2007- A Tougher Row to Hoe

Apologies for the delay, weird problem with the server this afternoon.

Well, after a year “in the spotlight”, 2007 has been a year of transition and change, regrouping and planning for future challenges. Mercifully, we’ve been spared some of the more painful events that have plagued certain friends and family members of late. Never the less it hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk, especially for Y, who found herself looking for a new job twice over.

JANUARY
I started the year at the parliament building, banging on about the Draft Culture (Scotland) Bill. The SAU, like several other like-minded bodies, had several problems with the proposals being put forward by the Labour-led Scottish Executive, most especially with the merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into Creative Scotland, and the extent to which ministers would control the new body's decision-making. Happily, the election came in the spring, Labour left office and all but the very hardest core of the bill's many parts withered on the vine. All our fears seem to have been allayed, but it’d be nice to hear a bit more on that £15k tax break for artists the SNP run up their flag pole in April!

FEBRUARY
Y and I were separated for much of the month, including Valentine’s Day, as she was providing training to HML staff at their centre in Derry. However this was the last gasp; they changed her job role in a manner that amounted to a demotion, rendering the last three years as damaging ones for her career. Reluctantly (she’d made many friends at the company), she decided to leave. Luckily, I’d had a pretty good couple of months work-wise and we could take the strain while she looked for something new.
The month also saw some loose ends from 2006 tied up; CockTales#4 was launched and we finally had the very last of the steam damage from September’s boiler mishap put right.

MARCH
Y and I both had citations for jury duty hanging over us all month, although it came to nothing in the end.
We saw Russell Brand performing as part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival, an event I was cynical about to begin with (how to compete with the all-devouring Edinburgh Fringe?) but which has grown from strength to strength and is now starting to attract major names from overseas. Shame the venue had to be the Carling Academy, where the punters refuse to sit still for any length of time, preferring instead to make endless trips to the bar for plastic beakers of the sponsor’s pisswater.
We spent a splendid week at Center Parcs with my brother (Quick Draw McGraw), sister-in-law and friends. When I told an American friend we were going to a woodland-bound resort for some falconry, archery, fencing and so on, he thought it sounded like a Bond villain training camp.

Meanwhile, back at home, changes were afoot; Edd Travers, after four years with the Studio, decided to walk away. In retrospect, the right decision for all concerned.

APRIL
The SAU had a stand once more at the annual Glasgow Art Fair; I was asked by a couple of English artists, recently moved North, to whom they should apply for arts’ funding. I had to explain that not only was the city council in the middle of delegating cultural provision to a new charitable trust, and the national arts council about to mutate into a new two-headed super quango, but the national executive was about a month away from probable transformation too. So the answer was, and a certain extent remains, who knows?
A rash of exhibition going this year included the Pixar show in Edinburgh, and absolute must-see; no photography permitted inside, but the artwork was by turns inspirational, intimidating and just plain incredible.

MAY
Marked eight years of the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio with an unusual job for the Vox Motus theatre production company, as well as producing some caricatures (along with the rest of the boys) of the Lisbon Lions. The caricatures got a write-up in the Evening Times during the week of the 40th anniversary of their famous victory.
Y and I also had our minds bent by Derren Brown at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Two ex-members of My Legendary Girlfriend were in the audience too, and one proved insufficiently suggestible to join in some Victorian style table tipping.

JUNE
June included the busiest weekend on record for the Studio; an insane number of bookings that saw the team scattering across the country (Edinburgh, Dundee and Ayr as well as Glasgow), splitting up into smaller groups to cover simultaneous events before reconvening for a huge gathering of science bods from round the world at the Glasgow Science Centre. A French gent told me I could give “the guys in Montmarte a run for their money”, high praise indeed.
Meanwhile, Y found a new job at TotalPDA, a firm selling personal organisers and satellite navigations systems. That a non-driver would spend her time selling such things was no less bizarre than than the years she spent dealing with online gamblers, having never placed a bet in her life.

JULY
Y turned 30 with a big girlie weekend in Manchester. Why she felt compelled to burglarise the hotel bar is anyone’s guess, I thought we’d learned our lesson when I pulled a similar stunt in Prague a couple of years ago. Shocking behaviour.

On her return she had to kiss goodbye to the Total PDA job. Discounted laptops, organisers and satnavs are all very well, but the reality of the role was simply not as advertised. After the way she’d been treated at HML, that kind of flim-flam wasn’t going to wash. So she swallowed hard and once again stepped out into the job market…
Meanwhile I was caricaturing the masses at the annual Glasgow Show. Never have so many queued for so long, so badly and so noisily for so little.


