GRAEME BASE INTERVIEW
| January 27, 2012 | ART | Posted by Tahlia Anderson |
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Utter Animalia to anyone able to vote, drink or drive, but not yet worrying about their superannuation, and behold as a wave of nostalgia sweeps over them. Animalia, Graeme Base’s intricately illustrated, alliterated alphabet book — published in 1986 — that sold over three million copies worldwide; a mind-boggling success for an Australian picture book. But commercial success was never the Melbourne-based author’s intention.
A sense of drawing and writing because it’s just what he loves to do seems a likelier reason.
Born in England, the beloved children’s author describes himself as ‘child-like’. From his boyish looks and Converse sneakers propped up on the chair beside him, to the cheeky way he speaks of ‘fight[ing], tooth and nail’ for his ideas, Base, 53, is like a big kid used to getting his way.
‘Yes, I’m a bit spoilt!’ he admits, when asked how he negotiates the editorial process, ‘I have a great relationship with Penguin, who’ve published all of my books, but I don’t willingly give up my ideas.’
And who could blame him?
Zebras dressed as punk rockers; a page dedicated to V’ Victor V Vulture the vaudeville ventriloquist, versatile virtuoso of vociferous verbosity and a waterhole that literally shrinks through the page as more animals visit it for a drink. Not many people could make that up or do it so enchantingly.
With thirteen books including The Eleventh Hour and Sign of the Seahorse, (and one more in the works), an app, stage and television adaptations of his work and most recently, the release of his latest book, The Jewel Fish of Karnak ; Base has achieved what most authors dream of — a reputation big enough to side step a publisher’s intention of commerciality.
And a career spanning over 28 years is nowhere near done.
‘I’ve been allowed to get up every morning and play but there’s always the underlying fear’ he says — a glint in his cloudy blue eyes — that one day someone will cry ‘Oi! Go get a proper job! You can’t just spend your life doing this!’
I think what most people remember about your books are the characters. They’re so distinctively eccentric. I’ve always wanted to know which character most embodies you?
Well, the little Graeme from Animalia — I know it says it is me but I was experiencing each of these worlds. In The Legend of the Golden Snail, I’m Wilbur; I’m the kid who’s striking out in the boat. That was inspired I’m sure by early experiences of when my family first came out from England to Australia in 1966 by boat and then, seven years later, when we also travelled by ocean liner back to England again. I had a great love affair with the ocean — I love being close to the sea. That’s why we live here [in Melbourne’s Bayside].
And in The Eleventh Hour, I suspect I was Horace [the elephant] I suspect I was the kid who was throwing the party although I’ve never been much of one for throwing parties. I’d rather spend a quiet night at home then having a party and expecting people to come — that seems not like me at all.
Well if you were to throw a party Horace-style, whom would you invite?
Billy Bryson because I love reading his books, Richard Feynman, who unfortunately passed away, he was a scientist, and Steven Hawking. I love science! The only magazine that I subscribe to is New Scientist and people think ‘Huh? Why?’ I can’t pretend to even understand half of it but I love the minds that are reflected in the stories and the aspiration to discover. I think because it has to do with problem solving. Everything in life comes down to problem solving: how am I going to create this story? How am I going to convey this picture so that it’s appealing but also gets across this information?
If the toaster breaks here, I don’t buy another toaster; I take it apart and find out what’s wrong with it. How can I fix it? It’s not being cheap. It’s just wanting to know. I think I have an enquiring mind. My older brother Patrick is very similar to me but he’s gone down the electronic engineering path and he was actually a better artist than I was when we were kids, but his creativity went down that line, and mine’s gone down — well, ‘colouring in’, to put it my kids way. Yet we see the world so similarly and I’m sure it’s got to do with problem solving. So my ideal party would tend to be as much scientists and inventors as it would be anyone from the literary or artistic world.
Your books are always set in these fantastical worlds. So are you just one of these people with a boundless imagination or are you inspired by things closer to home?
Where does inspiration come from? If you could bottle that it would be worth money! For me, the answer is really travel and not because going somewhere means I’ll write a story about: South America or Africa or whatever, but it’s more about getting out of your own headspace. If you walk down your own street, you don’t see it in the same way as a visitor does. A visitor would be looking around — seeing the different houses, the different trees, everything that’s different and you don’t see that when you live there all the time. You need to be walking down a different street; and then, suddenly ideas will hit. You stop worrying about the day to day and you create space where ideas can inhabit.
