Excerpt from Thomas James' podcast interview with Barron Storey:
"The motorcycle thing was something I never even thought of as a potential illustration market. It seemed sort of 'beneath me' to play up my teenage motorcycle fetish. All the illustrators I admired were doing much more ambitious things."
"I lived across the hall from a wonderful young friend who was assistant art director at Car and Driver magazine. He knew about my motorcycle thing. He said, "We're thinking about doing an article on motorcycles... why don't you do some samples... maybe you could get that job."
And I just scoffed at the idea, you know, I am just not that kind of an illustrator. I'm not going to do 'buff' illustrations, I'm going to do serious things. And he said, "you don't know anything about serious things, you know about motorcycles. So do the damn samples!"
"And, um, you know... I was reluctant... but I did 'em. The irony is that the terrific art director they had at Car and Driver just didn't like my work at all. But for once in my life I knew something I did was great... and it didn't matter to me that it had been rejected... for once in my life I felt so good about something I had created that I was ready to go to bat for it - to do the work to get it printed."
Hear the entire interview at Escape From Illustration Island, Episode 56
* Thanks to Harold Henriksen for providing today's scans!
"The motorcycle thing was something I never even thought of as a potential illustration market. It seemed sort of 'beneath me' to play up my teenage motorcycle fetish. All the illustrators I admired were doing much more ambitious things."
"I lived across the hall from a wonderful young friend who was assistant art director at Car and Driver magazine. He knew about my motorcycle thing. He said, "We're thinking about doing an article on motorcycles... why don't you do some samples... maybe you could get that job."
And I just scoffed at the idea, you know, I am just not that kind of an illustrator. I'm not going to do 'buff' illustrations, I'm going to do serious things. And he said, "you don't know anything about serious things, you know about motorcycles. So do the damn samples!"
"And, um, you know... I was reluctant... but I did 'em. The irony is that the terrific art director they had at Car and Driver just didn't like my work at all. But for once in my life I knew something I did was great... and it didn't matter to me that it had been rejected... for once in my life I felt so good about something I had created that I was ready to go to bat for it - to do the work to get it printed."
Hear the entire interview at Escape From Illustration Island, Episode 56
* Thanks to Harold Henriksen for providing today's scans!
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