Seeing your work in print is exciting, especially when you're young. It's that feeling that you have some effect on the world outside of your immediate neighbourhood. Shaun Tan More Quotes by Shaun Tan More Quotes From Shaun Tan You discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to see its car-ness, and you’re like an immigrant to your own world. You don’t have to travel to encounter weirdness. You wake up to it. Shaun Tan cardiscoverytrying As an artist, even if you are putting out something really dark and disturbing, that's good because it's opening a discussion. Always in the back of my mind is this thought that the world has to be a better place with you in it. Shaun Tan minddarkart Today is the tomorrow you were promised yesterday. Shaun Tan tomorrowyesterdaytoday The Federal Department of Odds and Ends: sweepus underum carpetae. Shaun Tan odds-and-endsoddsends So you want to hear a story? Well, I used to know a whole lot of pretty interesting ones. Some of them so funny you'd laugh yourself unconscious, others so terrible you'd never want to repeat them. But I can't remember any of those. So I'll just tell you about the time I found that lost thing. Shaun Tan storieslaughinginteresting Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to. Shaun Tan sometimeslooks I'm often wary of using the word 'inspiration' to introduce my work -- it sounds too much like a sun shower from the heavens, absorbed by a passive individual enjoying an especially receptive moment. While that may be the case on rare occasions, the reality is usually far more prosaic. Staring at a blank piece of paper, I can't think of anything original. I feel utterly uninspired and unreceptive. It's the familiar malaise of 'artist's block' and in such circumstances there is only one thing to do: just start drawing. Shaun Tan blockinspirationthinking Depression is the flip side of creative inspiration but it can be useful. It's telling you to stop for a little bit. You can become so fully absorbed in the world of creative work that it can lead to some imbalance in your life. Shaun Tan creativeinspirationart I don't get really inspired the way some people do, buzzing with ideas - it feels like hard work to me... but once I get hooked into the universe of a particular work it becomes almost like an aesthetic addiction. Shaun Tan hard-workideasart What I love about Inuit carving is that it's so narrative, but it doesn't have the temporal dimension of an illustrated picture, where it feels like something happens before or after. Everything is happening in the sculpture, and you can hold the whole story in your hand. A lot of these sculptures are small enough that you can hide them in your hand completely so you're not looking at them, you're just feeling them. I Shaun Tan things-happenenoughfeelings There's a sort of absurdity to Australia and the so-called New World nations. I sensed it all the time growing up in Western Australia, which is really remote. Shaun Tan absurditygrowing-upworld Yes, we all know that there's a good chance the missiles won't work properly when the government people finally come to get them, but over the years we've stopped worrying about that. Deep down, most of us feel it's probably better this way. After all, if there are families in faraway countries with their own backyard missiles, armed and pointed back at us, we would hope that they too have found a much better use for them. Shaun Tan governmentcountryyears Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment. Shaun Tan badgoodgood-and-badideas For myself, I've kind of always been interested in pets because they're not human. Shaun Tan humanbecausemyselfalways Animals represent the abstract notion of acceptance. Living with these funny creatures - you kind of have to accept them. It's like a test in a way. Shaun Tan youacceptancefunnyway Sometimes I write captions on the in-flight magazines and then replace them in the seat pocket. Shaun Tan seatreplacewritesometimes The more I draw and write, the more I realise that accidents are a necessary part of any creative act, much more so than logic or wisdom. Sometimes a mistake is the only way of arriving at an original concept, and the history of successful inventions is full of mishaps, serendipity and unintended results. Shaun Tan wisdommistakesometimeshistory My friend Markus Zusak wrote a story from the point of view of death, 'The Book Thief.' I thought that's a great idea, where your omniscient narrator is death. I'm glad he had that idea because I wouldn't have been able to work so well with it. Shaun Tan greatworkdeathbook I actually started out as a writer and then converted to illustration because I realised that there was a dearth of good illustrators in genre fiction, at least in Australia at that time. Shaun Tan becausegoodaustraliatime Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie - the key is in the incidental detail. Shaun Tan pictureliegooddrawing
