T - What did you do ?
D - I worked in a school but i wanted to be
able to say, i'm an artist, i'm an illustrator, i'm an author, just i'm
a something, rather than ' I work a bit in a school and I want to do this
or that but I haven't really got time.'
T - So it was about confidence building ?
D - Yeah i think i'd agree with that.
T - Can you describe for me your process ?
D - My process is in some ways about limitations,my
regular train journey from Plymouth gives me two hours of thinking time,
so its starts with thinking, you see this whole book that i'm working on
stemmed from a series of drawing that i'm working on that evolved from these
periods of thinking and reflecting.
D
- I write a lot of this in my diary and I have this thing personally
about crying, i'm not very good about it and i haven't cried since i
was sixteen or seventeen. So the whole book and everything that I am
working on is about crying and my relationship to crying. This is from
my diary ' Sometimes I cry and when I cry i'm happy and when the tears
reach my mouth they taste the same as the tears of sadness.' I like
that strange link between different states, like tear and tear the spelling
is the same and there's a connection there for me somehow.
T - And how does drawing come into it ?
D - I'll generally draw and the drawing
will create an interest for me, like crying came out of drawings and
then i'll say to myself ' Well why am i doing that ?' so I draw out
information from me my using myself as a medium. So I start to ask myself
why I am interested in this and digging deeper. Then I go for words
that I have different associations with, like 'Floods' like 'floods
of tears'
T - And thats the starting point for more
drawing ?
D - Yes, then i'll go onto bigger drawings
scaling things up.
T - Why scale it up, I don't understand scale, I never
feel that need, can you talk about that ?
D - It's just a comfort thing, I just feel
more comfortable working bigger.
T - but then ultimately in publishing terms
you'll scale them back down again.So once you've made many drawing backed
up by the process, then how do you turn that into a book, does it become
about sequence ?
D
- Not neccesarily sequence but series is incredibly important.
T – So there viewed
in an order ?
D – There viewed together. Even on my
BA, I’d have to make three or I’d have to make four. There would
always be a connection a relationship between things, like two thing three
things four things.
T – But we’re not talking about
stories, are we talking about running at a problem, no not a problem a theme,
no themes too weak, tears, crying for example is it a process of getting
a 360 degree view of something ?
D – I think so yes, exploring something
as much as possible.
T – Is it Psycho analysis, should you
have a couch in here?
D – No ( laughs ) but I do take into
consideration metaphor and symbolism.
T – Yes I find your work contains great
metaphorical strength. But what is your relationship to your audience, you
know if your working out all this personal material why give it to an audience?
D – I would hate for people to think
of it as something entirely for and about myself, anything I do I’d
like to be looked on as a learning tool, not to be patronising, like they
would need me to teach them anything but would love that people would read
it and think about their own situation, their relationship to tears.
T – So in fact it’s about using
the personal to create a universal resonance?
D – yes, when I was on the MA last year,
the work was about the family, you know, everyone has one. Think locally
act globally, you know.
T – Do you miss the MA community, the communal aspects of the course,
group crits
Workshops those kind of activities ?
D – I do miss the group crits, though
I think, for me, it was more important to talk about other peoples work,
its was really nice to just see a load of people in the same situation as
me. Just being able to question them in order to think about your own work
at one step removed from it. It’s a confidence thing and my confidence
just went from strength to strength from when I started on the course.
T – Yes it’s odd that, because
I had no confidence when I came to the course, even though I had a busy
commercial practice, you have validation but not confidence because there’s
a limited sense of ownership to the work.
D – Maybe its an inner power, an internal
confidence.
T – I think its about the level of communication,
it feels like real communication now.
D – I’d love to think it was real
communication
Dean Owens studied on the MA in 2006/7 he continues to live in Cornwall renting a studio just outside Falmouth in Penryn. He is currently working on a book 'Floods' to be published by Atlantic Press in 2008.
Tom-I'd
like to talk about the book you are working on at the moment?
Dean-It's a very personal book.
T- Had you done any personal work before
the MA ?
D - I think all my work had been a personal
thing, but I kind of shied away from it until the MA and that allowed
me to procrastinate even more.
T - When you arrived on the course, what
were your ambitions ?
D - All I came on the course for really
was to allow myself to say, I am an illustrator because at the time
I didn't really feel like i could say that. When people would say 'What
do you do.'
