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The Day I Blew Up My Hard-Drive!

As I was in such a rush to release the news about my book, “Passage to the Sun“, I forgot to tell you a bit about it. I’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of years. I wanted to show my journey, not just how my work has developed since 2005, but the evolving story within. I had the sketches and scrawls for many of the recent pieces hidden in the recesses of my old sketchbooks, so I knew exactly how the story would end. In fact I started the final mosaic in 2009! I often refer to the book as a “Concept album” as it reminds me of those fantastic progressive rock albums of the 1970’s, when we were transported into an incredible story or an idea that had a beginning and an end. My work is inspired by the energy, colour and strength of nature found especially in the sky, in the flight of birds, in the sun, trees and leaves.  I like using concepts of light and dark, containment and release and metamorphosis to tell my stories.

The book is set out in 13 chapters which are also the series names of the mosaics. There are also stills from my animations, drawings, and snippets of prose to accompany the mosaics. Each mosaic tells a story, together they tell a bigger story.

But then came a day when I was putting the final pictures in the book. They were stored on my external hard-drive I used as my main (and only storage). I plugged in the wrong lead and “pttt! ssss!” – green flashing light telling me something was wrong, and – “oh, I can’t get any data!”  (How many times do I hear those words “back up, back up and back up again”!)  Yes but this is me, totally trusting as usual!

So partner, Ian, takes out the disc and tries it on his computer “pttt, ssss” again! After lots of searching on the internet and asking various computer geek friends and family, Ian (my Hero) found a company in Canada called PCB Solution who was able to deal with it. You have to send them the circuit board from the disc and they clone the software onto a new board and send it back all for £30!  A nice man called Kevin emails to tell you it has been received and they will update you on progress (the transfer isn’t always possible), then emails again to say the transfer was completed (Superman) and it is in the post winging it’s way back. It was worth it I can tell you, not just to get the book finished but to recover all the other data too!

So, back to the book. You can view some pages and order it here. If you want it for Christmas as a gift to your self or for someone else make sure you order by 12th December!

Come and fly with me on a Passage to the Sun.

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