THE WORLD OF INTERIORS, 2008–2014
1/ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Collage for Journal of a Literary Tour Guide
2014
The World of Interiors
October 2014
The October issue of The World of Interiors features a collaborative collage of ours with reference to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, and Henry II’s pilgrimage of penitence in 1174, created to accompany an article by Henry Eliot about literary walking tours.
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I organise literary tours. Some are large scale, such as the public ‘Pre-Raphaelite Pilgrimage’ I ran for the National Trust between The George Inn in Southwark and William Morris’s Red House in Bexleyheath, for which musicians, artists and storytellers were dotted along the route in hidden gardens; and some are smaller, like a recent trip with four friends, retracing John Clare’s footsteps from his asylum in Epping Forest to his cottage in Northborough. Clare walked the route in an impressive four days, and ate grass; we allowed ourselves a little more leeway. Often the number is about 20, which is what we’ll be in October this year, when we stay in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s house in Keswick and explore the scenery that inspired the Lake Poets. Literature is best approached on foot; it’s fitting that we measure poetry in metre, feet and lines. The natural cadence of walking mirrors the rhythms of reading and writing, and brings the words to life.
Henry Eliot
The Word on the Street, Journal of a Literary Tour Guide
The World of Interiors, October 2014, page 408
2/ Gracia Haby
Collage for Journal of a Ceramic Artist
2012
The World of Interiors
November 2012
A collage for The World of Interiors magazine to accompany an article by Edmund de Waal, Time on his Hands, about his recent ceramic installation.
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I’m sometimes asked if it is boring, sitting in my studio, hunched over my wheel, making one vessel after another. A ziggurat of balls of porcelain clay to my left, a waiting pile of ware boards to my right, and those thousands of hours making cylinders in front of me. Nothing grander than a cylinder. Barely a vessel, more a sketch of a pot, an inside and a straight profile, the merest impression of my hand and my impressed seal. All those iterative movements of arm, wrist and hand, time after time after time. Tiring and limiting, surely. Don’t I want more from what I do?
Edmund de Waal
Time on his Hands, Journal of a Ceramic Artist
The World of Interiors, November 2012, page 200
3/ Gracia Haby
Collage for Journal of a Collector
2009
The World of Interiors
October 2009
A collage for The World of Interiors magazine to accompany an article by Alistair McAlpine about textiles both new and old to be found in a Marrakesh souk.
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Marrakesh has changed, but then nowadays everywhere seems to be changing. Revisit any popular destination three or four years later and it will look different. ... In and around the souk, the carpet dealers trade as usual, selling, then quickly replacing, their huge piles of stock. Most of them also offer Moroccan textiles. Rumour has for some time suggested that most of these are fakes, but consider for a moment what 'fake' actually means. Fakes are made to deceive, to fool the greedy or unwary customer. It is true that in the souk you'll find new textiles look similar to the old ones so desired by collectors. You will also find old designs with new patterns added in henna. The dealer will usually point out that those have been altered, and even if they don't warn you beforehand they will almost certainly inform you if you ask the age or origins of their wares.
Alistair McAlpine
The Genuine Article, Journal of a Collector
The World of Interiors, October 2009, page 288
4/ Gracia Haby
Collage for Journal of a Collector
2008
The World of Interiors
October 2008
Two postcard collages created for The World of Interiors magazine to accompany an article by Alistair McAlpine about the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto in Puglia, Italy; a museum that houses small figures carved from stone and other treasures from long ago.
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Most of the objects on show are small and all the more impressive for their diminutive size. Among the most remarkable are nutcrackers in the form of a pair of hands attached to arms ringed with gold bracelets; a crystal pendant mounted in gold, carved as a pomegranate; and a silver box in the shape of a Pecten shell, whose hinged cover has a raised figure of a goddess riding a seahorse, partly gilded, on its front and a rear view of the same subject on the back.
Alistair McAlpine
Greeks Bearing Gifts, Journal of a Collector
The World of Interiors, October 2008, page 404
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A couple of questions answered
28th June, 2013
Chloe, a visual communication design student, sent a series of questions to us.
This was our reply:
Q: How did you get to where you are now? Did you undertake any specialist training or take specific courses?
Practice and perseverance, obvious though that sounds. Working at what you love everyday and sticking to working at what you love everyday is the only way. There are no shortcuts, just plenty of risks to take, hard work, and long hours. You need to have a thick skin in order to keep going in the face of rejection, setbacks, perceived time constraints, disinterest, and financial hiccups. And you need to have a thin skin, too, in order to see and feel and then be able to pour said emotion into your work. A balance between this rawness and pluck in the face of adversity is a tricky balance.
We both studied at RMIT (Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, majoring in Painting, 1994–97), and a short intensive bookbinding course at a specialist school in Ascona, Switzerland (in 2002). Along the way, we have also been able to work with printers, such as Bernie Rackham at Redwood Prints, and this has proven invaluable too.
Q: How do you choose clients/briefs? What kind of relationship do you build with your clients?
