The Tiger who came to Monday Night

So, Monday night is a bit of a tradition at my parents' place. They put on a delicious meal, and whoever of us offspring is around (there's seven of us, plus our families, plus some really good value cousins and their families) drop in for dinner and birthday celebrations and frequently other commemorations.

Last night was tiger night, because last week saw the death of Judith Kerr, whose 1968 picture book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, is magnificent.

My mother Mary Anne asked me if I'd make a kamishibai story to celebrate the great Kerr, so I dropped around in the morning, we had a chat, I had an idea, went off into my day and in the arvo went and wrote and drew and painted a 4-card story.

After the main meal, but before sweets, my dad Salvatore read William Blake's poem 'Tyger, tyger' from his old school poetry book, In Fealty to Apollo, then I performed this new kamishibai story, which curled The Tiger Who Came to Tea up into our Monday Night dinner tradition.

Then mum talked about Judith Kerr and the place that her book has had in our family, then people sang happy birthday because it had been my 51st birthday on Saturday (yes, it was a lovely day, thanks for asking), then we ate a cake that my sister Anna constructed out of two squiggle cakes (the cheap, nasty and very popular cake that I bring every week), iced and garlanded to precisely resemble the cake in the book.

All in all, a highly successful Monday night.

But as you may have gathered, they pretty much all are.

(thanks to Anna for the photos)

Sur le route mit Wilhelm

Ecce homo, my friends.

Here is the man.

The man, in this case, being Wilhelm von Blandowski (1822 - 1878, in Australia 1849 - 1859), who I am performing for a program called 'The Art of Scientific Observation'. This program has been developed by Museum Victoria to celebrate The International Year of Biodiversity and National Science Week and is travelling across country Victoria over the next three weeks.

The program has a drawing component, whereby we set out a bunch of drawing materials (pencils, crayons, pens, fineliners) and a whole bunch of museum natural history objects (birds, mammals, reptiles, shells, insects) and visitors can have a go at drawing them. We are at the gallery or art centre in question from 11am to 3pm, and at 11.30am and 1.30pm, I perform a 20 minute illustrated show, 'Wilhelm von Blandowski: a curious man'.

The article above is from Ballarat's 'The Courier', from Tuesday, reporting on the first show of the first day of the tour, at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, on Monday. The article was written by Pat Nolan and the picture taken by Craig Holloway (who made good on his promise NOT to use any of the shots where my moustache was dangling from my upper lip - thanks, Craig!).

One of the great things about visiting the galleries (two so far) has been checking out the exhibitions on display. On Monday I was GUTTED to realise that I had missed an exhibition called 'In Your Face! cartoons about politics and society 1760 - 2010' at the Art Gallery of Ballarat BY ONE DAY.

To console myself I bought the catologue, and what a show I missed! Gillrays! Hogarths! Cruikshanks! Tenniels! Gills! There's a cartoonist in there, Tom Carrington, who does work for the London and then Melbourne Punch, whose work is superb. And there's a bunch of brilliant Australian cartoonists, including Will Dyson, whose 'Anyhow it's cleansing' from 1925 for Melbourne Punch is below.


This guy looks a bit like Henry Lawson, no? And his cravat reads 'Labour Party', the implication being that a positive spin must be put on everything. Timely no?

The next picture is by S.T Gill (1818 - 1880), maybe the best known 'goldfields artist', who was also represented in the exhibition (although I don't know if this image was in it - this is from a postcard) 'The Unlucky Digger that Never Returned' has a desolate melancholy which I really like. There's an Eddie Campbell element to this picture. Yes? Yes.


Tuesday was an 'On The Road' day, Ballarat to Mildura, via Horsham, though grey skies and Mallee scrub.


At Ouyen, the Big Sheaf of Wheat.


Do three stalks make a sheaf?


Me and The Big Mallee Root, which is that massive dark thing that looks like poured concrete. Hectare after hectare of these things were ripped out of the ground so that wheat could be planted up here. This picture is for my dad, Salvatore, who is (still) a Mallee Boy. It was taken by Amy Briese, from the museum's Discovery Program, my travelling companion for this week and a lot of fun to be with.


The sandwich board outside the cafe in Ouyen when Amy and I had lunch yesterday. Nice cartooning and nice colours, Cowards!


Today, Wednesday, outside the Mildura Art Centre. The skies are all day permanent grey, and the winds are high. Last night there was a tornado in Moama. Are we in Kansas? I don't think so.


The Chaffey homestead 'Rio Vista', part of the Mildura Arts Centre. We set up in the drawing room, a lovely room, where Gemma and Joe from WIN TV came to shoot the second show of the day - we (Amy, Wilhelm and I) were the post-weather story on tonight's news!

After we packed up, we had a wander around Rio Vista and the galleries.



Hi, Amy.


When I have a top hat, I will also have a box for it.


The Mildura Arts Centre has a fine collection of works by Frank Brangwyn (1867 - 1956), including many working drawings and a quite overwhelmingly large picture, a study for a church mural back in England. The scale of the piece and the scale of the room are staggering.


Meanwhile, back in Rio Vista, the wood-lined smoking room. Ah. When I establish my Men's Club, the designer will need to visit Mildura to understand the aesthetic I'm after.