But, there’s also the more pragmatic and practical side of it where you go to each interesting place and you go, wow! As a couple of examples: one, I went to Martinique in the Caribbean, many years ago with [wife] Robyn. I was in between gigs; I was doing big American book fair talks and I had two weeks off, so I went down to Martinique with Robyn and we sat on the beach and in Australia I get asthma so I’m not allowed to scuba dive but there, they don’t care [laughs]. If you want to go underwater and kill yourself, it’s your business, provided you pay up front! So we went scuba diving and I remember the absolute instant, I’d been snorkeling, but going scuba diving where you can go underwater and look, really see the detail, I realized that the world of the coral reef and the colours and life upon life upon life in that coral. I realized that was the next book and that became The Sign of the Seahorse. Direct inspiration.
There’s another where [Eldest son] James was actually part of this and we were travelling in Europe in 2005 and we stayed in a little hotel in the Loire Valley, France. There was this lamp fitting on the wall that had this spiral kind of brass bit sticking out of the wall and the lampshade was curved like a sail and I said: ‘Hey kids look! A snailing ship’, dad’s joke, 563, and they just rolled their eyes and went back to whatever it was they were playing at the time, but I drew this little picture, this little guy, this little snail with a sail and thought it was kind of cute. Years later, it became the last book that I published, The Legend of the Golden Snail. So ideas can hit, for me, from actual experience almost without fail when I’m travelling — when I’m somewhere else.
Growing up, your three kids must have been pretty stoked to have this amazing storyteller on hand. Did you write for them primarily?
Actually, I almost write to spite my kids rather than because of them. In fact, they have taken a magnificent disinterest in my career. They treat me with such disdain it’s wonderful. It’s monumental. In fact, James’s younger sister, Kate, was sick in bed a couple of years ago and she took the opportunity to say, ‘I’m going to read all of dad’s books’, because she hadn’t. It was partly my fault because as a parent it’s kind of weird to sit your child on your knee and say, ‘ Hey, tonight we’re going to read dad’s book!’ It felt kind of weird, so I really soft-pedaled my own books. So Kate at the point just read all of my books and she read one called, The Worst Band in the Universe (1999), for the first time, but it had been out for like five years, and she gave me a mark out of ten on it!
I haven’t ever been driven by my own kid’s opinions or desires or wants or interests and I think it’s pretty fundamental to the way I work.
I’ve heard that you’re the big kid actually. Do you think that’s what being a children author’s is about? Being childlike?
Well I am and it helps; you need to be childlike as opposed to childish and there’s a very fuzzy line between the two. I think that’s what enables me to create the layers in the books; that perception to rediscover and see new things but also to transcend that and accept your age, and plum into the experiences of life and create the other levels. I suppose there are plenty of others out there who are more childlike than I am. I’ve been a bit beaten down by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, especially in trying to do things like stage and film and television stuff. It’s knocked the bright edges off to some extent but still; it’s a lovely job. I get to get up in the morning and play. I don’t have to go off and try to be grown up. I make kids books; it’s a lovely vocation. And I use the opportunity to try and say something that is valuable but there’s no question; it’s a nice job.
But you started in advertising, right? So how did you start the foray into writing and illustrating?
Yeh, I’d just been expelled from the advertising industry, after a very unhappy year and a half, doing stuff that I didn’t believe in and had no interest in. So I published one book, My Grandmother Lived in Gooligulch, and had enjoyed it immensely, so I thought, Wow! This is what I want to do with my life!
I created, Animalia, which is an alphabet book, but I wasn’t out to teach anybody anything. I just wanted to draw, I wanted to draw everything so why not organize it alphabetically — and it became this phenomenon. But it wasn’t driven by any perception of market opportunity; it was just an outpouring of my creative expression and so I kind of picked up on that and realized that anything I do from now on, if I follow that lead, maybe I’ll get lucky again. So I created The Eleventh Hour next and it wasn’t because I thought there was a market for a mystery story in pictures, it was another excuse for me to use my creative juices. And I’ve continued to do that.
