10 QUESTIONS - PETE FOWLER

I first met Pete Fowler in the mid nineties at an exhibition of his paintings in a bar on Kingly Street, a few steps off Regent Street on the outskirts of Soho. I was there ostensibly to drink and see who was about but fell in love with a painting that has hung on my wall since, currently residing above our round fireplace in Cardiff. The hunched figure of a skinhead clad in a sleeveless white vest, staring dolefully out of a blue tenebrous murk, the vague outline of buildings barely visible behind. In one hand he holds a flaming torch, under the other arm a winking parrot. At least I think it’s a winking parrot, we used to think it was a skateboard. It was unlike anything else in the exhibition and I immediately bought it. I think it cost a couple of hundred pounds but is now easily worth billions. I think Pete was just about to move to Japan at that time, I’m not sure. I don’t see him very often but we’ll bump into each other occasionally, usually at something Furry related. For illustrations, animations and, best of all, MAKE YOUR OWN MONSTER! Check out http://www.monsterism.net/

Where are you? Describe your immediate surroundings.

I’m sat on the sofa, computer on my lap in my micro flat in East London. I have a BBC One programme about the missing link on in the background (Attenborough) and feeling slightly depressed about my surroundings due to watching a webcam of St Martins, Isles of Scilly, on the web about an hour ago (going on a camping holiday there over the summer, wish it was tomorrow). I used to spend a bit of time on the islands, Bryher in particular and completely blagged a low paid job many years ago in a boatshed on the beach AKA a poly tunnel painted white using gnarly fiberglass and enormous amounts of acetone. I once had to wash my hands in a huge drum of it to get the gelcoat off them. Happy days!

An absolute doppelganger of Neil Young (Harvest era) turned up once off the ferry from St Mary’s to Bryher with his much loved digger. After chatting for a while, I asked him if he’d ever lived on the mainland, “I lived in Penzance for 3 weeks once…didn’t like it”.

2. You went to Falmouth Art College. Who or what was your biggest inspiration during your time there?

Cornwall’s concrete skateparks and backgarden ramps, indie-psychedelic rock-rave-hip hop, freaky friends, Trago Mills Falmouth (google it), horror movies, sweets, cheese and mushroom pasties, mushrooms, skate graphics and skating on the brain. Did I mention skateboarding?

When you were a kid, who or what was your favourite monster?

Probably dinosaurs, if you class them as monsters though I was really taken with a book I read around 9 yrs old about man’s search for mythical beasts.I was quite taken with Sasquatch/Bigfoot and still have a soft spot for them. I believe Brian Blessed is quite keen on more research and governments to protect the Yeti. I think governments should protect Brian Blessed. I think I saw Sasquatch in Chewbacca when I inevitably was obsessed by Star Wars as most kids of my age were at the time.

4. “Humane motives are too sacred for the person before whom they are invoked not to bow to them, whether he believes them to be sincere or not”

Writes Marcel Proust in the second book of ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ If you could render obsolete one sadness of this world, what would it be?

Loneliness could be a good one to get shot of, that’s a pretty top 5 sadness I would guess…… what do you mean this isn’t ‘Family Fortunes’? I’d like to see Proust on that show. ‘Philosophical Fortunes’.

5.What is the ideal environment for you to work, do you follow any rituals, have a favourite place?

I like working in my studio but then again there isn’t a perfect environment to work for me. I’ve done a lot of good work (I think) away from my desk. I think it’s a place in your head. You realize that when you get the creative blank outs and it’s all to do with your head. As long as I have a pencil and paper I’m good though a laptop and internet connection are better. I’ve maybe fallen into rituals due to the everyday routines- coffee, pastry, Orangina (glass bottle), Radio 4 Women’s Hour. But I think pretty much anywhere I can get my creative brain together is good for me.

6. Just thinking about F C Ware’s heartbreakingly sad graphic novel ‘Jimmy Corrigan’ has me in tears. Especially now that my son looks exactly like little James.

Which work of art moves you most and why?

Chris Ware is killer, isn’t he? Such an icredible draftsman he blows my mind but I found his work really difficult to read over the last few years, not to say I don’t enjoy it but it can be very bleak. He’s totally self deprecating too, his collected sketch books are probably my favorite thing he has done, a real peek inside his head; Careful, it’s fragile in there! Music is probably the most moving for me, it’s always a memory trigger and so loaded with a myriad of emotions. For some reason Heaven by DJ Sammy always gets me choked, I can’t explain that shit!

7. Tonight I cooked Scallops Tempura with new potatoes, spring onions and pesto. What would be your perfect three course meal?

Asparagus with butter to start then West Highland venison with mash and greens for mains then to finish lemon and mango sorbet. Can I have a double espresso at the end and a good bottle of red to start?

8. I’m going rally driving in August with Mary’s brother, Muffin. How would you like die?

I think happily and quickly, without too much mess to clean up.

9. What’s the best name for a band ever? (Mine changes from day to day. Today it’s Leo Sayer).

I love the band names my brother used to come up with years ago. They included Baby Space Launch and Denim Weapon, don’t want to give away his best ones! Leo Slayer? Average White Stripes? Bongzilla I like and they are a real band too. How could you not include The Butthole Surfers and The Arm Of Roger.

10. Who would be in your fantasy band? You get a singer, a Guitar player, Drums, Bass, Keys and Oud. What song would they perform?

Vocals- Sandy Denny

Playing an arrangment of Heaven by DJ Sammy.