The person behind the page
Writer, illustrator, and chronic note-taker. I make things with words and pictures — sometimes separately, sometimes at the same time.
200+
Essays published
40+
Artworks in the gallery
15
Years of sketchbooks
6
Cities lived in
Where writing and drawing meet
I've been keeping sketchbooks since I was twelve. Not because I was particularly good at drawing — I wasn't — but because I needed somewhere to put the things I couldn't say out loud. The sketchbooks became notebooks. The notebooks became essays. The essays kept wanting pictures.
The Illustrated Word is the place where all of that lives together. It's a blog about narrative and image, about the way a story changes when you draw it, and the way a drawing changes when you write about it. It's also just a place to share the work.
I write long-form essays about art, literature, and the creative process. I make paintings, drawings, and mixed media pieces that respond to the writing — or sometimes precede it. The relationship between the two is what I'm most interested in.
A little history
Studied fine art and literature at university. Spent more time in the library than the studio, and more time in the studio than anywhere else.
Moved to a city I didn't know. Started drawing the streets as a way of learning them. Filled six sketchbooks in one year.
First long-form essay published. It was about a painting I'd been looking at for three years. The editor asked if I could illustrate it myself. I said yes before I'd thought it through.
Started this blog as a place to work in public — to show the drafts and the discarded drawings alongside the finished things.
How I work
"Most pieces start with a question I can't answer quickly. I write around it for a while — notes, fragments, false starts. At some point I start drawing, not to illustrate the writing but to think differently about the same problem."
"The visual work and the written work inform each other in ways I don't always understand until after the fact. Sometimes the drawing resolves something the writing couldn't. Sometimes it's the other way around."
Get in touch
I'm always glad to hear from readers, fellow artists, and anyone who wants to talk about the work. The best way to reach me is through the contact form.