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[November 12th, 2007 ]
Working and living in the Garment District of Toronto, Antony Hare , illustrator, has a humble place of business. It contains handsome blinds and a desk that he built with his brother-in-law and another one that his wife, Pauline, discovered abandoned in a basement. Antony didn't think he'd actually become an illustrator until his early twenties. And that's where it all began...
I think it stems from a deeper skepticism about how realistic a career in the arts would be, in general. It's the strangest thing, where that idea came from, and I don't think I know the answer. For some reason, from a very young age, I was very sympathetic to the business world. I liked it. It's not that I didn't realize there was a commercial aspect to art, mind you. I knew there had to be remuneration, but I thought of it in an impossible way. Later, when I realized that this idea, about art not being financially feasible, was just one of maybe a million ideas I had that which were simply wrong. And then once you understand you've got lots of wrong-headed ideas up there it's satisfying to adjust them accordingly. In university I studied Philosophy. This forced me to give up some misguided ideas I had that were not only false, but unwarranted.
What art and artists did you like when you were young?
How do you like your job? I love my job. My office is in a great building in a great part of Toronto. I work with editors of newspapers and magazines, creative directors at ad agencies, art buyers at publishing houses, and people who just want a print for their home. My background in advertising has helped immeasurably. I work with the tools that I grew up with: computers and the Internet. I don't really hold onto the digital versus analog distinction in part because I don't think it's a useful one. I draw compulsively in my countless sketchbooks which helps my work. One of the nicest things about being an illustrator is that I can explain it to people and they understand what I'm saying. That's important, and not just for dinner party conversation. It's important because it helps me to focus on the work itself instead of complicating things with meaningless words. In some jobs, like advertising, the work can suffer because you're juggling so many other variables. It's a complicated business. With illustration I can concentrate mostly on the illustrations themselves. And the illustrations, while complex in their own way, are simple, conceptually.
My work is at the meeting point between portraiture and caricature. This is a concept I've absorbed from reading Bob Staake's "The Complete Book of Caricature", an amazing book. I like to think of it in this way because there are many aspects to caricature that don't fit for me. I'm not interested in the idea of lampooning someone, for example. It's definitely about the visual information in the final piece. I think line is essential to my work. I'm communicating a visual perspective, and lines are a great communicator. I think that there's a design component to my work. When I say design I mean the deliberate maneuvering of visual components to create a unified piece. I work on a Wacom tablet that is connected to my laptop PC. I work in Illustrator and sometimes do finishing and cleaning in Photoshop or Flash, depending on the situation. Recently I've been drawing a lot of food and drink.
Where do things go from here?
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