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It’s a very interesting question as to whether UWA helped me get the career that I wanted.
For a start, I didn’t even know what career I wanted when I was studying at UWA.
I ended up studying many things as part of an arts degree that I wasn’t initially interested
in that have since become interested in. I also feel that I have quite a broad understanding
at least western historical movements in art and literature. And even though those aren’t
always directly relevant to the kind of work I do on a day to day basis, whenever I have
discussions with other writers and artists, just conversations over dinner, all this stuff
comes up which are things that I know about because I studied them as a student. Things
that I thought weren’t necessarily relevant to what I’m doing now, but indirectly they
are. Certainly a lot of my own work in the area of illustration draws on a very broad
range of influences and I think that’s one reason why I’ve been successful in this
field. Is that my interest are far and beyond illustration and I try to incorporate many
of them, whether its interest in theatre, or creative writing, or 17th century Dutch
painting, or post modern theory. I try to incorporate those into what seems to be a
narrow band of work that I am doing as a book illustrator. And I think it has made my work
sort of stand out as something a little bit different and unusual because of that.
One reason I ended up deciding to go to UWA was that it did seem to offer a more general
degree. That was something that I was interested in, as I wasn’t sure at the time of graduating
high school whether I did want to commit myself to a career as a fine arts practitioner. I
was very interested in things like philosophy and history.
Yes, I’ve been often asked how my experience as a university student has contributed to
my winning an Oscar. It’s one of those things that is very indirect, but I would say that
most things in life are extremely indirect. It’s hard to sort of follow a singular chain
of events, especially in the world of the arts. I think one thing I would say is pursuing
a short film project in the first place is quite a strange thing to do. And one thing
that I learnt from being a student encouraged to do independent research at UWA is that
it’s often quite good to follow a strange direction and explore something that’s unusual
that hasn’t been looked at before which is something that when you do write a dissertation
or a thesis you’re encouraged to examine. And I guess I’ve always had a very open
mind to things so it wasn’t initially my idea to adapt one of my books as a short film
but when I was approached to do that my attitude was, yeah I’ll give it a go. I was so used
to doing so as a student that realising that all research and all achievements is your
own responsibility, that there is no real parameters to how things need to be done or
how they should be done. You just have to sort of explore and play around and find out.
And that was certainly the case with our film. I also felt no particular need to adhere to
any tradition of film making. And I never have. Even as a student, I didn’t feel like
there was a necessity to follow any tradition or to achieve any particular qualification.
And as a result I feel quite liberated when I approach creative work. I don’t feel like
I have to follow in anybody’s foot steps. And I’m just committed to doing things that
I like. And as a consequence they seem to end up being quite original and other people
appreciate that. So I guess I would attribute a certain degree of original creative thought,
meticulous research, patience and dedication. And these are all things that you do learn
as a university student. And certainly I did, particularly in my honours here at UWA where
I had to pretty much, you know direct a lot of my own studies. And that’s a very important
thing for people to learn to do because all of life is really about directing you own
study, particularly once you leave high school. You no longer can rely on other people telling
you what to do or where the boundaries are or what your trajectory is,
you have to decide that for your self.
Yes I had quite a lot of special help from various lecturers and tutors, particularly
in the English literature department and the fine arts department. And I guess one thing
I really liked about my interactions with them was the sense in which they themselves
were quite independent academic thinkers. They had their own interests, they had their
own quirks and idiosyncrasies and often it felt as though one was having a conversation
with a peer rather than a lecturer.