It was particularly delicious to interview one of my favourite artists, Anthony
Jenkins over lunch at the Bangkok Paradise restaurant. Tony has worked for
some 27 years as a staff artist at the Globe and Mail, and is one of Canada’s
top newspaper artists. But Tony is not a pretentious person. Perhaps his unlikely
arts education at the University of Waterloo keeps his ego in check, but it’s
just a job to him, “my only real job anyway,� he says. He’s dressed in
the nondescript, colourless garb typical of newsrooms but has a surprisingly
blue windbreaker on his chair. It fits somehow with the rich red tones of the
restaurant he’s chosen and his often explosive use of colour.
Janet McLeod> With the Globe being only black and white for so long, you've
done a lot of black and white art. Do you find that black and white art has some
advantages over colour?"
Tony Jenkins> I did black and white for 20 years. But sometimes simplicity works.
Sometimes even a simple black and white drawing is better than a complicated
black and white drawing. It forces you to mentally edit. It's pure. You can take an
adequate drawing and throw a lot of colour on it and think oooh that's pretty
jazzy, but the skeleton isn’t very good.
M> I know you've been doing more colour now in your painting and caricatures.
What do you think of colour?
T> Colour makes you work harder, especially with the painting. With the black
and white I can come in even on a rough day and I can go on half auto pilot and
get something reasonably good, maybe real good. They give me the article and I
give them the illustration. With colour you have to pay attention. If I put down a
blob of blue and it doesn't work, it's there to stay.
M> A lot of your work, especially the caricatures, seem to be about line. What
does line mean to you?
T> I kinda look for a flow. In classical painting the eye flows around and that
appeals to me. So if you can do the drawing in a flow I find it harmonious. If the
flow looks like something, all the better. It's like a roller coaster ride. And getting
a likeness in an unusual way. If you try to do something that other people
wouldn't see there, caricaturing it in a unique way with the line, then it becomes
your own individual imprint.
I like doing simple more than complicated. I don't know if I'm lazy but if someone
said I had to draw a thousand flying monkeys or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on
roller skates, I'd hate it and try to think my way around it. If it's too complicated I'll
boil it down to one image. There's no flow in a thousand monkeys.
M> Has your work every caused a controversy?
T]> Cartoons yeah, but illustrations not so much. I remember this one about ten
years ago, it was something about prostitution in Toronto and I did some kind of
fake business card with a name like "Jane Smith Madame" on Queen Street. It
was the most innocuous name. And so of course the next day Jane Smith from
Queen Street called in, foaming at the mouth, saying "You’ve defamed me.
I'm a good woman" and surprisingly the Globe spent money on trying to placate
her, and of course the spending of money got back to me, saying I'd better watch
it.
At this point the food arrives—red curried chicken, sticky white rice and Tony's
"mountain of Pad Thai." It is delivered with unobtrusive efficiency by our
dramatically white clad waiter, looking like an ethnic version of the Glad Man in
this deep red room. For a moment I lose interest in the interview, preferring
instead to sop up the rich curried broth with spoonfuls of rice. Fortunately after
a few forkfuls, art was again the primary focus.
M> Have you seen technology change illustration?
T> If I could get something better or faster I would, but I still like the physical
sensation of scraping and dipping and blobbing and wiping and it works for me. I
see computer literate guys coming in who are basically computer guys that can
draw rather than artists who use a computer. Victor Gad is a real good illustrator
in his own right, who learned computer skills and adapted it. But a lot of kids
coming in are really just computer whizzes and the illustration is kinda stiff and
boring.
A cell phone rings at another table. Although I'm a digital art enthusiast, I agree
technology doesn't belong everywhere.
M> What changes have you seen in how illustration is used and illustrators are
treated?
T>There were more illustrators when I first started and fewer art directors.
Before, art directors were filling holes [in the page layout] either with
photography or illustration. They couldn't be putting out a phone book. Now they
fill those holes with type or computer design or whatever. I think art directors
used to need illustrators. Now they view illustrations as an added expense, so
some papers run almost none.
Certainly Tony has a rarefied view from his cubical at the Globe. He has one of a
handful of full time illustration positions in Toronto. After what has been a
gruelling year for many freelancers, Tony is happily unaffected by issues like the
economy, stock use and price erosion.
"No, other than individual editors being boneheads, I'm a contented child 'cause
I don't have to go out there and sell myself," he admits. In fact he'll soon be
enjoying a six month sabbatical to India.
As a resident illustrator he’s called on to do a variety of styles and he has
come to see his art as dividing into several categories with varying levels of
artistic merit and interest. "Other than the faces, I like the illustration least
because it’s the least of me. If I'm illustrating, the initial story is someone
else's idea, but with the cartoons it's all me. So it's an ego thing. The idea is the
thing. I don't even know if I'm really an illustrator. I'm a caricaturist and a
cartoonist and I guess I do lots of illustrations, but if you're doing three -or four-
hour illustrations that are going to be put on newsprint and chucked out the next
day, it's not sort of in the same league as the Joe Salinas of the world. It’s
different. It's utilitarian. The ones I like are the line work caricatures because I
look at them five years later and think `This is pretty good. This is a piece of art.'"
M> What inspires you artistically?
T> Trying new stuff inspires me. For the readers I try to do different styles
because even a good style gets boring if you've seen it for ten years. If I get
inspired about three times a year, I think that's good. Sometimes, if I'm doing an
illustration, I think this is a Gail Geltner and it would be great if she could draw it
but I'll have to draw it instead. Maybe it sounds as if I'm a copier. I'm not, but
there are probably influences in there. The ones I like doing best are the Tony
Jenkins ones. Occasionally I'll think up an idea for an illustration or a caricature
and think no one else would have thought of it that way and I get the biggest
buzz out of those.
For me, talking with Tony: is a buzz. His experiences may be fairly unique but his
record of excellence could inspire any artist. Between the Globe and the
Bangkok, we were both awed by an explosively pink tree in peak bloom. As Tony
said "It doesn't get much better than that."
Anthony Jenkins is an illustrator with the Globe and Mail and winner of Society of
News Design awards for both colour and black and white work. His recently
designed website may be viewed at www.jenkinsdraws.com.
Jenkins over lunch at the Bangkok Paradise restaurant. Tony has worked for
some 27 years as a staff artist at the Globe and Mail, and is one of Canada’s
top newspaper artists. But Tony is not a pretentious person. Perhaps his unlikely
arts education at the University of Waterloo keeps his ego in check, but it’s
just a job to him, “my only real job anyway,� he says. He’s dressed in
the nondescript, colourless garb typical of newsrooms but has a surprisingly
blue windbreaker on his chair. It fits somehow with the rich red tones of the
restaurant he’s chosen and his often explosive use of colour.
Janet McLeod> With the Globe being only black and white for so long, you've
done a lot of black and white art. Do you find that black and white art has some
advantages over colour?"
Tony Jenkins> I did black and white for 20 years. But sometimes simplicity works.
Sometimes even a simple black and white drawing is better than a complicated
black and white drawing. It forces you to mentally edit. It's pure. You can take an
adequate drawing and throw a lot of colour on it and think oooh that's pretty
jazzy, but the skeleton isn’t very good.
M> I know you've been doing more colour now in your painting and caricatures.
What do you think of colour?
T> Colour makes you work harder, especially with the painting. With the black
and white I can come in even on a rough day and I can go on half auto pilot and
get something reasonably good, maybe real good. They give me the article and I
give them the illustration. With colour you have to pay attention. If I put down a
blob of blue and it doesn't work, it's there to stay.
M> A lot of your work, especially the caricatures, seem to be about line. What
does line mean to you?
T> I kinda look for a flow. In classical painting the eye flows around and that
appeals to me. So if you can do the drawing in a flow I find it harmonious. If the
flow looks like something, all the better. It's like a roller coaster ride. And getting
a likeness in an unusual way. If you try to do something that other people
wouldn't see there, caricaturing it in a unique way with the line, then it becomes
your own individual imprint.
I like doing simple more than complicated. I don't know if I'm lazy but if someone
said I had to draw a thousand flying monkeys or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on
roller skates, I'd hate it and try to think my way around it. If it's too complicated I'll
boil it down to one image. There's no flow in a thousand monkeys.
M> Has your work every caused a controversy?
T]> Cartoons yeah, but illustrations not so much. I remember this one about ten
years ago, it was something about prostitution in Toronto and I did some kind of
fake business card with a name like "Jane Smith Madame" on Queen Street. It
was the most innocuous name. And so of course the next day Jane Smith from
Queen Street called in, foaming at the mouth, saying "You’ve defamed me.
I'm a good woman" and surprisingly the Globe spent money on trying to placate
her, and of course the spending of money got back to me, saying I'd better watch
it.
At this point the food arrives—red curried chicken, sticky white rice and Tony's
"mountain of Pad Thai." It is delivered with unobtrusive efficiency by our
dramatically white clad waiter, looking like an ethnic version of the Glad Man in
this deep red room. For a moment I lose interest in the interview, preferring
instead to sop up the rich curried broth with spoonfuls of rice. Fortunately after
a few forkfuls, art was again the primary focus.
M> Have you seen technology change illustration?
T> If I could get something better or faster I would, but I still like the physical
sensation of scraping and dipping and blobbing and wiping and it works for me. I
see computer literate guys coming in who are basically computer guys that can
draw rather than artists who use a computer. Victor Gad is a real good illustrator
in his own right, who learned computer skills and adapted it. But a lot of kids
coming in are really just computer whizzes and the illustration is kinda stiff and
boring.
A cell phone rings at another table. Although I'm a digital art enthusiast, I agree
technology doesn't belong everywhere.
M> What changes have you seen in how illustration is used and illustrators are
treated?
T>There were more illustrators when I first started and fewer art directors.
Before, art directors were filling holes [in the page layout] either with
photography or illustration. They couldn't be putting out a phone book. Now they
fill those holes with type or computer design or whatever. I think art directors
used to need illustrators. Now they view illustrations as an added expense, so
some papers run almost none.
Certainly Tony has a rarefied view from his cubical at the Globe. He has one of a
handful of full time illustration positions in Toronto. After what has been a
gruelling year for many freelancers, Tony is happily unaffected by issues like the
economy, stock use and price erosion.
"No, other than individual editors being boneheads, I'm a contented child 'cause
I don't have to go out there and sell myself," he admits. In fact he'll soon be
enjoying a six month sabbatical to India.
As a resident illustrator he’s called on to do a variety of styles and he has
come to see his art as dividing into several categories with varying levels of
artistic merit and interest. "Other than the faces, I like the illustration least
because it’s the least of me. If I'm illustrating, the initial story is someone
else's idea, but with the cartoons it's all me. So it's an ego thing. The idea is the
thing. I don't even know if I'm really an illustrator. I'm a caricaturist and a
cartoonist and I guess I do lots of illustrations, but if you're doing three -or four-
hour illustrations that are going to be put on newsprint and chucked out the next
day, it's not sort of in the same league as the Joe Salinas of the world. It’s
different. It's utilitarian. The ones I like are the line work caricatures because I
look at them five years later and think `This is pretty good. This is a piece of art.'"
M> What inspires you artistically?
T> Trying new stuff inspires me. For the readers I try to do different styles
because even a good style gets boring if you've seen it for ten years. If I get
inspired about three times a year, I think that's good. Sometimes, if I'm doing an
illustration, I think this is a Gail Geltner and it would be great if she could draw it
but I'll have to draw it instead. Maybe it sounds as if I'm a copier. I'm not, but
there are probably influences in there. The ones I like doing best are the Tony
Jenkins ones. Occasionally I'll think up an idea for an illustration or a caricature
and think no one else would have thought of it that way and I get the biggest
buzz out of those.
For me, talking with Tony: is a buzz. His experiences may be fairly unique but his
record of excellence could inspire any artist. Between the Globe and the
Bangkok, we were both awed by an explosively pink tree in peak bloom. As Tony
said "It doesn't get much better than that."
Anthony Jenkins is an illustrator with the Globe and Mail and winner of Society of
News Design awards for both colour and black and white work. His recently
designed website may be viewed at www.jenkinsdraws.com.
| ANTHONY JENKINS An interview with resident Globe & Mail illustrator BY Janet McLeod Spring, 2003 |
