Gerald McDermott

Gerald McDermott - a celebration from Harrison Engle on Vimeo.

(bit of a cringey and dated american montage video but he says some interesting stuff in bits)

- "The work always begins with the stories"

- "Trickster tales are universal. Every culture has a story about a character whos on the border of society, who creates chaos and mischief. In many ways the trickster is the most creative of figures, because through his trouble making aspect, he sometimes turns the order of society upside down, turns it on its head, but of course that's the only way something new will emerge, to topple the old order."

Gerald has done a whole series of trickster books from different cultures:

• 1980 Papagayo: the mischief maker (a Brazilian folktale)
• 1992 Zomo The Rabbit: A Trickster Tale From West Africa
• 1993 Raven: a trickster tale from the Pacific Northwest
• 1994 Coyote: a trickster tale from the American Southwest
• 2001 Jabuti the Tortoise: a trickster tale from the Amazon
• 2009 Pig-Boy: a trickster tale from Hawai'i
• 2011 Monkey: a trickster tale from India

- "Every myth or folk tale that I've ever illustrated has represented some aspect of my own life."

- [on combining graphic design and animating] "It seemed logical to base them on mythology and folklore because the imagery was so magical, so transformational."

"When my first film was released, the distributer introduced me to his friend Joseph Campbell, Joe then became the consultant on the films that I made subsequently.
His thinking about myth and the sense that it contains within it the seeds which explain our human condition.


NOTE TO SELF:::: - "Joseph Campbell - Power Of Myth" -- book in library and also a tv series