Step into the irreverent world of disabled cartoonist Crippen aka Dave Lupton, who has been in the vanguard of disability arts movement for more years than he cares to mention. His work has appeared in mainstream press, on TV and film and is now probably the best Disabled cartoonist in the world!
Overdue visit to a new local arts centre. I got the owner, a young English woman, talking about disability art.
Might have known it; her only experience with us artistic crips has been with the foot and mouth painting brigade (no offence intended - each to their own I say). The idea of us expressing our experiences through our art hadn’t occurred to her, even though this is what she does with her photography.
Jeni’s birthday today. We’re having some of the Spanish neighbours in along with some English friends this evening (notice how I slipped in the reference to Spain? We’re currently down here in the warm Spanish autumn, looking after a friend’s Cortijo while they visit family in yUK. Thanks to the Internet I can still work though and do things like this). As I don’t drink, Jen’s put me in charge of the wine. Although, unlike the UK, drink is not a problem down here (at least not for...
Oh my god. I’ve done it again. Fallen asleep at the keyboard whilst adding some colour to the old greyscale political cartoons I created during the 90’s. Weird! Whilst I was dozing, my hand was still on the mouse and Tony Blair has been turned into a purple alien. I think that this was probably my unconscious (or is it my subconscious - never can work that one out?) at work here. It would at least explain where he was coming from most of the time anyway! I’ll keep it anyway. You never...
Have sent out about a thousand emails (OK I exaggerate, it’s a privilege of ageing!) to Disabled contacts around the world (and the Isle of Wight) telling them about my newly relaunched Crippen cartoon gallery. Why am I not surprised when about a third of them bounce back. What is it with people who feel that they’ve got to change their email addresses every other week? Leave the bloody things alone can’t you! (Thank goodness, that appears to be his rant for the month over and...
Reply from Colin – “What’s this crap Dave?! What’s happened to your usual style of writing?” (never been a one to mince words our Col!) “I was trying to be a bit more arty farty” I tell him. “Well stop it. It’s not big and it’s not clever!!” “O.K. How about this?” “Much better”.
Blogs seem to be a bit like buses don’t they? Nothing for ages then two come along together! Having just set up my long overdue Crippen blog on the a-n arts site, what happens? An email from Colin, with “Can you do a monthly cartoon blog for Disability Arts on Line (DAO)?” Well, who can resist the dear man? Not me certainly.