home | folio 1 | folio 2 | folio 3 | folio 4 | folio 5 | marks 1 | marks 2 | marks 3 | marks 4 | laurels | profile | contact
Q: A:
Q: A:
Q:
A:
Q: A:
How would you describe your
personality and lifestyle?
“Liberal feminist” carries a lot of baggage these days, so I’ll go with “reclusive urban environmentalist”. I try to steer clear of chaos and closed minds, and (as the placemats in Chinese restaurants say about those of us born in the Year of the Rabbit) I seek peace throughout my life.
Was there a significant turning
point or detour in your career?
Graphic design’s complete transformation from tactile to digital was the day the music died for me. I missed markers on paper and loose concepts that had time to develop before becoming tight comps. I missed the matte smoothness of type galleys and the spontaneous accidents that often energized graphic communication. Though design and illustration had always run on parallel tracks, I wasn’t consciously aware of illustration overtaking design until I was commissioned to design the 1993-94 season poster series for Pittsburgh Public Theater. Design them I did, but I also illustrated them. Client and illustrator were both happy and I’ve never looked back.
From what illustration assignment
did you learn the most about
yourself?
Macbeth. With my predominantly corporate background, I was skeptical about doing a children’s book as well as researching and completing fifty paintings within the deadline. The project, however, was simply too tantalizing to decline, and I knew that I had to find ways to minimize my anxiety in order to enjoy this unprecedented opportunity. To up the ante, the art director was asking for a more realistic—less stylized—approach. I was becoming restless with the streamlined design influence on my work anyway, and after completing enough visual research to allay my misgivings, I realized that the energy set into motion was sufficient to carry the project to its fulfillment if I’d just get out of its way.
What’s the one aspect of illustration that most inspires or motivates you?
I enjoy the narrative aspect of illustration. Beyond communicating ideas, I try to emphasize perspectives, reinforce themes on symbolic levels and render moods. I like the challenge of telling a story on multiple levels so that the audience can access it from a variety of entry points.
tracing favorite lines and details in my mental compositions, I can look at my work now and clearly see the dominant linear structures that underpin the compositions.
Q: A:
Q: A:
Q: A:
Q: A:
What would you do with ten million dollars?
I’ve come to a point where I’d like
to jettison half of the stuff I’ve
accumulated over the years, so I surely don’t want more fodder for landfills!
A monetary windfall would allow me to
take a year to write and illustrate a book
that’s been gestating in my mind—maybe
I’d rent a cabin in the woods to work
uninterrupted. Beyond that, I’d get a
master gardener accreditation to develop
sustainable community educational
gardens and I’d work to implement the
goals of Heifer International, whose
mission of sustainability and self-reliance
through gifts of farm animals and training
to underprivileged villages is one that
resonates deeply with me.
What do you enjoy reading?
I enjoy the daily newspaper, autobiographies of writers (because they can generally articulate their creative process better than visual artists) and Jungian writers on imagery, symbolism, archetypes and the collective unconscious.
What one thing would you like to learn to do?
Build furniture. I see all of the wonderful woodworking projects that my husband builds and I’d like to try my hand at some of my own. The tools are in the basement and the teacher lives with me. I just need to find the time.
Share an interesting career anecdote.
Freshman year in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts was an art foundation program, after which we were to apply to one of the ten art departments of our choice. I fully expected to apply to the design department, but arriving at the portfolio drop-off, I found design and illustration were side-by-side doors, with a bench between them. I sat on this bench for hours, weighing the pros and cons of each career direction. “What if I were hired to illustrate something quite complex, like a battle scene,” I worried, “with a deadline too tight to pose figures for compositional studies or do research?” Ultimately, at the last possible minute, I added my portfolio to the pile of design applicants and ran out into the night.
Decades later, shifting focus after a long (and fun) design career, I received my first job from my new illustration rep. The details were vague, but I agreed to do a book cover in 17 days. The following day a FedEx box arrived and out of it poured a manuscript and the art direction for my assignment—a 16th century battle scene in the style of a Diego Rivera mural—the same freakin’ impossible impasse that I had constructed to determine the course of my early career!
I don’t recall much about composing and painting the assignment, except that adrenalin replaced sleep for two weeks and the piece ultimately made it into the Society of Illustrators show in New York. And like the novel I illustrated, my inner indigenous Acoma had finally managed to rise up and stave off the invading Conquistadors of doubt.
Southern gentleman, I addressed the
Q:
A:
Q:
A:
Q: A:
Q: A:
deeper meaning that he obviously
intended: in any form of visual
communication, a style or trend imposed
arbitrarily spawns conflicting forms,
mixed messages and diluted impact.
What advice would you offer to those who admire your work and want to learn from you?
Draw. Draw as much as you can, even if you work digitally. Draw large from your shoulder; draw small in the palm of your hand. Draw with your dominant hand; draw with your other hand. Draw with your eyes, draw with your mind, draw with your soul.
What sort of artwork do you
create from your own inspiration,
for yourself?
Dream material challenges me to construct and render vague, sometimes vaporous images and narratives…not altogether unlike working on a client’s project, except that I am the client, writer, art director and illustrator.
What do art directors like about
your work?
Often I’m told that I’m easy to work with, probably because I was an art director at one time. I ask a lot of questions and I jot down all visual words used to describe a project. I recycle these in a rationale statement when I present sketches, so that the art director and the client can follow the visualization of the project goals and, by hearing their own words, feel like an integral part of the creative process.
Who or what has been the biggest
influence on your work?
I was fortunate to have had some truly exceptional teachers, but the “biggest influence” distinction, ironically, goes to the nuns in my grade school. I entered school accustomed to drawing on everything. The nuns quickly put a stop to that habit. Left without a drawing progressing in front of me over which to obsess, I developed the habit of tracing around any and all shapes before me with only my eyes. My right index finger moved slightly—classmates thought I had a nervous twitch.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, who taught Saturday
art classes at the Carnegie Museum,
would frequently tell us to “look, to see,
to remember…to enjoy,” and eventually
this discipline became more conscious.
After years of doodling with my eyes,
In touch with...
LYNNE CANNOY
Lynne’s analytical approach draws
the viewer into the geometry of her
intricately planned pastel images.
She is an accomplished designer and
illustrator whose work spans many
arenas. Here, she shares insight and
humor from her various perspectives.
Q: A:
What was the most constructive criticism that you ever received?
Professor and design historian
Philip Meggs once casually
commented that I was imposing Art
Deco lines on an Art Nouveau body.
Yeah, that would be my body, while
waiting in a striped mod mini dress for
his History of Graphic Design class
to begin. As Phil was the consummate
PSInside
