Saturday, September 8, 2007

animal house


I am sorry if this drawing is hard to read. The only copy of it I could find was a photocopy of a pencil drawing. It is the interior of a house in which all the fixtures and articles of furniture are animals. The chair in front is a horse, there is a giraffe lamp in the back room, a parrot rug, a rhinoceros armchair, and so forth. The eggs in the egg carton are little birds.
The idea at first made me feel sorry for the animals. But in Seth's mind, the animals liked their role as furniture, and were not immobilized; they still had their own ideas in some things, and were therefore somewhat unpredictable as household objects: they behaved more like pets, I think.
Seth was always thinking of concepts. His notebooks are filled with brief notes of concepts for stories. But he knew that a concept alone is not enough; you need compelling characters and situations, an interesting story. So he worked on stories. For this story I am pretty sure the picture came first, and it was only after he had an idea and a picture that amused and satisfied him that he started to think of a way to make a story around it in which it would make sense.

3 comments:

Hisako said...

I saw this drawing for the first time.
I like it.I felt happy it.
Of course, if it is a true room,
I feel too bad.

I will show Tofu it tomorrow.
He must like it.

Vicki said...

Oh, this is the first time? Seth really liked this room. He had ideas about what happens there.

Anonymous said...

This illo is just fantastic, you can found it in the self made ashcan "The Man with 10000 noses".
Next year we hope to use the Rhino chair as a sculpture for the prize.
I found this piece just too great to be forgotten.