AUGUST
Y started her new job, back with Teletech again after all these years and working from home as part of a virtual customer care centre. In order to do so, we needed to switch broadband and phone provider and after careful consideration had decided to go with BT. Come the middle of the month and the change-over date we promptly lost our landline, and therefore broadband too (the BT homehubs don’t use separate cables for internet). So began a long and convoluted saga that saw us rapidly go through three new phone numbers, receive bills for services that were never provided, spend weeks without a phone (forcing Y to decamp to my parent’s house in order to complete her necessary training) and hours and hours running up mobile bills, hanging on the BT faults line only to talk to a succession of under-prepared, poorly-trained, over-eager, irresponsible monkeys and incommunicative tree stumps. At the time of writing we have all the required services although we are still receiving bills for a phone number and calls that aren’t ours. Thankfully we now have a direct line to the company’s highest-priority department (having at one stage been referred to the managing director’s office) so such phantom missives are easily waived. However the stress of the situation at the time (Y was close to losing her job over it, which would have meant looking for a fourth position in less than a year) rather spoiled our 3rd wedding anniversary. All was complicated further by my old Mac deciding to up and die at the same time. Oh, how we laughed.
The picture below was taken to night we did manage to go out and celebrate, the same evening Glasgow airport was attacked and the legend of Smeato was written.


SEPTEMBER
After humming and hawing about it for the better part of a decade, we went and rescued us a cat.

Goodbye "Kuddles" (he’s an eleven year-old male, for Chrissakes), hello Converse (he has white-tipped feet and is a bit of a coward). I think our experience of cat ownership so far is neatly summed up by this terrific piece of animation, Cat Man Do by Simon Tofield.

The Studio team made our debut at the Scottish Wedding Show, SECC, which was an education (the special madness of couples planning weddings fours years hence; what certain other caricaturists are up to).

Later that month, I was booked to caricature Charles Kennedy, the political sphere’s top former boozer and hardcore smoker. He didn’t seem to have recovered from the man ‘flu that ended his LibDem leadership some eighteen months before.

The Studio’s Auld Alliance exhibition of cartoons comparing Scotland and France made its second appearance at the Salon International de la Caricature, du Dessin de Presse et d’Humour, this time in Limoges airport. As ever, our friends in St. Just-le-Martel were fulsome in their generosity and although it was a brief visit Tommy and I felt we squeezed in a lot. We were even invited to join the village mayor/Salon President Gérard Vandenbroucke in the press conference launching the 26th Salon programme, an honour very rarely extended to visiting cartoonists. I think I’d lulled him into a false sense of confidence when I’d delivered the speech below (en Francaise- thank you, Mary!) the previous night. I was able to improvise a statement along the lines of St.Just-le-Martel being the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio’s “maison spirituelle”, which seemed to please M. Vandenbroucke (he pretended to pay me afterwards).

On behalf of everyone at the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio and all the artists who contributed to the Auld Alliance exhibition, I’d like to thank the staff of the Limoges-Bellegarde airport for giving our artwork pride of place and the hospitality they have extended to Tommy and I. As a cartoonist I’d also like to thank you for the support you have lent to the Salon in general; it’s the biggest and best event of its kind in Europe and its continued success relies on both the tireless efforts of the people of St.Just-le-Martel and like-minded friends from the entire Limousin region.
Unfortunately my friend, Tommy’s son and the founder of the Studio- Chris Sommerville- cannot be here today, as he recently became a father and he’s not quite ready to spend time away from the new baby. However he’s asked me to express his gratitude and hopes that I can, in his stead, return M.Vandenbroucke’s favour after he spoke so eloquently- and in English!- at the opening weekend of our big exhibition in Edinburgh last year, which included a showing of the artwork you see here.
The first time my colleagues and I sent artwork to the Salon actually pre-dates the opening of our Studio. Along with several other members of a cartoonist’ club that Tommy used to run, we sent artwork to the 17th Salon. You may recall the year, 1998, in which France beat Brazil in the World Cup. I’m afraid that’s a feeling we Scots have yet to experience, although I will point out that the last time we were here, in October last year, Scotland beat France 1-0 at home! Dare I mention last week’s result? (NB- Scotland has once again beaten the French national football team 1-0.) Perhaps you’ll stop inviting us here… It seems to bring bad luck!
The Scottish Cartoon Art Studio opened in 1999 and in 2001 Tommy, Chris and I made our first trip to St.Just-le-Martel. It was the twentieth Salon and so even bigger and better than usual. We stayed for the whole ten days and the professionalism of the organizers, the quality of the artwork and its presentation, the variety of events and entertainment and the quality of the food and wine made a wonderful first impression upon us. Most of all, however, we were overwhelmed by the warmth and friendliness of the people of St.Just-le-Martel, who work so hard to make the Salon a reality and who open their homes to cartoonists from around the world.
As a result, we were inspired to return with a larger group of Scottish cartoonists, both members and friends of the Studio. Together we created an exhibition of work entitled The Auld Alliance the name we Scots give the ancient friendship that exists between our two countries. A bagpiper accompanied our party and all wore the kilt; on the opening evening of the 21st Salon’s we were able to answer the question “What is under your kilts?” in a surprising way. I’m afraid that- between us- Tommy and I do not have enough “cheek” to reproduce the effect tonight.
The Auld Alliance exhibition was a success and, as I mentioned, was equally popular with visitors to the French institutes in Glasgow and Edinburgh where it was shown last summer. As it makes its return appearance here, it is appropriate that it is shown in a venue where so many arriving from the UK will see it, meaning that people from both sides of the Channel will learn that The Auld Alliance is alive and well. We hope that this is just another chapter in the continuing story we started ten years ago, and that the Studio’s artists and artwork will be back in St.Just in years to come and in particular as the permanent cartoon centre is built.

