Last night Abi and went along to the Bumble & Bumble University to listen to an illustrator called Ian Wright give a little talk. It was part of the AIGA/NY 'Small Talk' series that I went to last year when Anthony Burrill was giving a talk.
I've liked Ian Wright's since my last year at Uni when I first saw his stuff, so it was fantastic to hear him talk about the work and talk about the piece that I've got a print of, his Jimi Hendrix portrait...
He's a Londoner, in his late 50s and is a great character. He's very humble considering he's worked with and shared studio spaces with some amazing and famous designers like Neville Brody and has done some brilliant illustration work. His stuff is mainly based around music (which he said was his main love, above anything and everything else). He's now based in New York and does collaborations with different people and does work for a variety of clients, the latest being Saks of 5th Avenue.He had some great stories about growing up and making the transition from being a student to being a professional, working for NME, growing up loving the Beatles, seeing Jimi Hendrix play on Top of the Pops, listening to the Who, having posters of Pete Townsend on his wall and then later getting to work with him on a couple of album covers. It was all great to hear and really inspiring.
He uses a lot different media to create his portraits - anything he can find really, he's made portraits out of cassette tapes, mascara brushes, scraps of paper, ink blots, toy beads... all sorts. His most recent work features badges a lot, like this album cover for Tony Bennett's Duets album...
It was an incredibly inspiring talk, in a great venue and we both left wanting to go home and start painting or making portraits out of our subway cards, it really made us think about all the creative stuff we used to do at Uni and school, and made us realise there's no reason we couldn't do it still.I sent Ian a little email this morning, just saying thanks for the talk - I wasn't expecting a reply or anything, but I just felt compelled to write to him (trying not to sound to gushy in the message). I was incredibly surprised to later receive a reply from him saying...
Hello Ollie
You just made my day!
Thank you mate!
Warm Regards
Ian
What a nice man.
It will be great to have some creative inspiration for when the evenings get dark and you don't feel so much like going out. People don't often leave positive feedback. I'm sure his response is genuine.
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