Tuesday 22 September 2015

Nuts

Lee John Phillips is nuts.
I am currently cataloguing the entire contents of my late grandfather's tool shed. I estimate the project to take around 5 years and will involve me illustrating in excess of 100,000 items.
A man after my own OCD heart, producing fantastically obsessive drawings. Never before has a U-bend looked so magical. BP

9 comments:

TC said...

My dad put me on to this a while back after he saw some of his work in Pembrokeshire, ive been watching him on instagram since. Its a great project, and fair play to him for doing it!

Sideburn Magazine said...

This makes me feel almost unbearably sad for some reason. G

TC said...

what, because my dad found it?

Nah, its class - he does find some little gems now and again!

I'm just hoping he doesn't want me to do it with his hoard of a workshop!

Sideburn Magazine said...

Not your comment, the post. G

Mick P said...

I suspect, G, that you mean because it's potentially an unhappy experience, do you? It made me feel very sad clearing out my dad's shed and garage last year after he passed away. A lifetime's hoarding of bits and bobs, tools and the like.

Sideburn Magazine said...

MP, TC
Actually because it seems like a mental illness or at least an imbalance. It's not hurting anyone, but it doesn't seem entirely healthy. Spending five years drawing detritus? To use the well-worn truism, that's time you're not getting back. But he'll be the best freehand U-bend drawer in the land, or one of them. So not time wasted.
I try not to weigh in on the way other people spend their time, especially when it's a harmless as this, but it did make me feel chronically melancholic. That's all.
G

TC said...

I guess you could look at it that people have been immersing/dedicating large parts of their lives into "bodies of art" into that for thousands of years. To be that dedicated and to complete a task is a pretty impressive - so many people give up on things far too easily in my book.

I don't see it as much different from my addiction to building bikes. I've spent years studying pictures of bikes, thousands of hours sat driving and planning what I want to make, and spend far too long sat alone in a cold damp barn making "cool" parts for my bikes. As an individual part does it have the same merits as all of the parts working together as a body of work?

Maybe I need a coffee...



JamesJ said...

For what it's worth, I find it really uplifting that someone these days when most of us are running around like headless chickens, can dedicate so much time to something we'd consider "pointless".
I see these sort of machine made parts everyday at work but to see them drawn by hand changes them. If they were published as a book I'd definitely get a copy. Quick look around my own workshop can confirm I've not got OCD either!

Unknown said...

mmmm speechless..... I would advise your man to stay away from sharp objects particularly when passing near any ear type body parts......I do fear for those who may inherit my shed I hope they just refer to these grand works and don't try to replicate the acts of heroism..
xxs