Born of the Thespian World

I was 17 years old when I did my apprenticeship as a commercial artist. I was taught craft, drafting and construction by artisans, reproductionists, illusionists, and masters.

It was about aesthetics and technique, precision, flamboyancy, extreme, colour and movement, theatricality. I did my apprenticeship in one of the oldest commercial art houses in Melbourne, born of the thespian world, a world which exists no more.

When I studied Theatre and Film design at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts it was all about philosophical and intellectual meaning. I would here learn to question and answer everything, to influence and be influenced and discern every mark I was to make.

I could give you a myriad of philosophical meanings… how many of them would truly be intellectual would be debatable. Intellectual design stinks of ascetic value, what it is worth to artist or audience may be mediocrity.

But it was