Man, I had a meal in Limoges during that trip that was half the price and twice as good as the best meal I had in Paris during my honeymoon! That restaurant alone is enough reason to go back next year, never mind the cartoonies.
My own presidency of the Scottish Artists Union continues after the AGM in September passed a constitutional amendment granting an extension to all office bearers’ roles. The comments I made at the time I took on the job, comparing myself to Palpatine, just got that little bit more pointed. I’ll give it another year, but I wouldn’t bank on a third.

OCTOBER
I joined the National Caricaturist Network, an exciting and ever-growing international organisation whose annual conventions are fast becoming an absolute must-attend for people in my line of work. American filmmaker Lonnie Lardner is putting together a documentary on caricaturists, Sketch Monkeys, and considered the NCN convention the best possible place to both gather opinion on the art form from its practitioners and see the widest possible variety of approaches (from hyper-stylised Japanese to super-cartoony American and painterly European caricature). You can see a preview of the film here. 2008’s event is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Will I make it? When the St.Just Salon is calling (as ever) and the San Diego comicbook convention beckons too? And there’s ten years together to celebrate with my lady love in February? Who knows… Going to be some carbon footprint if we do it all (not to mention the credit card bill).

NOVEMBER
As previously mentioned, Y and I took in live performances by both Bill Bailey and Calvin Harris.
Later in the month, Glasgow was briefly illuminated by the first Radiance Festival, a series of visual art installations, performances and displays incorporating light and scattered across the city centre. The most impressive pieces were Kim Tae Gon’s fibre optic dress, spookily hanging in the Briggait down on the Clyde, and Xavier de Richemont’s stunning Tale of Tree City, a moving projection with music that bathed the entire facade of Glasgow Cathedral (even if following up several minutes’ worth of choral music with a quick blast of Mungo Jerry, a somewhat obtuse audio pun on Glasgow’s patron saint, bemused most of the crowd).


DECEMBER
Déjà vu- after plowing through the Culture Bill (which arrived December 15th 2006), I find I have to digest the new Scottish Government’s proposals on replacing Disclosure (the certification sytem that screens those who apply for jobs with children and vulnerable adults), and which looks set to penalise sessional workers (e.g. artists), amounting to another tax on our income.
Y and I went a-Christmas shopping and pre-birthday carousing in Edinburgh, including an overnight stay at the hyper-stylised Point Hotel.

Yes, we like booze. As in so many other things, the capital’s festive arrangements micturate like an eggnog-filled wassailer all over Glasgow’s. The German market, traditional as well as modern fairground attractions, Santa’s village with live reindeer enclosure, ice sculpture gallery and skating rink all enclosed within the safe and comely environs of Princes Street Gardens put the vulgar mishmash currently crammed onto George Square and embarrassment of a market squeezed onto Argyle Street to shame. Plus the approach to street decorating and lighting is more coherent and festive, especially in the use of existing trees, as opposed to Glasgow’s on-going love affair with Doctor Who style blue LEDs. Bah, I say. Bah!
Seems most of the people we know were busy making babies this year, so welcome to the world Callan, Caoimhe, Holly and Nicholas and enjoy your first Christmas! Best wishes to all and to all a goodnight!