Book Illustrators Gallery Launch

Last Saturday I attended the launch of the Book Illustrators Gallery aka BIG at the National Library, which is the first  BIG (pardon the pun) event leading up to the annual Asian Festival of Children's Content. 

At the inaugural launch of BIG back in 2011, around 30 illustrations were featured.  But this year illustrators from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom submitted  their works for consideration.  Out of the 150 entries, 103 were eventually selected for inclusion for the BIG.   It's really encouraging to see so many talented illustrators from around the world who are interested in having their artwork displayed at the BIG during the AFCC!

Book Council Ex-Co Member Koh Juat Muay and Gallery Curator Susanna Goho

One of the featured illustrators was my friend, Dave Liew and I convinced him to pose for a quick snap with his illustrations right before the launch. Oh, before I forget, my genius illustrator Soefara also has an illustration on display. 

David Liew

This year renown and popular illustrator Lee Kow Fong spoke about his journey as an illustrator.  He told the audience that it's never too late to start illustrating as he went for an illustration course  in the United Kingdom at the age of 39! I have to say that's very inspiriting  and there's still hope for me. In fact, I may just

follow suit even though I'm only 31 +++++++......

Lee Kow Fong

Next, Festival Director and Deputy Director of the National Book Development Council of Singapore, Kenneth Quek, delivered his opening address before presenting guest-of-honour, Venka Purushothaman, with  a  token of appreciation from gallery curator Susanna Goho.

Kenneth addresses the guests

Kenneth Quek,  Venka Purushothaman, and Susana Goho-Quek 

After the official launch, I managed to catch up with the guest-of- honour, Venka Purushothaman, Provost of Lasalle College of the Arts, to ask him about his thoughts on picture book illustrations.

What are your thoughts on children’s picture book illustrations?

Picture books, in terms of illustrations, are highly developed with much scope to grow. What I see is a lot of really in-depth reflection and reflexivity that’s emerging amongst young designers, illustrators and storytellers.  It’s something we should develop as a community of practice. With picture books people might look at the illustrations as images that inherently support the story.  But, in actual fact, illustrations have a whole ecology and economy of ways of telling stories and they have their own vocabulary, so I think it’s very important for us to celebrate that field and very specifically find ways to build discourse around it. Events like BIG (Book Illustrators Gallery) help build discourse. It’s not just about the images but what they really mean and how do they deepen our understanding of the world around us. So I think it’s a very significant area to be developed extensively through a community of practice.

Can you remember your first picture book?

Not really. I was a child who grew up on Mad Magazine. I was a child of the 70s. [At that time]  It was very much about the Walt Disney and Hanna Barbera way of illustrating  [cartoons] that influenced every young person through the medium of television. Television was the ‘book’ from which we loved to understand illustration. Having said that, the segue-way into the literary world is a very different aspect of it. In a sense the field of illustration and picture books were very divorced from each other. Things were illustrated in order to teach something. While the picture books are able to tell the story without the words. Of course there are historians who say that this links into cave paintings and whole structure of storytelling. In contemporary medium you have books, television and radio that tell stories in different ways.

Does Lasalle have a course on picture book illustration?

We actually do. We don’t teach it as a full course but we do have image and illustration [modules] on several fronts. First of all in Lasalle, the designers have to do storytelling through image making. Everything in art and design is about a story. But how do you express it? We have students who partner with art therapy students and they have created books just for the  therapeutic world. In the fine art world, we have been working with the medical sector with medical illustrations. Storytelling is a massively big part of the college and we believe that art and storytelling is not divorced.

What do you think of the illustrations you see here in Singapore?

The Singapore illustrations are phenomenal and there’s a lot of raw energy emerging and it requires a lot more mentorship and guidance and referencing to other international illustrators and people who have established practices.

Thank you, Mr Purushothaman.

Now, if you'd like to check out the Book Illustrators Gallery, head on down to the National Library. The exhibition runs until the 11th of June.

