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2/20/2014

Now that I’m back home in Northern Ireland after leaving snowy Rhode Island/ Massachusetts, we are resuming work on the last few “tweaks” to our panel/map illustration and our brochure. I met up with Art Ward yesterday to discuss the book design (an element in the overall panel art) which will include black and white photographs and a little on the history of Bushmills.

We will then meet with Roy Bolton and Winston Boyce on Monday to catch up on what needs finished in regards to the tourist related work…presumably before spring hits. I’m really excited to see my artwork finally displayed in my hometown and all being well I will be bringing my Japanese-American lady over to live with me this spring/summer and she’ll see the work in person at any one of the panels throughout town. Most people don’t realize it but Christine actually played a big part in deciding what worked and what didn’t during the design process. The final design was of course the decision of the group, but in my view it didn’t hurt at all to have the design overseen by someone other than a local/resident of the town itself. My intent was always to appeal to an international audience and our work has made its rounds in parts of Massachusetts and elsewhere.

I really enjoy working on group projects and have a fondness for maps, as can be easily verified by my art/blogs/videos. So if you want one done for your own town, please get in touch with me. You’ll find I am a reasonable guy who loves to create powerful visual art. I’m eager to work with people who have a passion for sprucing their town up and want something that brightens the place up. If you like, come out Spring/Summer this year to Bushmills and see my illustrations for yourself, or pick up one of our new brochures at the Bushmills tourist office.

Drop me a line at [email protected]

Thanks for reading

James

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The Cultural Revolution Tarot

2/9/2014

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Spending Christmas with my partner Christine in Rhode Island, who just so happens to be the author of our tarot project The Cultural Revolution Tarot, was a lovely experience. I can't think of a better way to spend time being snowed in than to create a whole set of great artworks for the project, and that we did. It was a lot of fun bouncing ideas off each other and working on the images in the evenings. Now that I'm back home in Northern Ireland, we've already begun coloring the first set of images which we are uploading onto our Facebook Fan Page upon their completion (though of course as time passes, some changes may be made along the way before we can officially say they are ready for print).

The Cultural Revolution Tarot is based on the Mao propaganda posters of the 1960's - 1970's and include a whole range of scenes from military battles to farming. It's the first time I've drawn Asian figures extensively but i'm told they are convincing. While currently i am colouring the images myself, it's possible in the not too distant future Christine might lend a hand in this direction as her sense of colouring is outstanding, understanding depth and color moods.

Quite a lot of research goes into the making of each card, and this is where Christine comes in with her knowledge and interest in both the Tarot and Mao's Cultural Revolution, such as the varying military style uniforms, the space exploration themes, many of which include whimsical visions of children and pets, to the farmer's crops and their clothing. Christine incorporates these with the Tarot, matching up the themes of the traditional Waite/Smith deck with the corresponding theme in any given Mao era propaganda poster. I then take these ideas and bring them to life in my own style, trying to stay faithful to the spirit in which they were created...the spirit of Utopian community (regardless of how this utopia actually turned out or the negative aspects of the revolution that gain the most notoriety among those in the western world and those of an anti-communist persuasion in general).

The Cultural Revolution Tarot can therefore be seen as a sort of romanticized version of the Cultural Revolution, that is, the original idea of community and equality, without the class divides of the West, without the Bourgeois and their excessive lifestyles which were enjoyed on the backs of the lowly peasants. The Cultural Revolution Tarot aims to kind of champion the idea of community, not just the community of a 60's - 70's era China, but the community that we find ourselves in today, wherever you may happen to be.

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The Cultural Revolution Tarot

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