Mark Pawson's lecture at Camberwell

I’m not going to compare Mark Pawson’s work to Tony Hayward’s because I don’t think it’s fair, even though both are book artists, their style and approach is completely different. They both publish books about their collections, Mark's have a lovely hand made feel to them, while Tony’s are printed in letterpress, something I’ll go into later where I'll convince you that there just is no comparison. I would, however, like to compare the experience of the their lectures because both of their talks at Camberwell are the only real in depth work of artist’s book art I’ve been exposed to.

Mark Pawson had a much larger audience, instead of presenting to just the typography elective students, about 20, he did his to around 80.
Like Tony, Mark showed us his collection of hand made books about his collections. Noggins, those small wooden troll like viking figures, and Kindereggs, the chocolate eggs with a toy inside, are a couple I remember - and what he said were his most noted books.

I like the roughness of the Kinder Egg book and the quirkiness of the subject. Being from the States I’ve never in fact experienced the chocolate egg myself, but wonder if it’s fair to compare them to the comics inside Bazooka Joe bubble gum?


My favourite piece of his was his Open/ Closed necklace he designed in collaboration with Tatty Devine. I think it exceeds his other work in craftsmanship and wit.

Besides the larger audience Mark presented to, he also had to deal with three slide projectors being faulty making it impossible to show his work on screen. This I think was a good thing as we got to see first hand and experience the actual work. He was also put on the spot quite haughtily by a few students who questioned why he didn’t get a bigger publisher to distribute his books, and what the lecture had to do with illustration (it was in the timetable as an illustration talk).

I say I like the roughness as an element of Mark’s work and the hand made quality to it but I have to say in respect to the cost it is lacking in quality compared to the books of Tony Hayward that are similar in size but for me surpass Mark’s in construction and material and for a less expensive price.

Mark ended his lecture though in true style and gave the students that were left in the auditorium free dibs on a bunch of his work!

You can check out a collection of the artist’s work here http://www.mpawson.demon.co.uk/