Oliver Jeffers
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In this short, made by filmmaker Bas Berkhout, multiple award winning artist Oliver Jeffers shares how his son – and his own childhood – has influenced his art.
Sound design by Peter Stoel, watch with headphones!
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Oliver Jeffers is a visual artist and author working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture. Curiosity and humor are underlying themes throughout Oliver's practice as an artist and storyteller.
In this short, made by filmmaker Bas Berkhout, multiple award winning artist Oliver Jeffers shares how his son – and his own childhood – has influenced his art. Sound design by Peter Stoel, watch with headphones! More video's on http://likeknowslike.com Sign up for the next video: http://likeknowslike.com/signup Featured on: Directors Notes - https://goo.gl/8mTMRa Booooooom TV - https://goo.gl/S6yMNQ Digital Arts - https://goo.gl/HmXTfk Swiss-Miss - https://goo.gl/qYgTSS Format Magazine - https://goo.gl/t3XPrv StoryFrame - https://goo.gl/MQnFYH
People have asked me before:
What was your upbringing like?
Expecting an unusual answer.
I suppose for two different reasons.
One, because I grew up in Belfast,
which was a politically divided, often violent city.
Also, because we
grew up with my mother...
who was basically bedridden,
was ill my entire life.
She died of MS
when I was 19 or 20, something like that.
So, I think to describe
my upbringing: It was very happy.
The house in which I grew up in North-
Belfast was often nicknamed Grand Central.
Just because there were people
coming in and out all the time.
I think one of the reasons that I have so much
optimism, hope and joy is because of her.
She had MS for as long as I remember.
I have one memory of her walking...
but I don't ever remember
resentment, bitterness or anger.
Okay.
If I knew they were filming,
I would've put a bit of makeup on.
I'm just realising, Gran,
I'm going to be 40 in October.
I don't know if you remember, but you asked me
if I felt any different turning 30 than turning 20.
Oh, yes.
-And I said: No, not really.
Do you remember what you said?
-What?
You said, neither do you. You said
you just slowed down and got better taste.
Which I always thought was brilliant.
I tell people that all the time.
I slowed down and...
-Got better taste.
Do you still feel like the same person today
than when you where...
I now have these legs...
-But in your head you're the same person?
Oh, yes.
-Than when you were 20. I know.
At a really early age, I'd asked my mum:
How long does somebody live for?
Trying to wrap my head around
what an illness was, what a terminal illness was.
At the time she answered something
along the lines of: As long as you remember...
her favourite songs and tell her favourite jokes,
and the smile on her face.
I just thought she was fobbing me off at the time,
but in the evening part after her funeral...
I realised she was absolutely right.
Look at this crowd of people.
Every single person is just rejoicing and telling
stories about her. There's this sense of...
I even get it now. This surge of pride
of having known her. It occurred to me that...
that's actually what immortality is.
The telling of stories and the remembering.
Everything changes. Nothing is permanent.
That's the nature of things.
This portrait I painted alone
in this studio over several weeks.
There were no witnesses,
no photographs exist or ever will.
The only people who have seen this
are myself and the sitter. Until now.
You are the first, the last
and the only people...
who will ever see
the entirety of this painting.
Each sitter is linked by the experience
of having witnessed death first hand.
I remember being in somebody else's house
who had a sick family member...
but it was like: Oh no, we don't go into that area
of the house. They're there. They stay away.
But with my mum it was the absolute opposite.
There was a crowd of people around her bed.
After she died, I turned her room into my studio.
I couldn't bare the thought of nobody going there.
So I almost immediately changed it and my first
book was made in that room, first three books.
Belfast in the 1980s, 1990s was pretty bad.
I knew people who were killed.
I saw a few bombs myself.
It just sort of became run-of-the-mill...
where interruptions were almost predictable.
You just worked around them.
Belfast is probably
one of the most hospitable places on earth...
to everyone who comes to visit,
to everybody apart from each other.
Somebody pointed out
that the sense of duality in my work...
probably stems from growing up in Belfast.
