..being a tour guide around some Glasgow studios (and a cemetery).
I’d like to think I don’t get complacent, but I do. I forget the wonders in my own back yard – in this case, Glasgow. That thing about tourists seeing more of a place than the locals do is true. I guess I am kind of a local in Glasgow now, and it has taken a group of students from my old art school, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, to make me realize I have missed a few of this town’s gems lately.
The MassArt crew gave me a mandate to arrange some visits with Glasgow designers, animators and illustrators – and I have to say, it was a great exercise. It pried me out of my comfort zone (the studio) and, as is usually the case when you depart the comfort zone, I had some eye-opening experiences and met some fantastic people.
It was excellent to visit Glasgow School of Art, check out what the Visual Communication students are up to (which involves some truly amazing multimedia work) and, for the first time ever, tour around the Mackintosh Building. Next we visited the Necropolis, Glasgow’s famous hilltop cemetery. It’s an atmospheric, strange place with fabulous views all around Glasgow.
The next day we visited the very entertaining animation company Once Were Farmers, who spared us time for a show-and-tell of their work even though they were working toward a huge deadline. Freight Design, a graphic design consultancy, let us traipse through their studio too, and look at their classy publishing projects.
The highlight was sitting around a big table that evening with Tom Green from Dangerous Ink magazine, comic artist Vincent Deighan, aka Frank Quitely, comic colorist Jamie Grant and comic artists Nulsh and Rob, looking at stunning original art and magazines.
I am still feeling inspired by all this, as I get back to my own work feeling refreshed and a bit more connected into Glasgow’s creative scene.