For me, it's important to be able to dream while I'm still awake.
(Hmmm... he's a bit stiff, isn't he?)
You know, you get into that space.
I can find joy in the most stupid things.
It's wonderful to do things like I do.
It's like playing all your life.
All of this is kind of just playing
and having an imagination.
Artists are kids that don't want to stop telling stories.
We make pictures, we make films, we make theatre and books.
All sorts of art is continuing telling stories.
Making these things, it's like playing.
Maybe 'play' is not the right word?
I don't have so many English words.
But to be 'nysgerrig' is what you call it.
To want to look under what is going on... to find out.
'Curious' is the word I think.
That's one of the most necessary things I think there is
to be living in this world...
to be curious.
Anyone who finds something new in the world
must have been playing in their mind
otherwise you don't find new things and new ideas.
It's extremely important to be creative.
We make new things that didn't exist before we were there.
That's what made us human beings in the first place.
I think I've always managed to keep that sense of curiosity.
I think part of it is that I just really enjoy little things.
I'm just curious about how things work,
how materials work together.
I still find science magical, physics mind blowing magic.
Get your head around electromagnetism and stuff.
It's just magic - you can move stuff without touching things.
So you can pretend you can move the feather without touching it...
by using 'the force'.
I like trickery.
You either retain something of your childhood
or you leave it behind.
I didn't give up on the child that I am.
What I love about children and their imagination,
they still occupy a space in another world.
One foot in the world of imagination and another foot in real life.
Children can see some inanimate thing having a life to it.
So scissors can all of a sudden become like a
spacecraft or an aeroplane.
We see children doing this.
They're not nuts.
They just have an imagination that transforms
the ordinary into the extraordinary.
And you lose that,
perhaps some would say quite gladly,
otherwise you'd go to restaurants
and everybody would be playing with the pepper pots
making everything come to life.
A lot of the comments I get from people coming through the gallery
are that I've managed to bring out the inner child in them.
That's pretty good, that's a good feeling.
You wonder what they do with that once they leave though.
If they just go back to their life, or they've got a bit more spark?
Make some changes maybe? I don't know.
Life is very fast moving. Everybody is busy, busy, busy.
Busy doing what they think they should be doing.
But to me its a very significant thing to do,
to remember that you need to build in some play
in your otherwise very serious, focussed, earning a living life.
If you retain that inner childhood,
that imaginary landscape that is inside you,
it is boundless in terms of what you can draw from it...
an abundance of creativity.
You have a licence to continue being imaginative,
silly, and creative.
A blank bit of paper is the most fearsome thing, it's so challenging.
How dare you put anything on that beautiful white piece of paper.
You're going to screw it up with your stupid ideas, your stupid drawings.
And you've got to get over that.
If you're just sitting thinking about it all, it just stays in your head.
It goes nowhere.
You've got to stop self-censoring yourself
and dare to put something down on that paper.
It's not a question of belief.
It's a question of letting yourself go.
Not keeping your own character so fixed that you can't let it go.
You get better and better at telling stories because
the imaginative muscle is something you work on.
And the more you do it, the better you're at it.
All people who are creating things, they have this moment
where it's larger than themselves.
Something happens that they couldn't think of before.
That was the plan, but it's going better than according to plan.
And that's magic.
Many young people have asked me and said to me:
"Oh, you don't get famous because you make paper things."
And I say, "Oh, I could try to copy Picasso"
"but I wouldn't get Picasso because I copied him."
You can only be yourself.
And it can take a long time to find that out.
I don't care if someone doesn't like what I'm doing
because why should everybody like the same?
I don't think it's like that in life.
People can like different things.
You cannot say that everyone should like the same.
For me, living is about trying to be true to myself,
trying to do things my way.
You always compromise, there's always compromises.
I guess it's about believing in yourself, find what makes you happy
and persuing that.
It's a compass.
It's a bird and a lizard.
The lizard is the earth
and the bird is the sky.
It points where the heart is.
So in a way you can say, 'Do what is most important to your heart, what you love.'
'You have to keep your feet on the ground.'
'But your mind in the air.'
I hope that when I'm very, very old that I'll think back on my life and say
I didn't spoil it by using my time doing things I don't like.
To all of you who have contributed,
for those of you who've shared our films,
for those of you who have written out comments,
this journey is just beginning.
And we've put a Patreon link below our films,
so if you'd like to continue to support us
we'd love for you to donate below. Thanks so much.