Looking at Northern Ireland from a distance...
once I started travelling, it struck me
how unimportant those problems were...
on a global scale, really. It was about
history of identity, more than anything else.
And effectively, two different cultures
that had an identity crisis. It wasn't so much:
we know who we are. It was more:
We're not entirely sure who we are...
but we know who we're not. Either side
is defined, because the other one is there.
That's a frustrating way to live. What occurred
to me when I started travelling was...
nobody would give a shit about
what was happening in Northern Ireland.
We were in the top left hand corner of Europe
fighting amongst ourselves and nobody cares.
So, what's the point?
I always thought I was going to be a painter.
But I had the idea for a picture book while I was
in art college. It didn't immediately occur to me...
to make it as a book. I thought that I was dealing
with a series of sketches for individual paintings.
Once I made the connection that this should be a
book, making books was this very easy transition.
It felt logical and it felt natural.
I got that book published.
The publisher asked me: You've got
other books, right? I said: Yeah, of course.
I was making these paintings and these books.
For the first little while...
the paintings were getting suffocated
by the existence of the books.
Whenever people found out
that I was the same person...
the same painter who was making
these books, it jarred with people.
They didn't know how to understand it.
That caused friction.
And that caused a little frustration
back in those early days.
The fine art is about asking questions,
how we understand our world and our place in it.
The picture books tend to be
more about just the joy of telling stories.
I think I'm fortunate enough to remember
the feeling of my worldview of when I was a kid.
This sense of things bigger than myself
and full of hope.
I'm able to catch the tail end of that
and reel it back in.
Ultimately, that becomes the atmosphere
of the world in my books.
They have to satisfy me today, as an adult,
but also subconsciously...
they have to satisfy
the idea of me as a small boy.
The new project I'm working on, began the day
that we took Harland home from the hospital.
At that point, we were living
in a little apartment in Brooklyn Heights.
I came in and said something like:
Well, here we are. This is where you live.
This is your apartment. This is the kitchen. That's
where we prepare the food. Food is what you eat.
You really don't know anything, do you?
The dawning realisation...
that everything that this little brain
was going to process, was going to begin now.
Do you want to push the button?
Yes, that one.
Not that one.
Not that one.
Not that one.
That makes it go faster.
This one, remember?
Yes, there you go.
Do you like this song?
I'd started writing these things down.
The very basic things I was explaining to him.
At some point I thought:
There's possibly a book in this.
As I was starting to make political posts
on social media about this rise of xenophobia...
this fear of 'the other'.
Essentially, this ignorance.
Things like that
started to seep into the book, too...
but in an incredibly positive way.
Sort of reminders of...
We're all here. This is the only place
where all of the people live.
It's not like we can go somewhere else.
All of these stories that people have told
themselves through the years that separate...
started to come in.
You don't know this yet?
You haven't heard these problems that you might,
later on in life. If I can do anything about that...
I would like to help you try and avoid that.
What is it Nelson Mandela said?
We all bleed the same colour.
Children are not born with hate...
they need to learn how to hate.
I've always thought about that. Basically,
it was the same thing in Northern Ireland.
Whenever there's riots going on in the streets,
especially these days, it's all kids.
I've always avoided
over-sentimentality in my books...
but this time I'm getting
on my moral high horse.
I'm unapologetically sentimental
this time around.
Having a son and realising that if I'm not going to
speak out against these things, then who will?
I've thought about legacy before.
It's funny. Legacy's a funny word.
It's the idea of your work living after you,
which is a very pleasant thought...
but I would rather not sacrifice the time
that I have on this planet...
for some sense of posthumous success.
What is the point in that?
I think that...
My legacy, if I could raise a healthy man...
if I could have a happy family...
and if my work did help other people...
enjoy their time on this floating ball,
that would be tremendous.
I think, ultimately...
My legacy, if I could...
leave behind a happy family
and a happy group of friends.
Oliver Jeffers is a visual artist and author working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture. Curiosity and humor are underlying themes throughout Oliver's practice as an artist and storyteller.