Extraordinary Moments from the Everyday: Olivia Lomenech Gill interview

Curiosity, a zeal for life and a yearning for past traditions and crafts are common themes which run through much of the work of Olivia Lomenech Gill.  This year’s Carnegie Medal for Illustration winner creates art which embraces an impressive array of media and techniques often challenging readers to look and think in ways that are both detailed and deep. Jake Hope interviewed Olivia for Books for Keeps.

Art was an early interest for Olivia Lomenech Gill.  She remembers scratching a drawing of ducks onto a piece of gold card from a box of chocolates, a prelude to her later life as a printmaker.  Her mother, a musician, kept the piece and had it framed.

Although important, Olivia doesn’t see her interest in art as anything extraordinary.  ‘Like Picasso said, every child is an artist. There’s no doubt I had encouragement from my mother.  She dragged me to the door of the art teacher at Wells School.’  The teacher was Mrs McDougall, a somewhat formidable lady, but one who Olivia describes as being a really good teacher and who impressed upon her the importance of observation of the world around her.

Another early influence was her love of the natural world, something which Olivia attributes to her father who was a Doctor of Science with a specialism in trees.  ‘We always had a garden and were always growing food.  I remember harvesting during thunderstorms when there’s that really heavy, humid weather and late, longer days and lighter evenings.  I’ve been gardening and planting seeds ever since.’

Despite this love of nature, Olivia doesn’t see herself as a landscape artist.  This resulted in some reservations and self-doubt when Michael and Clare Morpurgo approached her to illustrate Where My Wellies Take Me.  This would become the first book which she illustrated, but, ‘I thought, they’re asking the wrong person, but they said it was because they felt I understood the countryside.’

Where my Wellies Take Me was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration in 2013.  It brilliantly showcases the understanding Olivia has for the natural world and rural traditions.  This grew in part out of the extraordinary observation and research that led to the book’s formation.  After a meeting with Templar to discuss the project, Olivia ‘went back home and took the car down to Devon and had a disastrous camping trip!  I wanted to make a book that spoke to the people of that place.  Once I get my teeth into something I always want to understand it and get it right.  The artist is a sort of interloper, asking can I come in and learn a bit about your world?  Hopefully people are open to that.’

The shortlisting for the Kate Greenaway Medal meant a lot to Olivia.  ‘It was a massive honour, but as it turned out, on the day that it was announced I was having a caesarean in the Borders General Hospital and had a baby boy.’  The book was also nominated for the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava.  ‘I put the whole family onto the train and we travelled there to attend.  People were together in delegations and my family became its own delegation!  It made me realise I’ve always wanted to be part of a club but artistically and socially I seem to be something of a satellite, roaming around and never finding a home.’

Despite or perhaps because of this, Olivia’s observations are astute and clear.  This very much comes to the fore in Clever Crow this year’s winner of the Carnegie Medal for Illustration.  When asked how the commission came about, Olivia says with a modesty that is characteristic, that she’s never sure why she’s considered for particular works.

The book sees her returning to a recurring area of focus in her work, birds.  ‘I only realised this when I was trying to prepare an exhibition for Abbott and Holder and was searching for a theme.  I spoke with a friend who said, “Oh for heaven’s sake Olivia, why don’t you do it about birds?  Every five seconds you keep interrupting to point out which birds have flown past and which ones are making their nests!”

Clever Crow opens and closes with endpapers which at the start of the book show the eggs of different members of the corvid family and concludes with the respective birds once they have reached maturation.  Olivia describes these as amongst her favourite pages in the book.  ‘Egg collections are obviously extremely frowned upon currently as they should be, but I remember being fascinated by seeing them at the Natural History Museum in Oxford.  I was intrigued by how they were displayed with little drawings, labels and small pins.  I wanted to introduce the notion of a whole crow family in the beginning before moving on to the carrion crow which is the main focus of the book.’

Although the book is non-fiction, Olivia approached it in the same way as other projects.  ‘You’ve got to be as thorough as you can.  I had conversations with Walker to ask whether we could include the Flores crow which is endangered.  I still wanted to show the egg despite nobody seeming to know how it looks.  I painted it in white and they’ve included a note about it.  Maybe one day, if the species gains more of a foothold again, people can colour the egg in.’

A stand out quality in Clever Crow is the way it encourages us to see the extraordinary in the everyday.  ‘I don’t know if you have to be tuned in and hone your senses to see some of what surrounds us. I can’t say I have any special powers, obviously. But perhaps I’m tuned in in a way that I pick up on stuff more.’

Musing further, Olivia elaborates.  ‘I think noticing the little things actually becomes an enormous thing.  That’s what makes me get up in the morning.  It gives me hope during a time when it’s easy to lose that.  For me it’s quite close to a form of spirituality.  Early today I was working and suddenly a swallow-tailed butterfly floated into view.  It felt almost like a magical visit.’  As with all great art, Olivia conjures that sense of emotion and wonder connecting us with bigger thoughts and ideas which can feel quite profound.  Clever Crow achieves this in ways that are subtle, but which make great comment on our relationship to the natural world that surrounds us.

Jake Hope is a reading development and children’s book consultant, and chair of the working party for the Carnegie Medals.

Clever Crow written by Chris Butterworth and illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill is published by Walker Books, 978-1529504262, £7.99 pbk.