Catching Up with Jacqueline Harvey

So for two weeks, my good friend best-selling author Jacqueline Harvey was in town for school visits and the Singapore Writers Festival. Ken, Emma and I caught up with her for dinner right after the WTA finals and we all went to the dimsum restaurant at ION which is a favourite. Jacquie, her sister Sarah, Mum and had lunch there last year, so we decided to try it again. And as usual it was good!

Mum and I caught up with her again after Dave Liew's book launch and then again on Saturday at the American Club. My friend Channie's daughter Drew and her BFF Sarah are huge fans of Jacqueline's and when I told them we were friends they just had to meet her. Since they missed out on meeting Jacquie last year, we arranged for them to meet her at the club.  So over burgers and chocolate lava cake, the girls got their own one on one with the creator of Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose.  And They went home with signed books and posters. How cool is that?

After lunch, Jacquie went back to work on her next best-seller and I headed back home to work on my next afternoon nap.

A few days later members of the SCBWI Singapore group wanted to meet with Jacquie so Kenneth and I arranged dinner at Grandma's a local restaurant that is known for Peranakan cuisine. Jacquie ordered the chicken curry and chatted with the rest of the members who all hoped her best-selling magic would rub off on them over dinner.

When the weekend rolled around, Jacquie was back at the Singapore Writers Festival conducting two work shops. They were brilliant and the parents were as enthused as the kids.

 It was a fun two weeks catching up with Jacquie, though she probably had an overdose of the David Seow experience, I was also glad that I managed to catch up with Jacquie's husband, Ian before they left for their tour of the UK. I look forward to their next visit and hopefully next time I'll be able to catch up with Sarah too. 

Nathan Adrian at Singapore Swim Stars Showdown

Olympic swim Champ, Nathan Adrian, and a school of other swimmers sped into town for the inaugural Prudential Singapore Swim Stars. Nathan arrived a week before the event last Friday and it could be said that he's the one every one wanted to see. Fan girls were counting down the days till they could meet him at the meet. Now, I had already met him before way back in 2008, right before the Beijing Games, when he was in town with the Team USA for a training camp in 2008.

Christine Magnusson, Elizabeth Beisel, Lucy, Ricky Berens, Julia Smit
and Nathan Adrian

Back then, the entire team was staying at the Shangri-La and my American friend Lucy was dying to meet them to show her support. So we headed on down along with our friend Kee. Whenever we saw anyone from the team, Lucy approached them and asked them if she could have a photo. Nathan was seated with some of his team mates including Ricky Berens and Julia Smit when we approached and they all kindly agreed to a photo op. This was Nathan's first Olympics and he ended up bagging his first Olympic gold as part of the USA men's relay team. (He swam in the qualifying leg.)

Flash forward four years and Nathan won his first individual Olympic gold for the 100m freestyle, besting James Magnusson by 1/100th of a second. In addition to his individual gold, Nathan two other Olympic medals to his collection at the London games: a gold for the 4x100m medley and a silver for the 4x100m freestyle.

Ray and I were lucky enough to meet the Olympic Champ during his weeklong visit to our shores. "Are you going to the meet?" he asked and I told of course I was as my brother had invited me to the meet. Thanks, Kor.

I took the opportunity to give Nathan a set of my books for his nephew Max. And he thanked me for them. I later left my new book The Lion Dance for him at the concierge desk.

Nathan with my books

I look even more like a hobbit than normal next to Nathan

So I headed down to the OCBC Aquatic Centre at the Sportshub  with my brother and family for the much anticipated meet. The place was packed with students, adults and swim fans.

Nathan emerged the big winner that night, winning USD$20,000 afor both his events, the 100m and 50m freestyle events. All in all it was a pretty amazing night. Congratulations, Nathan and good luck for 2016! Now I'm kind of inspired to do a kids' book about Olympic Champs. Nathan would make a good subject for a story. What do you think?