Hobbyist.

You are all things that you do. And don’t do.

Lovely to see you all. Just a quick one today.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very much enjoying the slight increase in sun we’ve been having recently, as the merest suggestion of a spring finally arriving has me daydreaming and poring over maps here in the kiosk. Plotting the various adventures that may or may not happen…

As much as I love the kiosk life, and the urban dance, I very much like to punctuate it with excursions to the outdoors, and in fact, you may even call it a hobby of mine.

I was thinking about when you last dropped by, and I shared a little of my background and route to where I am currently. I concluded that there are so many factors that go into what makes me, ME (and therefore the work that I create), that it was impossible to separate the two. And, in a way, I think ‘hobbies’ (for want of a better word), exemplify this.

What do I mean? Well, thinking back to when I started out, I had (and probably still have, on a bad day) the attitude that if I wasn’t actually being employed as an illustrator at that precise moment, I was failing, and thus it was all just an expensive vanity project. But the truth is, before I called myself an ‘illustrator’, illustration was a hobby. The problem had only been created by me.

A smarter man than me (I think it was Sam Neill, actually) pointed out that if you make your profession your sole identity, then any moment you are not engaged in it, then you are nothing. This is obviously not a great way to think, and the trick for me is not to downgrade illustration to lesser import, but to promote all the other things that I do.

Therefore, I am not just an illustrator, I am also a writer, a climber, a hiker, a photographer, a pétanque player, a reader, a cook, a whittler etc. etc. I am ALL the things I do, even though I don’t necessarily make money from them.

Not only must I be open to the idea that one of these things might be my next ‘job’, just as illustration did when I was actually working as an architect, but in the present moment, they all feed into the drawings I make. Sometimes the connection is obvious, in the subjects I choose to draw, but in other ways, the very act of doing something so physically different frees me up to work or think in a certain way. Nothing makes a long, fiddly drawing seem more possible that breaking it up with a frenetic game of table tennis, for example.

So, in short, I’m renaming everything as, ‘interests’. Saving them from the stigma/false adulation of being bracketed one way or another. Personally, I find it quite a freeing thought. At the very least, you’re not wasting time, you’re just pursuing another interest.

Tool of the Trade.

The return of my semi-regular feature on a piece of equipment I like and use, but to be clear, is not a promotion. And please insert your own, ‘You’re a tool of trade’ joke here.

In the spirit of getting out and about and doing other things, I have picked my Millican rucksack. It accompanies me on pretty much all my excursions and endeavours and its simplicity and build quality mean that it seems to take whatever I throw in/at it. You can take this on some authority too, as I briefly worked in an outdoor shop in New Zealand, and ‘the rucksack wall’ was my domain. Again, another career that could have been…

Also, for those who know me, I am a big fan of the colour orange, so even to gaze upon it as it hangs up next to my desk is enough to trick me into heading out on an adventure of some kind. Even if it is just around the corner for a coffee. But, if you will grant me a moment of pretention, I subscribe to Sartre’s definition of adventure as, ‘An event out of the ordinary, without necessarily being extraordinary’.

Okay, we’re done. Told you it would be a quick one. Now go spend that free time you’ve been afforded, doing something ‘of interest’.

See you all next time, and enjoy the changing seasons, wherever you are.

Owen D. Pomery.

P.S This might be the first text to reference both Jean-Paul Sartre and Sam Neill, but I’ve not checked. And you’re welcome.

P.P.S Sam Neill didn’t say that to me personally, I don’t move in those circles. He just said it, and I nicked it.

P.P.P.S I did actually get to to do some illustrations for Millican, but after I had already bought one of their rucksacks of my own free will, so don’t worry, I’ve not compromised my integrity. I know you were worried.