Dave Stevens
Illustrator/Cartoonist/Artist

Blog

(posted on 15 Sep 2022)

Herring is the correct spelling but you might see it as “hairing” which might in turn lead to imagining fish with hair all over their body. They also tend to school and show up in numbers during specific times of the season. The Scandinavian countries were very good at fermenting or smoking these fish and they became a staple and delicacy of their diet.
When I was thinking of hair and groups I gravitated towards the hippies of the 60’s who often grew their hair, believed in free love and practiced back-to-nature practices. There are still people around, especially in out-of-the-way places such as the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, who continue with aspects of the lifestyle advocated by hippies. Many of their values have now become mainstream and they have contributed much to our culture.
I don’t know him to be hairy but I would see a shot of “Angel of the North“ by Antony Gormley whenever I watched the titles for Vera on British TV. It is a huge steel sculpture on a hillside in West Yorkshire. It is a stylized figure in which spread out wings replace arms and it measures 20 meters high by 54 meters from wing tip to wing tip.
Another series of his that I like includes European Field and American Field. In these he covers the floor of rooms in buildings with small clay figures which all look up at you with cavities for eyes. It is both disturbing and enthralling at the same time. Mostly I wonder where he stores the sculptures between shows.

Antony Gormley