Rise Up - What Happens in an Artist's Mind at 2 am

I don't normally write about the Abney Park drawings that I do, but I am making an exception this time.

The main reason I have been doing these drawings is to hopefully give a smile to some people whose creative abilities I respect and admire. It's such a small thing in return for such wonderful music. But it has benefits for me as well. I try to draw everyday, a task which is easier when there is a defined point to a drawing. So these are great practice. They are also their own challenge as they come with a deadline. I have missed three (one by five days, thanks to no internet connection) and made three. Normally the drawings are a product of my slightly bizarre sense of humour.

Kristina Erickson's drawing is a little different.

Rise Up, Megan Hitchens 2014, white, sanguine and black chalk

Nothing really funny about it.

I struggled with this. What you see above is the fourth attempt. Having not had the pleasure of seeing the band play live (one day...) and therefore not having my own photos and sketches to work with, I rely on photos by others for each of my drawings. I try as much as possible to not just copy, to bring something new, even if it is just a giant mutant upside down hamburger (I warned you about the bizarre sense of humour) or something new in the background, or altering the clothes. But most of the photos online of Kristina are her playing the piano or keyboard (outstanding pianist), or looking beautiful. Or looking beautiful and playing the piano. I could have done a simple portrait, but not having my own photos to reference, or permission to reference someone else's, I am really uncomfortable doing that.

And then the germ of this idea appeared in my head. About 2am, which seems to be the normal arrival time for such things. Have nightmare or strange dream. Wake in fright or confusion. Think about drawings. That's the way it goes.

So I did some quick sketches to work out poses, layout, what have you. I looked at LOTS of posters from the Paris Uprising and the Russian Revolution and the early years of Soviet Russia. I thought a lot about "Retrograde" and how I feel about it and why.

"Retrograde" is the sequel to "Wrath of Fate". Both are books written by Robert Brown, about Abney Park's adventures in a time travelling airship called the Ophelia. They are fantastic. I love them both, but gosh they make my brain churn. You can buy them here.

They deal very much with ideas of survival and oppression and revolution. Changing the world, for better or worse. Responsibility and consequence. Notions of humanity and freedom. Being the change you want to see (thanks, Ghandi).

And Robert Brown writes Kristina as one of the great literary heroines. Which is sort of where the drawing comes from.

There are two characters in the books who seek to change the world "for the better", although they have very different ideas of what that means. There is Robert, who, on finding he has become captain of a time-travelling airship, decides to go through history fixing things. Righting wrongs. Saving lives. Big picture stuff. Noble. Well-intentioned. As you do.

For instance, he goes to the Seige of Arcot and lends a hand. I loved that chapter. A strong independent India just under 200 years before it actually happened. But after the initial "Yay! Up yours, Clive!" reaction, I couldn't help thinking, "There goes Ghandi". There goes Bangladesh, now I come to think of it. My birth country would just have been a province in India, a state if it was lucky.

Then there is Victor, who wants to save the world - from humanity. He has big plans and the means to execute them. He puts people in place who will solve the problems he perceives and he deliberately asks no questions about how they achieve the ends. His goals are noble. He is  well-intentioned, after a fashion. But he sees humans as less than the animals he seeks to save, and he sees himself as greater. He also sees himself as right in all things.

The world Victor and his followers fashion is strange and brutal, cruel and oppressive. Most of humanity is confined to walled cities, kept in the dark and the dirt and the squalor so that those at the top can be comfortable and well-cared for. The animals engineered and resurrected are released into the wild, to feed on those who have escaped the cities, to feed on those the state no longer needs. It is a terrible vision.

So there are our two world changers. Two men doing their big picture stuff. While the real world changer is someone else who tries to get people to change themselves.

Victor is not touched by the horrors he metes out to other lesser mortals. Robert, while suffering trials and tribulations and trying desperately to save his family, does not experience the worst of the new world. Kristina does. She is shot and captured while trying to save her children and ends up as little better than a slave in one of the cities.

It is often the way of things that the person who lights the flame is not the politician on the podium, or the general leading from the rear, or anyone else making "the grand gesture". It is someone caught up in what is really happening. Someone who has to experience the real consequences of the actions of those higher up. Someone who not only says "enough" but who finds a way to get others to say it too. These are the real heroes, the real world changers. And they often go unsung because their action is not grand.

I love literary Kristina, the way she struggles on while the world tries to beat her down. She fights back with what she has - her wits and her words. Uncovering a terrible, haunting truth she finds a way to make others see it, to see a thing that wakes them to what their lives really are. Those who see make their own decisions, carry the message further, find a way to identify each other.

Even with the jackboot of authority literally on her neck, Kristina continues to defy the oppressors, to use her words and her very defiance as weapons. What more could you want in a literary heroine? Beats the hell out of Anna Karenina.

The posters of the Paris Uprisings and Soviet Russia have long fascinated me and I have spent the last few days getting re-acquainted. Yet again I was struck by a number of things. Firstly, the use of women.

In the French posters women are largely symbolic (and not just in France. Look at the example from the US on the right below). They stand in for ideas, such as Liberty and Equality. They are not dressed for fighting or for work, they are there for inspiration for men. In the Soviet posters women are workers, revolutionaries, heroes. Okay, they are idealised, but the men are idealised too. The women are portrayed as active members of the Revolution. I am not saying Soviet Russia was a feminist utopia, there was never a female head of the politburo, for instance, but it was not the same as the West. And it was not unusual to have women as the central active figures on posters. They were there to inspire everyone, just as the men were.

See what I mean?

Another thing that has often had me wondering is the way posters reflect the rewriting of history. You find people or events being used in particular ways that don't necessarily reflect the facts. Maybe they are reflecting the spirit of the facts rather than the facts themselves. Maybe they are compressing a complex narrative into a single composite image. Maybe the person portrayed no longer quite fits the current political agenda (but is still popular) and so their actions "need" to be massaged. Maybe the story has been "improved" for impact or convenience.

That's sort of what my drawing is. It is an imagining of a poster that might have been made after the events of "Retrograde". Whether her name is known or not, some have recognised Kristina as a revolutionary figure. But gone are the bloodied feet and battered body. She strides proudly in her worker's uniform and military hat, leading an automaton child while humans and automata alike, their banner proudly unfurled, attack a factory/change cage topped by government offices. This isn't a moment that happened. The truth in the story was very different and much more brutal and frightening, its outcomes far more uncertain. But hey, that's propaganda for you.

And if you go looking at Soviet posters you'll find the factory-like structure and some of the figures behind Kristina. I have more or less lifted them from a poster from 1920, called "Death to Venture Capitalism". It's a great poster, catchy title, a bit weird. I was going to put "Rise Up" in Russian on the drawing, in the same style, but my Russian is almost non-existent these days, and the image is probably better without it.

The revolutionary automata are based very heavily on Gyrod, an automaton who features in "Wrath of Fate" and "Retrograde". I did this on purpose and offer apologies to Robert Brown and to Juan Pablo Valdecantos Anfuso (the illustrator) for borrowing their wonderful imagery. It's funny, I went through both books looking for illustrations of automata that I was sure were there, only to find they weren't. It turns out that most of the pictures I thought were in the books had been drawn by words, not by pencils or pens. Don't you love a book that can do that?

And what else could I choose for music other than "Rise Up"? (warning. One swear word contained therein)