich University of the Arts. That's quite an honour and I am very pleased to be associated with NUA. I will be giving my inaugural-professorial-trying-to-sound-smart-ial lecture at 6pm on Wednesday April 15th. The title of the talk is Writing With Scissors: A Sideways Look at Narrative Design. If you're in the area, or feel like trekking across the country to hear me speak, the details are here on the university website.

Association of Illustrators Industry Insights

I did an interview for the 'Members Only' section of the Association of Illustration website. I'm not a member so I haven't seen it up and running. Perhaps you are and you have? Anyway, it's on their website. Here are some screen shots they sent me, which might be too small to read. Oh well. Try clicking to enlarge.

Confessions of a Catastrophist

Carlo Gebler's excellent Confessions of a Catastrophist is finally published. Here is the book jacket I did for it and here is a Youtube link to Carlo reading a passage from it.

Long Time No Blog

I haven't posted anything in months. I've been busy writing my book Overland (Draft 5 now finished), and I have lots and lots of playing cards found by others that need scanning so that I can put them up here for all to see. Coming soon.

Malicious Damage - Cancelled

Sadly, the Malicious Damage colloquium in Southampton (see below) has been cancelled. Do not come along for my workshop because I will not be there and neither will anyone else.

Art Workers Guild - Table Top Museum Show

I forgot to mention this. Taking place today. I will be exhibiting my 20 year collection of playing cards found on the street.

The Art Workers’ Guild is proud to present the first exhibition of its kind: “The TABLE-TOP MUSEUM SHOW” Bro. Stephen Fowler and his panel of expert Guild Curators including Prue Cooper, George Hardie, Rachael Matthews and Graham Rawle have selected an exciting array of Table Top Museums.
And here they are … James Birch ‘The Museum of Human Hairnets’, Graham Rawle ’52 Pick-Up’, Rebecca Jewell ‘A Cabinet of Feathers’, Jo Volley ‘Pigments & Stains’, Nicholas Cooper ‘British Bricks’, Nigel Grimmer ‘The Gay Doll Museum’, Peter Quinnell ‘Plastic Thimble Roundup’, Tif Hunter – ‘Beards,Bonnets, Bicycle and Bad Boys’, Simon Seddon ‘The Pear-Ovum’, Harriet Cory- Wright ‘Casting Modernity’, Sallyanne Wood ‘Leg Dressings’, Stephen Braque ‘Art from Fire’, Alastair Brotchie ‘Anecdoted Togographies of Chance’, Peyton Skipwith ‘The New Forest Toy Collection’, Mark Pawson ‘Viking Army Noggins’, Theo Wood ‘The Museum of Space Exploration’, George Hardie ‘The Concatenateum’, Antranig Basman ‘Sinclair Treasures of the Eighties’, Caroline Bullock ‘Cottages and Castles’, Tony McSweeney ‘Family Butchers’ Bags’, Michael Marriot ‘Museum of Intelligent Devices’, Richard Wentworth ‘The Sykes-Picot Memoir’.
The one-day exhibition of chosen collections will take place on Sunday 12th October. Entrance will be free, all are welcome and there will be a Pay Bar and a free Tea Party.
Sunday, October 12th  at 2:00pm – 7:30pm. The Art Worker’s Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT

Malicious Damage Colloquium at Southampton

I'm running a collage workshop at an all-day event, held at Southampton Solent University on Thursday October 30th, on the power and influence of collage. My workshop will invite participants to tell me something I don't already know.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

The Encyclopaedia of Things I Didn’t Know

 ‘Did you know that emus can’t walk backwards or that Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button? I did. Did you know that Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise; that rabbits can’t vomit; or that Barry Manilow is an anagram of Library Woman? I knew all of those things too. Why don’t you tell me something I don’t already know?’

In his quest to compile a comprehensive encyclopaedia of things he didn’t know, collage artist Graham Rawle invites you to provide him with a fascinating fact to add to his archive. It can come from the world of science, history or nature—or it could be something personal: your father’s hat size, the opening hours of your local Costcutter, or what your Auntie Maureen likes to spread on her toast. From the astounding to the trivial, all of the collected facts will be gathered together in a giant online encyclopaedia, providing a fountain of knowledge to delight and enthral all of humanity.

