Hoop Genius Book Talk and Signing

                                               

The Canadian Inventor of Basketball 

In partnership with the Central Grosvenor St. YMCA, join U. S. author John Coy and Canadian illustrator Joe Morse as they discuss their new picture book, Hoop Genius: How a Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball. They will reveal the true history of basketball and the key role the YMCA played in introducing this sport to the world. They will also talk about their unique approach to telling the story of James Naismith and how he used a game he played as a boy in Almonte Ontario to create this remarkable sport.  

A book signing will follow the talk. The event will take place on the Y's Green Roof offering spectacular views of the city in a beautiful green setting.

Where: The Central YMCA. 20 Grosvenor St.(south of Wellesley, just west of Yonge). The Green Roof. T: (416) 975-9168 ext. 41404

When: Saturday June 22nd. 1pm.

John Coy is an award-winning author of picture books, young adult novels, and the 4 for 4 middle-grade series. He's been fortunate to work with the talented Canadian artists Carolyn Fisher, Doug Fraser, and Joe Morse. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and travels widely to discuss books and reading.

Joe Morse's artwork has been commissioned by the NBA, Major League Baseball, Nike, Target and Universal Pictures. His illustrated version of 'Casey at the Bat' was nominated for a Governor General's Award. He lives in Toronto.

Media Contact: Joe Morse /E: joe@joemorse.com /T: 416 . 769 . 5301 

Raw vs. Cooked

A sketchbook can be a wonderful tool, and it is a tool that should serve a purpose. I have sketchbooks filled with writing, filled with figure drawings, filled with cityscapes, sketchbooks used on travels, used for assignments and for paintings. Each of these sketchbooks supported and recorded the time and place of my thinking and picture making. The examples I show above are from an older sketchbook used while I was developing paintings for an exhibition--what I would call 'raw' sketches and a recent page from my current sketchbook---the seriously cooked. 

The difference in these pages is not just the obvious difference in time spent, but rather that the most recent sketchbook has become a project in itself. These drawings aren't steps leading to a painting but the continued exploration of an experiment with image and text that is now 3 years and 7 sketchbooks long. I should have titled this Raw vs. Cooking as sketchbook 8 in this series will be simmering soon.

Afraid of My Shadow

One advantage of using sketchbooks since I was a teenager, I can look back and see where I was at different times. The pages above are from my last semester at College. I was 23 and planning my year away to study in Europe on a Greenshield's Grant. I needed to see this twentysomethings drawings and words today. I was looking for the scent of fear. I was curious to see if this younger version of myself could give me an insight into the fear I see in many young artists today. Fear is the worst thing that can happen to an artist. I don't mean the sensible dread that comes with any form of real threat, or the fear of making your rent payment. I'm talking about the fear that comes from being exposed to something unfamiliar, being asked to step outside the carefully constructed coccoon of your highly crafted 'Work' and actually risking something.

What is really at risk in the territory of the new is the carefully constructed sense of self we have glued together through heroic acts of cross hatching and death defying leaps of colour mixing. Is the value of the work measured by how clearly it resembles it's source or how cool the style is? We have only to post the images to receive a congratulatory thumbs up.

But what if you were also interested in growing the person that makes the work, to turn the equation around and not see the work as you, but rather see you as the work. Risk, exploration and constant growth would make some sense then.

So, I was happy to see that the 23 year old in the sketchbook was all about asking questions of the work and not looking for answers from well-meaning friends.  

The Smoke on the Horizon

My old 'hood in South Riverdale was an eclectic mix of rowhomes that in the 1901's-9's housed the Irish bricklayers that built much of the neighbourhoods in the Eastend of Toronto. The passage of time had not been kind to the street or the houses. I did exactly what you should never do, bought the nicest house in the worst neighbourhood. The bars on all the first floor windows should have been a clue.

I don't know when the Colgate factory was added to the streetscape, but I tried to convince myself that the towering, belching and foaming factory was not unlike the Swiss Alps I saw surrounding Lausanne in Switzerland, when I was backpacking through Europe.

The stacks from the factory dropped phosphates all over our gardens and one summer I grew sunflowers and they sprouted to insane proportions. Some days mounds of foam would spill out of the loading docks and blow down the street like bubbly tumbleweeds.

It's over 20 years ago that I lived on that street, the factory was torn down when the jobs went south to the US. A new townhouse development is planned on the land and the old rowhouses are just 1901 facades sitting infront of highly polished new hardwood floors, granite countertops and jacuzzi tubs.

Toronto is always changing and the city has torn down much of it's 19th century heritage, but I don't think the belching heap of industrial mess that was the Colgate factory is missed. I guess we like the idea that where we work and where we live should be separate.

Looking at my drawing today, it reminds me to look for the beauty in the everyday. It may not be here tomorrow.

Illustrophobic

I was asked the other day about what has changed for Illustrators over the past number of years. I found this drawing of a panel of Art Director's at an Illustration event in a sketchbook, I purposely drew them when they weren't answering a question. This got me thinking about how the questions and answers have changed over the past 2+ decades.

Many of the stories, the black humour and the frustrated outrage I shared with friends over the years are no longer relevant. Brad Holland gave an incredibly rousing speech at the 1999 ICON Conference about how everyone is an artist (including hair stylists) EXCEPT illustrators. We roared our approval and today the argument is also no longer relevant. The old lines are blurred by new realities.

Another illustrator at the 2003 ICON Conference thought I was crazy to suggest that Illustration needed an organization like the AIGA, because he said," illustrators are like hotdog cart owners. Coming together won't help us sell more hotdogs." That is an old picture of illustration.

NEW Illustration is without labels, categories or limits. Illustration is the mortar between the bricks one day, the bricks themselves another day and finally an urgent message spray painted across the wall.

Illustrators today live in a much more porous world. The barriers and hierarchies died with the single job title and the one job for life workplace. In a creative economy the changeable nature of illustration- it is a noun, verb and adjective, is no longer a failing of character but rather the strength of multiple approaches.

The things that have stayed the same, the fear of a blank page/screen, the challenge of conceptual ideas, the frustration with fees will always be the same. What has changed is the insatiable market for visual materials through the web and in entertainment has created great opportunities for artists willing to embrace new ways of communicating visually.

I always knew illustration was more than just a bag of visual tricks, tics and techniques. Today more than ever what we do as illustrators is not only relevant but essential.