I loved Keren's post yesterday on making collage and how it reflects aspects of her narrative-making. I don't make actual collages (though I would love to, if it were safe to leave scissors, glue and cut up things around in a house with a toddler). Instead I make cartoons in PhotoShop based on old images and transposing my current problems and issues into them. This week I have a problem with the window installers, and spent most of Friday morning committing it to PhotoShop. (I've doctored this one to de-identify the company involved to avoid legal problems. It's just a van from the Internet, so please if anyone owns this van, it's not aimed at you!)
I use medieval images a lot for this as I was originally a medievalist and find it comforting to slip back a few decades/centuries. It puts things in perspective, somehow. These problems that trouble me now have troubled people in a different form just about forever. Will my house fall down? Probably not. People have occupied far worse-maintained houses than mine over the centuries. Is a problem with workmen new? Absolutely not. There were probably similar disputes over pyramid-building 'You've left a gap big enough for cockroaches to get in and eat all the grain he will need in the afterlife!' It's all the same-old same-old.
Like Keren, I can see how this uses the same kind of techniques as my writing, which is largely non-fiction. I find things people have already discovered and repurpose them, making them appropriate for a new audience, adding a light touch or humour, getting readers to see them in a new way, making unexpected connections and juxtapositions.
It's much more satisfying and relaxing than ranting about frustrations. And if it all goes horribly wrong and my house falls down, I can post the undoctored cartoon on TwiX.
Anne Rooney
Out now: Story of Science, November 2023; illustrated by Paula Zamudio
1 comment:
That looks such fun!
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