HOW TO TAKE PART

At the I Did Not Know That! collage workshop, each participant will have access to scissors, glue and an exciting range of magazines containing every word or image he or she might need to create a special collage. Each completed piece of artwork will be photographed for inclusion in an online archive and displayed during the workshop in an ever-expanding wall frieze of little-known facts. Your contribution can play a vital part in building this extraordinary archive: The Encyclopaedia of Things I Didn’t Know. 

More details and list of speakers can be found here. BOOK NOW!

Wizard of Oz Conference - Brighton

I'm going to be talking about my illustrated version of The Wizard of Oz at a conference at the University of Brighton, 21st –22nd November 2014.

The Wizard of Oz and the Cultural Imagination: A Conference celebrating and interrogating 75 years of the MGM Musical' taking place at the University of Brighton, Friday 21 and Saturday 22 November 2014.
The fee includes lunch and refreshments on both days and free entry to the screening of the 'Singalong' Blu-ray version of the film on Friday evening. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? More information can be found here. Booking details are here.

Text and Image at Arvon

Tomorrow I start teaching a week long Text and Image course at The Arvon Foundation in Totleigh Barton, Devon - nearest village, Sheepwash. I'll be teaching it with my co-tutor David Pearson, renowned book and book jacket designer. Our guest lecturer on Wednesday is the excellent Margaret Huber talking about visual diaries. The Arvon Foundation is a wonderful writer's residency retreat. It's always exhausting teaching a course, but incredibly rewarding. I love it there.

Interview by Hardy Parker in The Loop

In the latest issue of The Loop, the excellent children's magazine 'for kids who are into everything and anything' there is an interview with me by Hardy Parker who came to the studio a few weeks ago for a chat. He has done an amazing job, all the more remarkable since he is only 10 years old. His questions were great and his reporting is very accurate. (I can almost hear my own annoying voice when I read it.) Amazing job. It's too long to include here, but do check it out.
The interview was arranged by photographer Jenny Lewis who also took the picture of us. Jenny is a wonderful portrait photographer who came to the studio to take pictures of me and Margaret for her Hackney Studio project where she photographs (Hackney) artists in their studios, the next subject being suggested the previous one, which creates a lovely meandering chain of linked artist. Here are some of the ones she took of us, but you should visit her website to see more of her work.

Textures Exhibition - Johannesburg

It's been and gone, but I've only just found out about it. In April 2014 Woman's World was part of an exhibition of artists' books iat the University of Johannesburg, South Africa: Textures: an exhibition of text, textures and structure in artists' books, curated by Jack Ginsberg, David Paton and Rosalind Cleaver. It included books by Tom Phillips, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ilia Zdanevich, Naum Gronvskii, Mark Danielewski, Hedi Kyle, Marion Bataille and David Pearson. You can download the catalogue here, see Jack Ginsberg's introduction to the exhibition on Youtube here and generally see more about it here.

Frank Damek - card collector

Here's the original story of Frank Damek who collected a complete deck of found cards. It appeared in an 1870 Chicago newspaper and was the story that I used in my 1993 series Lying Doggo, but I'd never seen the original article. It inspired me to collect cards found on the street, and I've been on the lookout since then. Someone suggested that the story was probably made up by a journalist to fill space in the newspaper, but I prefer to think that it is true.

Varoom talk at Foyles Gallery

I forgot to post this link to the talk I gave at Foyles back in April. (Illustration Rules?! - Launch of the AOI's Varoom 21 magazine with Viviane Schwarz and Phoebe Halstead. It was recorded and can be heard on Soundcloud via this link. Though why anyone would want to listen, I'm not sure. I didn't, but then I heard it the first time. Pictured here after the event, Margaret Huber (Mrs Rawle) and I are showing off our matching tartan socks.

Talk at the Whitechapel Gallery

I'm giving a talk on Friday June 27th at the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the UCA event on research. It's taking place in the Clore Creative Studio. Here are the details of the day.

9:30 – 9:50 Arrival

9:50 – 10:00 introduction

10:00 – 10:40  Jeremy Coysten, designer and photographer, partner at North (http://www.northdesign.co.uk, http://jeremycoysten.com).

10:40 – 11:20  Graham Rawle, author, artist and designer (http://www.grahamrawle.com).

11:20 – 11:40  Coffee

11:40 – 12:20  Durrell Bishop, interaction and product designer (http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews/DurrellBishop).

12:20 – 13:00  Nick Bell, Director of Nick Bell Design, UAL Chair of Communication Design, Visiting Critic at the RCA, Consultant to Eye (http://nickbelldesign.co.uk).

