BILL BITES:
PULL THE CART, PUSH THE CART

Issue #15, by Bill Russell

Get ready. I tend to use a lot of metaphors.

I came to the ICON4 Illustration Conference, ready and willing to “take my medicine” but what I got was “candy”. Although the event was a success based mostly on the community it created (people make a conference), I was left with some uneasiness. I can only speak from my perspective and based on the sessions I attended, but it didn’t work for me.

I confess to having a rather high expectation. I wanted the conference to inform me, empower me and inspire me, not leave me without an insight into the realties and possibilities of my profession. No one but a few designers (see below) was really willing to throw “water on this love fest”. A little more honesty about how and why the business is hurting would have been useful.

Like many of these kinds of events, too few voices were heard from. It was all talk from the dais, no time for audience Q&A and no breakout sessions for smaller exchanges. For all the success stories from famous illustrators, there was no set-up for dialogue for and among attendees. This is why I volunteered to organize the Friday Topical lunches. A few small groups were able to talk to each other and create networks. There was more “pull the cart than push the cart”.

What I did find helpful were the comments of a few Bay area designers who also do illustration. They delivered to us some pragmatic advice. It came from Kit Hinrichs, Michael Mabry and Craig Frazier. What is it about the perspective a graphic designer has that manages to reveal our B.S.? Maybe it’s that a graphic designer deals more directly with clients or that they understand that art and design is mostly about business.

Kit Hinrichs is a principal in the San Francisco office of Pentagram. He commissions a lot of illustration. His keynote address contained a few dozen insights like: “Don’t make the designer the enemy” and “Don’t take the job if you can’t make the deadline”. I think it was stuff we needed to hear.

Michael Mabry has adapted to the shifts in his business. He’ll choose to draw or design whenever appropriate. I was stuck by the lack of pretense in his work. One thing he said was “be honest with your work and your family”. Yes, they’re linked.

Craig Frazier has the uncanny ability to inspire community action. Most notable is his “America Open for Business” poster. He was responsible for the most innovative idea of the conference: illustrator trading stamps. Illustrators talked to each other on the pretext of trading their stamps. It cut through the hierarchy. Frazier spoke honestly in the final few minutes of the Education panel about the futility of sending so many young illustrators into a marketplace without learning their “tools for the trade”. Art schools bear some responsibility for our current state of affairs as they are turning illustrators out in greater numbers.

Note: I have to commend this panel for some forward thinking.  They spoke of illustration programs as laboratories for creating new approaches in illustration, of inventing a new illustration curriculum in art schools as a way of reinventing the profession and of commissioning of a critical study of Illustration.

Did the conference deliver a real perspective on the current state of the profession?
No. Like I said, they gave me “no bitter pill”.

Did it inspire an on-going sense of community?
I hope so. Like collectors of LP records, bonding together would be just one way to fend off its demise in the culture.

Did it inform me?
Let me put it this way, I had a dream on the last night of the conference. I’m driving on a bridge and I’m feeling preoccupied. I suddenly realize traffic is congested. My car has almost stopped. I look around and I’m with my wife and kid. I’m on the most beautiful bridge in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge. I wake up to realize how blessed I am to be in the game. I’ll leave it at that.

Comments, etc. to Bill@Billustration.com

BILL RUSSELL

A Guild member for 20 years, Bill has been a freelance illustrator for over 25 years in Toronto, New York and the Bay Area. He taught illustration at California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC) for eight years and been a staff artist at the San Francisco Chronicle for six years. His contributions to various Guild efforts include volunteering on the North Bay Luncheon Committee, a successful North Bay Sales Tax event, the Outreach Committee, and the Repeal of the California Sales Tax on artwork. Bill is one of the original All-Rights Refusniks.

To view his work and other musings, visit www.Billustration.com.