Joseph Loughborough: The Indulgence Of Reading

An Artist and a Skateboarder.

I will struggle to get out of bed, jump on the bike and try and get to a coffee shop as early as possible. Its here I can reflect for a while, make some sketchbook drawings and read a little. I will continue my bike ride along the canal past Kottbusser tor to my studio where I will work until the late afternoon, usually making sure I leave enough time to have an evening skate at my local park.

I’m reading a couple of books at the moment. I try and have a fiction and a non-fiction in my backpack and choose which depending on how I feel that day. I picked up a copy of The Magus by John Fowles at a flea market a while back and have just begun it. Purely a choice by chance and blurb although I enjoyed The Collector last year on a holiday read by the same author. My nonfiction alternative is one of the Philosophy In transit books, Self by Barry Dainton. It’s the last I have read in this series and would say it’s the most captivating but hardest to get your head around. Hence I’m attacking it in bite-size portions.

I was never really a big reader as a young one. I think a book that I readily remember sparking an interest in reading, outside what was forced upon us at school, was The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. Saying that, I often re-read those old-school staple classics (Orwell, Steinbeck etc) and find them quite riveting with a little more age behind me.

A folder. I’m precious in a non-precious way. A collector and hoarder. Books will spend a few weeks being carted around in my backpack with all my materials and sketchbooks. They tend to age pretty fast. Afterwards, they will be on bookshelves in the studio and have to contend with charcoal dust and paint splatters…

At 16 it would be a Bukowski poem collection. Perhaps Love Is A Dog From Hell as it would fit into my angsty period and also open up the possibility that poetry could be accessible earlier on in my life. At 25 it would be the Contract with God Trilogy by Will Eisner. Only recently have I started to read graphic novels and I felt I missed out on lots, not developing an interest earlier. It’s absolutely fantastic and I would recommend it to any reader, any age.

Perhaps one of my early memories is been spanked for drawing all over the walls and kitchen table with a biro.

Susan Sontag for her artistic opinions. Anais Nin for her adventures. Albert Camus for his Absurdist musings on our existence. Baudelaire because he is my favourite poet. Oscar Wilde of course for his general charm and wit.

The last I bought was a nonfiction book called The Immortalization Commission by John Gray. I read Straw Dogs a couple of years back and enjoyed his philosophical scepticism.

The indulgence of it. When winter hits here in Berlin and its minus 20 outside, I will run a piping hot bath and lay in it for hours reading.

I really enjoyed The Possibility Of An Island by Michel Houellebecq. This author always manages to suitably depress and terrify me whilst maintaining a humour throughout. On a side note, I really think that the English edition cover designs of his novels are absolutely appalling.

That’s a difficult one, probably a Science Fiction set in the future, I would be intrigued to see it. Unfortunately most of the novels about the future I have read are all dystopic and don’t seem like very nice places to be.

Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon and Jenny Saville. I will never grow tired of seeing their artworks or even reading about them. I recently read an interesting Schiele novel, Arrogance by Joanna Scott, an author I’d never heard. It was another chance flea market find, attracted by the Schiele drawing on the cover, and it was a beautiful read. Almost to the point that it is written entirely in poetic prose.

That would have to be a monograph of the aforementioned Schiele on my Grandpa’s bookshelf. I was around 6/7 at the time and I was absolutely fascinated and it shocked me! All those twisted naked bodies, it has almost certainly affected my art over the years and probably instigated my addiction to collecting artist monographs.

Just keep making and don’t stop, even when you have to take other jobs elsewhere. Be in the habit of practice.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Undoubtedly.

I’m going to pinch my girlfriend’s copy of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I’m still new to her writing and keen to discover!