Don't worry, the comics gallery/library/atelier comes first. Once it's up and running, THEN the Men's Club.

I feel like a cigarette

This morning, after more hours sleep than I care to name (apologies to all those parents out there, and particularly to Susan), I stretched my rested limbs and sniffed ---tobacco? More specifically, tobacco ash. I hadn't noticed the smell when I nodded off but now it was definitely there, in the room. And actually the previous hotel, the Grand Pacific, smelled like this, but in the halls, not in the rooms.

It seems to me, with all of my one week's experience of the place, that Tokyo is a city giving up smoking. Not that people don't smoke, they do, walking along or (my personal favourite) riding their bike or eating in the smoking section of a restaurant. But you know, not many. Most indicative of this is the signed 'Smoking areas' on pedestrian street corners. I would like to take a snap of one of these but there are always people, you know, smoking around them and I'm concerned that they'll think I'm photographing them, like they're the last remaining examples of a dying breed.

Anyway with that eau d'ashtray tickling my nostrils, it was obviously the day to visit the Tobacco and Salt Museum.


I got a bit cocky and headed though a real bird's nest of twisting and turning narrow alleys crowded with hotels offering yen values for stays of 2, 3, 4 etc hours. This area is not exactly the famed 'Love Hotel Hill' but I am fairly sure that couples don't check into these places to enjoy a quiet game of backgammon. This street art was the first I've seen in town and so I shot it for my Melbourne spraycan mavens, Mark Holsworth and Michael Fikaris.

Locating the street called Koen-dori, I walked along slowly, looking for any sign of this museum. When I saw this bloke, nothing registered. I walked on. Past workmen taking large red wooden cases into a lobby.

And then I walked past this VERY pink cafe, noting the name (something along the line of ('Le bon plage') but not noting the sign on the brick wall behind it.

After I'd walked on for what felt like too long, I resolved to walk back even slowlier, when of course I noted the: 1) museum sign, 2) the red exhibition cases being carted in and 3) that the statue was some heavy nicotine user from America del Sud.

Inside the museum I immediately started feeling happy - if Tuesday at the National Museum of Nature and Science was my Natural History fix, then the Tobacco and Salt Museum was my Social History hit.

Below, Christopher Columbus asks the indigenous people of North America for a light.

This guy, 100mm tall and made of stone, was in the 'Uses of Tobacco In the New World'. The answer in his case was I think, 'As a drinking straw'.

In the same section, about the history of tobacco use, there was an amazing display of cigarette packs from around the world.

On the next floor we got into the Japanese tobacco story. It kicked off with this life-size diorama showing the wife rolling and the husband shredding the bitter leaf.

Of course, there were also several of these ladies. I've done something to this one's chin, but you get the idea.



The next floor told the story of salt production. Salt and tobacco are under the one roof because both industries were once run by the government. One of the things that I loved about this museum (and I loved it a lot) was that there was no fear about using dioramas, for instance to tell the story of salt harvesting a long time ago

and more recently.

I'd love to tell you more about the museum (for instance about the portrait gallery devoted to "The famous tobacco lovers in Japanese history'), but we've got to hurry if we're going to get to the statue of Hachiko in time to meet Skye Ogeden.

Hachiko used to go to Shibuya station every afternoon to wait for his master so that they could walk home together. After his master died, Hachiko turned up each day for another seven years, until he died himself. That was in 1935. There was huge interest in his story, the statue was put up, and these days, as a meeting spot, it's the Flinders' Street clocks of Shibuya station.

While waiting for Skye I was drawing the dog, who was wearing a silk sash, and many tourists were snapping away (as did I, but I'm afraid you're getting the drawing) when an older Japanese fellow came up to the statue, hoisted himelf up with some effort (the head would be 2 metres above the ground) and gave Hachiko an repectful, approving pat.

Beautiful.

Then Skye, who had been also drawing, tapped me on the shoulder and off we went. Ah, to be following a local, who has the language and their own twists and turns and favourite spots.

Skye assuring us all that the name of the place isn't his profession or anything. No folks, Skye Ogden is an artist working on video games, video clips and best of all, comic books.
We ate and dranks and talked about comics (making/editing/publishing) and Japan and Australia.

After she brought our food, the waitress took this shot of us, about to plunge into the plates before us.

In the midst of our conversation, this fellow landed on a rooftop above. A good omen I think: I hope Skye and I will be able to work together in some way in the future...

Skye took me to a manga place and gave a much-appreciated primer on artists, titles and formats. We got coffees and took them upstairs and watched the human traffic stream back and forth across Shibuya Crossing. And talked some more. Our conversation got me re-fired up about where comics culture is going, in Australia. Certainly it's choofing along pretty well right now, but/and this is certainly the time for artists and editors and publishers to really WORK, to push ourselves and make some great comics.

I waved goodbye to Skye and travelled homeward via Bunkamura, a classy shopping centre/arts centre (they do that a bit, here) and the post office. Above is my street, with Fukudaya at the end on the right.

Outside an apartment block, the bike parking. This one's for my dad, who I think would love the bike culture here. What do you think of those ramps, Salvatore?

Back in my room, the lovely Fukudaya folks had left the makings for green tea, so there was nothing for it but to brew up, feet up and draw a drawing.

Ah, if only I had a cigarette...