Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Input: Illustrator and printmaker Nate Williams

Insert 2 images here.
I think Nate Williams is one of the best illustrators working today

His work contains beautiful spontaneous drawings, a very unique colour palette with interesting colour combinationsn fun
inventive lettering and great silk screen like textures. Its also vey strong conceptually.

In addition to being very talented he is also incredibly thoughtful and articulate about his process
On his website he explains that he began a zine called Hola amiga in order to "
nurture and explore the subconscious realm, all in a very low tech way. "

Hola Amiga consists of three main components: Input, Output and Reflection. (sounds like a blog)

Input

are the things going on in my life at that specific moment in time. Input are things ranging from music, environments, letters, emails, cultural learning's to things people say, concepts, observations, food, books, weather, mass media, relationships, inspirational people, experiences, exercise, etc .. basically anything a human experiences.

Output

is Hola Amiga .. the disregarded, impulsive, spontaneous, unconsidered, unplanned, unstudied by-product of life's daily influences. These are my drawing, sketches, thoughts, etc.

Reflection

is something I just do in my head. This is when I try to bridge the gap and explain the relationship between the Input and Output. Most of the time I don't realize why I decide to use specific imagery at the time. Eventually I track down the source/influence. In life a lot of the time you have an idea and then you execute it. With Hola Amiga I do the opposite ... I execute it and then sometimes successfully track down the idea. Really not much different than trying to explain the odd events of a dream.

i think this is all great.
It also blows my mind that Nate took the zine one step further and decided to apply this approach to his life as well as his art.
He wanted to invest in the less tangible things like learning a language, living in another country, learning about history and nature, and most of all, just having the free time to experience, think, wonder, and discover.

so he quit his job, sold his house and moved to South America where he currents lives.

This guys really knows how to LIVE.
Inspirational.

No comments: