Drawing on the Walls at Shakespeare & Company

Badaude is the bomb.  But you knew that; she's the one who designed the wonderful new banner for my blog this summer.  And apparently that task was quite inspiring to her, for when she met Sylvia Whitman in September at the Five Dials party (recounted here and here and here and documented here-- this one caught me and Badaude sitting on a bench, front and center!) she suggested doing the same thing to Sylvia's wall that she did to my blog! And the result is so fantastic I can't even tell you! Look:

But I'm not the only one who thinks Badaude's the bomb. BOMB thinks she is too! So Paul Morris interviewed her and you can read it here. An excerpt:

Paul Morris: Your illustrations are an interesting fusion of image and text. How does your experience as an artist inform your appreciation for literature in general—and for literary figures in particular?

Joanna Walsh: [...] My drawing always relates to writing, whether because I’m responding to a text or mixing my own writing and pictures. Writers are also “commercial” artists—books have to sell to a certain number of people in order to be published. This doesn’t mean that I think “blockbusters” are better than “literary fiction” because they sell more, but I am interested in the knife-edge balancing act whereby writers write what they have to in such a way that enough readers will want to go out and buy a copy.

In drawing the Shakespeare & Company writers—looking at the way they presented themselves in the reference photos I used-I became interested in how the image of being, and the story of becoming, a published writer in Paris was so central to the myth their lives; a myth so hugely attractive it frequently became their subject matter (Quartet, A Moveable Feast, Tropic of Cancer). This is why I chose the quote from Ulysses (full excerpt at bottom), hidden in the wallpaper design of the mural, in which Stephen Dedalus remembers his “Latin Quarter hat,” “puce gloves,” and other “Paris fads” with which he—and no doubt his hipster-goatee’d creator—furnished his Paris persona.

Here, on her own blog, she explains what it was like to draw on the walls of a 17th century building. (I made myself useful by erasing her pencil marks, handing her pens, and shelving books in the children's section with Sylvia and Gemma. Hey, if I'm only ever a handmaiden to genius, that's enough for me.)

And here is the text of the wonderful quote from Ulysses that snakes its way through the William Morris-inspired "wallpaper":

“My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want puce gloves. You were a student, weren’t you? Of what in the other devil’s name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris, boul’ Mich’, I used to. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c’est moi. You seem to have enjoyed yourself.”

Comments

[Sakura]

Beautiful drawings, and even better with literary connotations! I'm definitely going to visit next time I'm in Paris. And is that Jean-Paul Sartre in your banner?

[Iheartfashion]

I was in Shakespeare & Co when she was doing this! My kids were disappointed because they closed the upstairs so she could work on the staircase, but we came back a few days later to admire her finished work. It looks fantastic!

[badaude]

You're too kind! You can hold my pencils anytime... xb