Tom Harris' Five Things.

Written by Lazy Gramophone on Wednesday the 15th of May 2013

Five Things is a series of short journal posts introducing each of the writers and artists involved in our up-coming Time project.

Since the project's inception, the idea has been to create an environment where independent writers and artists could come together in order to share their work. The result of this endeavour is a collection of stories, images and poems based around the theme of time, its pages placing particular focus upon the relationship between words and pictures. By sharing in this way we hope to inspire each other as well as those around us, to draw a diverse audience and so help to illuminate the work of alternative artists and writers everywhere. 


Biography.

Tom left his degree in Animation with a 2:2, which is fine. However, bereft of the facilities of college and armed only with what was at best a useless computer, some three years later Tom reached an epiphany. He realised that staring blankly at a screen while you waited for the technology to work its ever more protracted 'magic' was just too tedious, a bit like waiting for Chris Tarrant to reveal an answer on Millionaire. Plus his PC had developed the lifespan of a Fruit Fly.
           So Tom turned off his computer for the last time and, like many others before him, picked up the closest thing he could find to alleviate the boredom from the chasm of time that opened up in front of him: A Biro and a scrap of A4. An outpouring of visual diarrhoea was unleashed.
           As Tom himself puts it, in a slightly related way:
           "I remember in one CDT lesson at school drawing a small picture of a kettle in the corner of my exercise book with my Biro and it looked quite good.”
           Anyway, since then Tom has turned his hand to illustration. He has produced various pieces for us here at Lazy Gramophone, as well as work for the likes of Scroobius Pip, Marmaduke Dando, Woon and King John along with countless gig posters around London. In January 2008 Tom produced an installation at The Macbeth Gallery in which he white-wallpapered the entire gallery and invited members of the public to come and scrawl whatever they liked on the walls, so elevating the art of toilet wall graffiti to gallery status. Tom continues to champion the universal art of the doodle.




Five Things that have Inspired Me.

Psycedelic Posters from 1960s
To be honest with you I didn't really know what Haight Ashbury was (or how to spell it) till about five minutes before typing this. In my head though, I've always had a clear romanticized idea of what the posters from there around that period were like. All swirly, discombobulated things; barely legible and most importantly, hand drawn. That's pretty much what I wanted to do when I started doing posters and indeed a few people did complain that they couldn't understand a blinking word on them sometimes so I count that as a success.

Winnie The Pooh
If I have to go back further then I suppose Winnie The Pooh rates pretty highly as an influence. I used to love the illustrations when I was a kid and the stories and the way of writing. I've still got the copies I was read back then with my own attempts at colouring in all over them. Later on I read The Tao Of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff and it totally put the books into a different light.

Science Fiction
Too broad?! Whoever thought of combining Science and Fiction had a pretty good idea there. Cos I'm into Fantasy in general but I also reckon the real world is pretty mental, so when you ground crazy ideas on something that actually makes some sort of sense that really interests me. I'm quite big on quantum physics and string theory and that, so when they start waffling on about 'midichlorins' (or whatever they're called) in Star Wars I'm all for it. Also in my opinion, good Sci-Fi can and should have something important to say that resonates with the times we live in now.

Fleetwood Mac
This goes for any band that manages to make mega popular hits that were probably played to death at the time and eventually detested by the generation that had to listen to them the most but consequently bring the kind of smile to your face that you only get with nostalgia. I think this is usually a deeply personal thing and moves with the generations; The Cure are another good one although rather more 'credible' I s'pose. And Hall and Oates but I think that's just me. It'll be Coldplay in twenty years.

Jeremy Deller
Shit, am I on five already?! Can I chuck some more artists in here? I like Deller. Not all his stuff is great, some of it's quite throw away but things like The Folk Archive, The Battle of Orgreave and It Is What It Is really levitate 'Art' out of what is essentially a mutual masturbation exercise into a thing that can seriously punch you in the guts and make you connect with the world and, more importantly the people around you. They should've totally put his burnt-out Iraqi Car on the forth plinth. Other artists that make the cut for me and have definitely influenced me over the years; Gillian Wearing, David Shrigley, Andy Goldsworthy....


The Time Project.

1. Time Book Launch Lazy Gramophone Events Page 

2. Time Book Launch Facebook Page

3. View our Clock page (counting down to the release of Time)

4. An introduction to Time

5. Contributors' Five Things Journal Posts:
- Adam Green
- Bryn Hall
- Inua Ellams
- Zoe Catherine Kendall
- Andrew Walter
- Laura Dockrill
- Mat Lloyd
- Sorana Santos
- Will Conway
- Hannah Stephenson
- Matt Black
- Claire Fletcher
- Carl Laurence
- Zophiel Webb
- Jude Melling
- Stacie Withers
- Tom Hirons
- Megan Leonie Hall
- Vincent J Prince
- Kaitlin Beckett
- Guy J Jackson
- Eliza Gregory
- Jeannie Paske
- Jo Tedds
- Maria Drummey
- Tom Harris
- Liz Adams
- Lola Dupre
- Kirsty Allison
- Alexander Aspinall
- Paul Bloom

6. Buy Time from the Lazy Gramophone Shop 

7. Press/Reviews
(Click the links below to read each article in full)

Huffington Post:
'An intriguing book project from one of the most innovative groups of creative people in the city.' ~ Huffington Post

Fabric Magazine:
'...we'll bet you've never seen time as it's portrayed in this stunning new publication.' ~ Fabric Magazine

Rooms Magazine:
'Time is a treasure box brimming with creativity and fresh talent.' ~ Rooms Magazine

Annexe Magazine:
'Lazy Gramophone's anthology, Time, lives up to the high bar it sets for itself.' ~ Annexe Magazine

MORE...

For more on The Time Project tweet us @lazygramophone or #TheTimeProjectLGP or visit our Time Facebook page.
Tags for this post: Tom Harris, Five Things, Lazy Gramophone, Time, Tom the Pen.

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Title: The Time Project - Lazy Gramophone Press
By: LazyGramophone
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