On Seeing Shaun Tan
Alas, the title of this post is not "On Meeting Shaun Tan" but I feel so lucky to have attended his JBBY sponsored lecture in Tokyo on October 22. All 500 tickets had sold out and there was a line of at-the-door hopefuls.
Shaun Tan's stories have been on my radar for a long time, and my favorites are The Arrival
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and Tales from Outer Suburbia.
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All of Shaun Tan's stories deal with notions of belonging, of insiders and outsiders, and home. As the son of a Chinese-Malaysian father and an English-Irish-Australian mother and married to a Finnish woman, Tan is well-poised to tackle ideas of straddling cultures. Yet his stories do so indirectly, by wedding realism with fantasy, by combining observational painting and drawing with imaginary stories, or as Tan said, by exploring "reality in all its strangeness."
At the event on October 22, we first were treated to a screening of the Academy Award-winning film "The Lost Thing" based on his picture book of the same title, in which a large, living, lost object is found by a boy and brought home like a puppy. Tan explained that he loves drawing emotions that feel real but are dislocated into another place.
When Tan took the stage he immediately told us a story, "Eric" from Tales from Outer Suburbia. He narrated it straight-faced, as if he were sharing an actual family memory of an exchange student's visit, while simultaneously showing illustrations from the story. Since Eric is about the size and shape of a maple leaf, the effect was hilarious.
The Arrival, as Tan explained, though wordless, is heavily research-based--he had collected and researched numerous immigrant stories and studied waves of mass migration. He discovered common emotions of anxiety and loneliness in what felt like disconnected places. Then he used fantasy to create a world unfamiliar to all readers and himself, and to remind readers of the strangeness of ordinary life. Though Tan has never migrated himself, the book is one of the most compelling and moving migration stories I have ever encountered. See this page from Shaun Tan's website on the inspiration for and process of creating The Arrival.
Tan said that he doesn't set out to tell a meaningful story, that he's actually just having fun painting. But since painting is a slow process that allows for lots of time to think, when he steps back from a painting he's often surprised to see the depth of meaning that has come through. Like the silent water buffalo in one of his stories who wordlessly points people toward a solution, painting can also point vaguely in a direction that seems interesting and worth exploring.
Shaun Tan spoke with an interpreter for about 90 minutes--and what a full 90 minutes it was. His talk covered his early drawings, background and training, family, research, discussions of The Lost Thing, The Arrival, several stories from Tales from Outer Suburbia, The Red Tree, and new work.
After an intermission, author/illustrator Satoshi Kitamura who'd been spotted in the audience, plus another Japanese author/illustrator whose name I couldn't catch were brought on stage and invited to ask questions of Shaun Tan. A few questions that had been submitted by the audience were also directed at Tan. In response to one question, he said, "There is almost nothing more distressing to me than a perfect line. I like the nervousness and unfinished look of working by hand." He likened his philosophy to that of Japanese calligraphy where there is mastery without control, and the artist is "at peace with the accident."
So I didn't get to meet him personally or host an SCBWI event. But I feel so incredibly lucky to have heard Shaun Tan give such a full and inspiring talk on his books that have meant so much to me. I look forward to his next works juxtaposing observation and imagination and exploring the gap between the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Shaun Tan's stories have been on my radar for a long time, and my favorites are The Arrival
[image error]
and Tales from Outer Suburbia.
[image error]
All of Shaun Tan's stories deal with notions of belonging, of insiders and outsiders, and home. As the son of a Chinese-Malaysian father and an English-Irish-Australian mother and married to a Finnish woman, Tan is well-poised to tackle ideas of straddling cultures. Yet his stories do so indirectly, by wedding realism with fantasy, by combining observational painting and drawing with imaginary stories, or as Tan said, by exploring "reality in all its strangeness."
At the event on October 22, we first were treated to a screening of the Academy Award-winning film "The Lost Thing" based on his picture book of the same title, in which a large, living, lost object is found by a boy and brought home like a puppy. Tan explained that he loves drawing emotions that feel real but are dislocated into another place.
When Tan took the stage he immediately told us a story, "Eric" from Tales from Outer Suburbia. He narrated it straight-faced, as if he were sharing an actual family memory of an exchange student's visit, while simultaneously showing illustrations from the story. Since Eric is about the size and shape of a maple leaf, the effect was hilarious.
The Arrival, as Tan explained, though wordless, is heavily research-based--he had collected and researched numerous immigrant stories and studied waves of mass migration. He discovered common emotions of anxiety and loneliness in what felt like disconnected places. Then he used fantasy to create a world unfamiliar to all readers and himself, and to remind readers of the strangeness of ordinary life. Though Tan has never migrated himself, the book is one of the most compelling and moving migration stories I have ever encountered. See this page from Shaun Tan's website on the inspiration for and process of creating The Arrival.
Tan said that he doesn't set out to tell a meaningful story, that he's actually just having fun painting. But since painting is a slow process that allows for lots of time to think, when he steps back from a painting he's often surprised to see the depth of meaning that has come through. Like the silent water buffalo in one of his stories who wordlessly points people toward a solution, painting can also point vaguely in a direction that seems interesting and worth exploring.
Shaun Tan spoke with an interpreter for about 90 minutes--and what a full 90 minutes it was. His talk covered his early drawings, background and training, family, research, discussions of The Lost Thing, The Arrival, several stories from Tales from Outer Suburbia, The Red Tree, and new work.
After an intermission, author/illustrator Satoshi Kitamura who'd been spotted in the audience, plus another Japanese author/illustrator whose name I couldn't catch were brought on stage and invited to ask questions of Shaun Tan. A few questions that had been submitted by the audience were also directed at Tan. In response to one question, he said, "There is almost nothing more distressing to me than a perfect line. I like the nervousness and unfinished look of working by hand." He likened his philosophy to that of Japanese calligraphy where there is mastery without control, and the artist is "at peace with the accident."
So I didn't get to meet him personally or host an SCBWI event. But I feel so incredibly lucky to have heard Shaun Tan give such a full and inspiring talk on his books that have meant so much to me. I look forward to his next works juxtaposing observation and imagination and exploring the gap between the familiar and the unfamiliar.
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