Most of our design work has been working for other artists designing catalogues for their exhibitions or building websites and/or blogs. These are jobs we pick up largely through word-of-mouth, and we enjoy making the focus of the design the person’s artwork. We also work for RMIT School of Art Gallery and Project Space/Spare Room. In addition to this, we have created artworks for The Big Issue and The World of Interiors. In both cases, these publications have approached us to see if we would be open to and available for a commission. In both cases our response has always been to cartwheel about the room and type back a speedy: YES! Thank-you!
Q: Do you undertake any research about the client of the brief?
Working for other artists they naturally have a clear idea of what they want from a catalogue or what they want their new site to communicate. It is a matter of listening to what they want and translating it directly, to the best of our ability. We fell into this type of design work through working on our own catalogues for various exhibitions over the years.
The same, too, applies to websites and blogs built. We taught ourselves how to do both because there was no other way. Resourcefulness always goes a long way! We built our website in 2002 using Dreamweaver and a series of nested tables. Over the years, we have redesigned it and added to it, ensuring it was a correct archive of that which we’d made. Its current appearance is new as of this year. Built on an online platform, it is home to all our projects from artists’ books and zines to exhibitions and related projects. There would have been no other way for us to have a website had we not built it ourselves. We took a one hour tutorial through Mac Advice to understand what a site was, purchased the then-required software and plunged in from there. The same, too, applies to printed work undertaken in the days when SyQuests were high tech.
In regards to artworks commissioned by The World of Interiors and The Big Issue, our imagery is to illustrate something very specific and so, here, we undertake a fair amount of research in order to hit the spot. Nothing comes without practice. Even if something seems to come from rough instinct, there is usually a fair amount of research and crafting that has taken place behind-the-scenes or in the subconscious.
Q: How do you go about brainstorming ideas for briefs and where do you get your inspiration from?
Everything can serve as inspiration. Colours seen in film (think: the beauty of the limited palette of an Aki Kaurismäki film with its saturated blues and greens with accents of red and yellow), in nature, on the scarf of the person who passes you on the street. Ideas could come from dance, from music, from a line of text read, from a splinter of a conversation overheard. Ideas can woo from the sidelines whilst you wash the dishes, or in the haze of morning before you are fully awake. Where you get your inspiration from can be anywhere. It can be direct or indirect. Given that where you find it can be so varied, it is what you then do with the idea that interests us. The act of seizing upon an idea and trying to execute it is our interest. Iris Murdoch spoke of every novel being the wreck of a perfect idea, and this is something that governs us as we work.
Q: Is there anyone you look to for help or inspiration, like a mentor? If so, how do they aide you in your design process?
In terms of the ‘design’ of our artists’ books, we follow our hearts, our gut, our mind. It is all very bodily. We listen to our own instincts and the work is the main focus, not whether it will be ‘well received’. What happens to the work afterwards — will it be purchased or collected — this comes after the process of making. If you let those concerns sit on your shoulder at the time of making, the arm would not be able to move freely. The same applies to the written responses for Fjord Review about dance performances seen. If you let the worries of ‘what will I write?’ intrude during the performance you would ‘see’ nothing. You need to try to push those doubts and fears aside as you work. Then, when it comes to polishing the piece, you let them back in.
With catalogue designs for other people, this is not the case and one needs a cool head. With collages such as those for The World of Interiors, one looks for interesting or subtle ways to add in, for example, a ziggurat of clay balls as per the author’s request.
Q: What general constraints do you encounter when working on a brief?
Not being full time designers, design is but one of the pies we have a finger in. Thus far, we approach design as outsiders. We are not interested in current trends, we just try to make the work the focus, be it someone’s beautiful abstract paintings or series of recent delicate works on paper. When we design for others, we just want the person who we are working for to be pleased with the outcome, for the result to be what they were after. When creating for publications, perhaps the hardest part for us is finding a balance between making too literal a translation (of the material we’ve been provided with) and too abstract a response. It needs to both convey the material we are ‘drawing’ and still be ‘us’, our response to the material. A dance in which you have to make up your own choreography.
Other examples of this curious dance include Dear Dad, for Australian Poetry, in which our work needed to convey the theme but not be too obvious.
Q: What kinds of techniques/processes do you use for the final product?
Everything! Anything! As long as it takes! (But always meet a deadline.)
Q: What are your favourite techniques/processes to use? Where did you find out about them/learn them from?
All. Happy working digitally or with brush, pencil, pair of scissors….
Q: How do you motivate yourself to carry out tasks you don’t particularly enjoy?
In anything you do there is always a part of the process less enjoyable; you just need to alter your approach to it or way of thinking about it. Perhaps what drives us is also a sense that one day it may all disappear. This makes us hungry to seize every moment/chance/opportunity.
Q: How do you evaluate the success of the final design?
In regards to our artwork, we always see things we want to do next time and are thinking about how to make that come about. In regards to design work for other people, if they are happy that is a good feeling, a success. What else would the point be if they were not happy? Seeing our work in print is a beautiful feeling; we feel very fortunate.