Looking back on your books, what I remember loving most as a child was the intricacies of your illustrations. Is that still your first love – the illustrations?
When I was young, all I wanted to do – it was very self-serving – was draw. I just wanted to create images and I would write my stories as a vehicle.
Now, frankly, if I could just click my fingers and make the artwork real without having to go through the process of creating it — I’d be a happy man. I could spend more time telling the stories and less time creating the artwork, which for me, is a laborious, slow, pain-staking task.
I’ve found that physically when I’m doing artwork now, the amount of time where I can spend each day actually working is really limited. I find that after about 15–20 minutes I’m going, ‘Oh my God! My eyes are killing me! My hand is aching!’
I can write and edit a story in weeks but it takes months, if not years, to do the artwork.
It must be such a long process! How long does it usually take to complete a book?
It takes me a couple of years to write a book. Although, I’m getting quicker. I’ve begun to embrace digital technology which means that I can design work and then work on a screen to help create and I love it. It’s actually really invigorated me. It’s also by the by had a net improvement in the amount of time it takes to do a book. Still, I doubt where there could ever be a time where I could do a book within a year. I get a book out every second year, sometimes every third, but the ability to tap into using my traditional methods paired with some digital technology to help speed things up has been invaluable. I can do a book possibly within a year, but it will never be quicker.
I spend a lot time being almost paralysed by indecision working on a piece of artwork. I spend a lot of time working on them; I can’t afford to start again, so I spend a lot of time doing all sorts of rough, test work and then finally decide, ‘Ok, I’ll do it this way!’
Whereas on screen, I can just try it and then five minutes later I can go, ‘Nah, that looks like shit!’ and then go and try something else.
So what do you do when you get stuck?
I think I’ve learnt that if I push myself into trying to be creative and work — it’s actually counter-productive. You’re creating a problem that you’ll have to go back and unpick later, especially with artwork. I just stop. I don’t stop and sit on the beach or read the newspaper but what I do is stop and divert myself to another project. I’ve always got ten other projects on the go, so it’s easy to think I should be working on this because my deadline is coming up in two months, but I just cannot work on that today so I’ll move sideways and work on something else.
Having said that, I actually love deadlines because they keep you focused. Without a deadline, things never get finished. There’s a lovely quote by Douglas Adams [author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] that I love but don’t subscribe to which is ‘ I love deadlines; I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.’ And whilst I totally understand what he meant, I’m the opposite. If I have a deadline it’s set in stone; I don’t miss them, I never ever have and I never will. I always make it and I do the damnedest best I possibly can in the time frame.
Do you think your books have changed over the years?
They haven’t changed a lot really. It’s the same mind with the same eye and same hands and whilst I try with every book to create a new world; basically, to keep myself interested and to keep pushing myself as an artist, I’m also aware that they all [my books] feel pretty much like a part of a set.
People say to me, ‘That’s obviously one of your books because we can see its yours!’ I don’t see that in the same way; I always try to see something different but obviously it often comes out in the same way.
The big change has been not so much to do with the artwork. It’s what people know me for and that’s fine, the artwork is what I still revel in, creating the images, but the books are now driven more by other intent – by the story.
For example, The Eleventh Hour, I appreciate it’s been a very popular book but I wasn’t trying to say anything profound with that. I wasn’t trying to put any message into the idea of an elephant having an eleventh birthday party and there being a mystery. Whereas, in Uno’s Garden or The Worst Band in the Universe, there’s a lot more intent in the storytelling than there ever was in the earlier ones. They’re not just vehicles for illustration; they’re actually stories in their own right.
I’ve found I still find your books as entertaining as I did when I was four or five-years-old. Are you conscious of making books that age with the reader?
There’s this wonderful concept that everyone can imagine of a parent sharing a book with a child. It’s lovely; and it’s really important in that it is elemental. But for it to be real, honest, genuine sharing: both have to be getting something out of it. Too often, I know as a parent myself, I would sit with James or Kate or Will, and they’re enjoying it because it’s working at their level — but I’m getting nothing out of it. And all you’re doing then is providing a book-reading service to a child, which is valuable, but I think the child –they’re very perceptive, they’re very aware – notices if you are also getting something out of it at your level; then, that’s genuine sharing.
