About
The genesis of this website can be traced back to a serendipitous meeting (late 60’s) with philosopher and author Colin Wilson, who had exploded into fame with his book ‘The Outsider”, published 1956. At the time we met, I was leading an ‘outsider existence’ myself, in various rain sodden venues in West Wales … so to have the opportunity to discuss this position with him was very pertinent! Plus, staying in a large house in Falmouth with lovely ‘artistic folk’… was considerably drier… and was areal treat!
A decade later, studying for Art/Education degree, I began to explore the notion of ‘The Outsider’ through my art work: 2D, and later 3D cartoons, and animated film. (Some of the work on this site dates back to that period – especially Worse Verse). Certainly the notion of ‘oddness’ was taking root… by this I mean the ambiguity, serendipity, illusion, layers of meaning, juxtaposition… that makes for humour!
By the late 70’s, even though moving to towards a conventional career in teaching, and later an educational psychologist, the feeling as being an ‘outsider’ remained with me… as it does to this day! The advent of the new millennium, proved to be pivotal as I rediscovered the fun of creating my funnies as an antidote to the stresses of the day job(s)! At that time, I was working on-line for a university and at the same time developing educational packages for teachers and psychologists. It was by doing these that I ‘re-stumbled’ (if there is such a word) on of the ubiquitous proliferation of ‘clip art’ in those days… and it was while working with these images I began to see the potential for humour… and that was the real beginning of OUTSIDERLIFE… (funny captions to old photos are now two a penny – seen in any newsagent’s Greeting Cards section – this is not sour grapes…. I quite like sour grapes).
MORE TO FOLLOW!! (16th September 2015)
