The Art Of Changing The World

Chris Wise likes to explore the heavens with his telescope, he likes to play the guitar, and he likes to doodle. More than most, he appreciates the power of the doodle and when he talks, it's like listening to more doodling. You have no idea where he's going or what he'll end up with, but the loops and swirls and branches will develop in the most fascinating way. Sometimes the doodle stops making sense; there are jumps, non-sequiturs, but they always lead back to theme.

The theme is improving the world for benefit of mankind.

Which, he says, is what engineers do.

The Millennium Bridge began with a doodle. So, too, did the London 2012 Velodrome.

Big projects worth millions of pounds that involved hundreds of people with innumerable specialties, that began in a humble way.

With a line.

But how else, is one supposed to begin?

I write this over and over again when I take drawing and painting classes. So often, our attempts to create are confounded by an all-too-reasonable desire to impress.

Chris Wise has won many prestigious awards and is a fellow of RIBA, the RSA and the Royal Academy of Engineering who granted him their most prestigious medal. He has worked all over the world with the likes of Rogers, Foster and Piano. His work is useful, impressive and changes lives and it all began in a back bedroom with a doodle.

The link to his company website is here.

At the end of his talk at Rook Lane Arts recently, a member of the audience asked Wise for some advice about his son, who hoped to be an engineer. He was about to take a year out after his studies and he wanted to know if his son should accept an internship, play his violin or climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Wise replied that if the man's son wanted a job, he should take the internship.

"That's what I told him," said the man, somewhat triumphantly.

"But," said Wise, "If he wants to be a better engineer, he should play his violin or climb a mountain."

Here's a brief animation of the talk that Chris Wise gave. I made it in real-time on the iPad, as he spoke, using the Brushes 2 app.

Art and Wine

For many artists, matters of the palette and the palate are inextricably linked. Just look at all the sumptuous still-lifes in our museums and art galleries; the tables laden with food; bright fruit on glimmering pewter and glistening crystal cradling darkly glowing wine. Contrast that with the popular trope of the starving artist, bartering a freshly-painted masterpiece at the bistro, for a platter of bread and cheese and a carafe of vin de table.

Although the painter may be wedded to one sense in particular, there is a good chance that he or she is not completely divorced from the pleasures afforded by the others. These two still-lifes by Picasso and Braque are celebrations of all our senses, and a bottle of wine lurks in both. When we are carried away by sound or colour, do we not call ourselves 'intoxicated'?

Google 'art and wine' and you'll get 365,000,000 results. Festivals combining the two abound. At every exhibition opening night I've ever attended, wine is the natural accompaniment. Nothing else quite stimulates the senses while loosening the inhibitions, the tongue and the purse strings.

So when I was invited by Jason Yapp to illustrate Yapp Brothers' 2013 wine list, I didn't hesitate to accept. I knew that I'd be in extremely good company. Willie Rushton, Glen Baxter, John Burningham and Quentin Blake have all illustrated the Yapp Brothers' wine list before. And I also knew that I'd be cosying up to some delectable wines. We're all sensualists. Yapp Brothers care about their taste buds and their olfactory epithelia as much as I do about my retinas.

Wine arouses passion; it has its stories and its landscapes and it's a natural subject for the artist. But where to begin?

I decided to restrict myself to the iPad. With the summer taken up with residential courses at home and abroad, I'd have few opportunities for studio work. As long as I remembered to pack my charger, I could 'paint' wherever I happened to be. And using the Brushes and ArtRage apps would help to create a fresh identity for the list and help to keep the visuals graphically simple. The iPad also gave me an opportunity to make discoveries and to work outside the realm of the frozen tableau that is the artist's traditional domain. 

This is Chateau Fouquet, home of the Filliatreau's and a rather good Cabernet Franc.