I aspire to create books where a child is understanding it and enjoying it at their level but the parent who’s sharing it with them is genuinely also getting something out of it. That to me is a real thing of worth aspiring to; that’s what drives me — to always and maintain a balance between making it child-friendly but putting something in there that honestly has appeal and meaning to an older mind.
Best/Worst thing to draw:
People are my least favourite thing to draw. Why? Because it’s the hardest. Why is it the hardest? Because it’s the subject we know intimately. As a viewer, you know the shape of the human face and the human physiology almost better than anything else in the world.
I can draw a zebra and I can put it sitting cross-legged in a chair playing chess with a rhinoceros and it still looks like a zebra. It doesn’t look wrong; and the reason is because you don’t know a zebra that well, you don’t know how many stripes it’s really got and which way they can bend their legs. So I can get away with murder; and I can do things that are blatantly impossible.
At the moment I’m actually working terribly hard on a book where people are fundamental and central to it. But my word, I’m having to work really hard to be happy with the artwork. So that’s my least favourite thing to draw.
My favourite things to draw are organic shapes. I suppose because I have a love of nature. I quite frankly think I find one of the most attractive things in our world the interplay between man-made and the natural. Virgin forest is beautiful; forest with the ruins of a Mayan temple intertwined with it, is even more beautiful. Last Christmas we went to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and that’s what you see there – the ancient aspirations of man and nature having its way with it. The book after the next is actually set in Angkor Wat because I was inspired by those kinds of shapes and that interplay.
I’ve also heard that when you’re not illustrating and pumping out books, you’re impartial to a bit of jamming.
Ha yes. My wife, Robyn, and I were in a band together; that’s how we met. She was the lead singer and I played drums. This was all before illustrating. And it kind of took off from there [but] I always wanted to be a musician.
The only real cloud on the horizon is that I would have really loved to be a musician. I really would have loved to spend my life writing and playing music and I still, every waking moment I get when I’m not working on stories, tend to write and play and imagine and occasionally, get to record. [Eldest son] James has become a much better drummer than I was and [youngest son] Will, a much better bassist, but I can play a splattering of different instruments at a medium level. But it’s very helpful for writing.
I can write from a percussive or rhythmic or chord basis because of that. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to find ways of integrating my good fortune in the book business with my aspirations in music. They tend to come to me on the stage and I’ve written four or five stage adaptations of my books. Last year, I worked on The Waterhole with the Victoria Arts Centre, so that was a nice meeting point for my two interests. But frankly, I would love the opportunity to hang up my pens and pencils for a while and concentrate 100% on music. But, the pragmatic side of me dictates that that time hasn’t yet come.
Who are your favourite children’s authors?
My childhood was all born of AA Milne and Beatrix Potter – the English treasury of children’s books. What really began to inspire me was later. I remember being very inspired by Masquerade, which was a book by Kit Williams back in the early ’80’s. After that, more and more by American illustrators, people like William Joyce, Michael Hague, and Chris Van Isleberg. They were more my kind of illustrators; I think they were more kind of full of fun and adventure than the British which tended to still be about little rabbits and vegetable gardens.
There were also some Australians, too. The work of Robert Inghpen, he was really inspirational. Jane Tanner, who started just before I did. I loved her work. So it’s been various but I’ve probably been more influenced by American illustrators because that’s been my major market over the years and a lot of my touring has been there.
So finally, if your life were a book, what would you call it?
Ha. I don’t know? Well it’s a happy book and it’s going to be a picture book. It’s going to have a very positive ending where the protagonist lives to a ripe old age and continues to be creative. I’ve been incredibly lucky that what I would have done as a hobby became a career through a very good piece of timing. I also found the right people. I suppose I could best sum it up with a couple of quotes.
Mark Twain was asked by a reporter, ‘Hey you’re a very lucky man. What do you put that down to?’ and he replied, ‘yep it’s a funny thing, luck. The harder I work, the luckier I get.’
Paul Getty [the oil baron] also said ‘ Recipe for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil!’ which seems to me the same thing as what someone said to me, ‘the four P’s: Passion, Persistence, Perspiration and Providence.’