13:00 – 14:00  Lunch

14:00 – 14:40  Rob Watkins, art director at Improbable (http://www.improbable.io, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-05/29/improbable).

14:40 – 15:20  Dylan Kendle and Simon Taylor, designers, directors and creative partners at Tomato (http://www.tomato.co.uk).

15:20 – 15:40  Coffee

15:40 – 16:20  Adrian Johnson, illustrator (http://www.adrianjohnson.org.uk).

16:20 – 17:00  Trevor Keeble, UCA director of Research and Enterprise (http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/about/leadership-team/director-research-enterprise).

17:00 – 17:10  Thanks and end

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about-us/contact-us

James Franco - Woman's World

These self-portraits were taken from the catalogue of James Franco's current exhibition, New Film Stills, at The Pace Gallery in New York. Of particular interest is one where he is seen lying next to a copy of Woman's World. Mr Franco made an offer for the film rights to the book, but no agreement was reached. These pictures put me very much in mind of Norma, the protagonist in my story.

Falmouth Talk this Thursday

click image to enlarge

More found cards

A lot of thin, papery cards found by one of our MA students, Mark Daniels, outside the school where he teaches, from which he chose the Five of Clubs.

The Ace of Diamonds, found by another of our students, Pip Carter, on a cycle path on her way to work. Only two weeks previously she found the Ten of Spades. I need to scan and add that one.

And this Seven of Spades was selected from a discarded pack by.... er... Mark Daniels, I think. Let me check on that.

Cards Found update

Lots of card finds have been sent to me since the last 'found card' posting. There is this Jack of Spades found by Tom Wishart, son of Lou Wishart, a student on our course, who found this in Reigate on his way home from school.

A few weeks later, he found the ten of diamonds, photographed here in situ. Tom has decided, like me, that if he finds several discarded cards, he can pick up any one of them. 

The eight of diamonds was found by Luise W at the foot of U Bein's bridge in Burma (Myanmar).

A couple of days later she found a ripped Jack of Hearts at Hsinbyume Pagoda, Mingun.

This Ten of Hearts was found by Jim O'Brian, on wet tarmac outside the recycling centre in Exeter.

 The Queen of Diamonds was found by Reece Wykes following a talk I gave to BA Illustration students at Kingston University.

Warren Lehrer's Book List

How flattering to see Woman's World listed in Warren Lehrer's favourite design book list at Designers& Books, New York. This is what he says about it.

This is one of the most surprising, enjoyable, couldn’t-put-it-down books I have read in years. It’s surprising in a number of ways. First, it’s important to know that this book was assembled (written/composed, pick your verb here) from 40,000 fragments of text snipped from 1960s British women’s magazines. (Rawle apparently wrote a draft of this pulp-noir, gender-bending story, then rewrote it like a mosaic using all these found snidbits.) So, the first thing that is surprising is how unfragmented the writing is. The second surprise is how fabulously scrumptious the sentences are, particularly Rawle’s descriptions, in large part because of his peculiar, painstaking process that produces wildly unexpected (and often funny) phrasings that wouldn’t otherwise come to a writer’s mind. The lion’s share of good Dada poems have numerous bizarrely fantastic lines in them, but the poems remain absurd, for the most part. In Woman’s World, every sentence has meaning and helps move the story forward. The third and perhaps most revelatory surprise is how downright breezy a read this book is, considering that nearly every word or phrase-chunk is a different size and typeface, aligned by hand with glue and exacto knife along wobbly baselines—which flies in the face of (probably) every study ever made about legibility. Ph.D. candidates, this is the basis of a doctorate in waiting.

Warren has a new book out that looks beautiful and sounds really interesting. I've just ordered it for myself. You can 'look inside' on Amazon. Here.

Woman's World Review - Enotes

Here's another nice review of Woman's World, taken, I think, from Magill's Literary Annual. It stops half way through and you have to subscribe to read the second half.  See (half of) it here.

Woman's World Review - Wink Books

There's a great book review website, Wink Books, with some really
interesting books and astute reviews. And, I'm pleased to say, a very nice review of Woman's World by Carla Sinclair. Read it/ visit their site.

Oh Lordy. It's been so long since I made a blog entry. I've been busy working on the second draft of my new book OVERLAND, which is now in the hands of my agent.