Oi everyone,
I can't believe August has ended, it seems like I didn't get a chance to experience it this year, though August has always been MY month, time of my birthday, and at least short holidays. Didn't happen: no journey by trains to Petersburg, no visiting Lithuanian sea-side for me this year...
Because it's been so full of illustration assignments, and I'm not complaining about that! Politics, popular science, editorial, marketing - you name it, I did all of it in previous month: 5 clients, 12 illustrations in my freelance illustration practice (though not all of them are published in my portfolio yet) + peak of a season at my very own weekend-small-business-thing Kata Kiosk which meant a lot of meetings, emails, box packing and carrying, and so on. So it was extremely busy, and I'm not gonna lie to you - I like being busy, I like falling asleep in a second after a long day with a feeling I didn't waste any time for procrastinating or waiting for something interestng to happen. And when it's intellectually provocative, it's a double pleasure. Did I just say intellectually provocative?...
The best thing about editorial illustration is that I'm constantly challenged not only by articles written in English (which obviously is not my mother-tongue), but also by ideas expressed in those articles. It's always easier to do assignments in popular science which expands my knowledge of encyclopedic facts or just plays with the imagination by futuristic and almost Sci-Fi ideas, but when it comes to social-historic-political illustrations, it sometimes really makes me to rethink every stereotype or believe I thought I had even if I don't want it to at first. This was the case with Jacobin Magazine - voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.
First of all, I am far from a leftist. Secondly, even a sound of a word 'Marxist' makes me nervous, having in mind that I come from Lithuania which was occupied by communist SSSR and trust me, re-invented Marxist ideas didn't do any good here. This word always resonates with bloody history of East Europe, though I do understand, that the term means different things in the Western political theory and the meaning of 'Marxism' is different in nations who didn't get to see the worst actions of post-war and cold-war communism.
So you could imagine me reading a brief mentioning the dirty word 'Marxism' and how it made me cringe at first. But I'm in business of challenging myself, so I've kept reading articles focusing on tensions between (neo)Marxist ideas in social economy versus Keynesian economics. I've kept digging and saw that I wasn't alone - all articles in the magazine were arguing different points of views inside leftist political and social theory proving there is more in those terms than my own 'dirty' stereotypes.
And no, a process of illustrating leftist point of view didn't make me a leftist, but it expanded my viewpoint and knowledge in some means more than illustrating an article on popular science, full of encyclopedic facts or playful futuristic concepts. It's sometimes great to be forced to dig in to something you thought you would never read yourself, it's great to put those thesis into your own brain and live with them for few days in sake of generating a conceptual illustration in the end of the process. It's like facing some old ghost, who was hiding under your bed for years: I didn't change my political views, but I had to face different opinions and once again I was reminded that one can respectfully listen to opinions and arguments easily with an open mind even if one doesn't agree with most of them.
I can't believe August has ended, it seems like I didn't get a chance to experience it this year, though August has always been MY month, time of my birthday, and at least short holidays. Didn't happen: no journey by trains to Petersburg, no visiting Lithuanian sea-side for me this year...
Because it's been so full of illustration assignments, and I'm not complaining about that! Politics, popular science, editorial, marketing - you name it, I did all of it in previous month: 5 clients, 12 illustrations in my freelance illustration practice (though not all of them are published in my portfolio yet) + peak of a season at my very own weekend-small-business-thing Kata Kiosk which meant a lot of meetings, emails, box packing and carrying, and so on. So it was extremely busy, and I'm not gonna lie to you - I like being busy, I like falling asleep in a second after a long day with a feeling I didn't waste any time for procrastinating or waiting for something interestng to happen. And when it's intellectually provocative, it's a double pleasure. Did I just say intellectually provocative?...
...Shortly about one challenging editorial assignment:
Jacobin Magazine - Cover, Spot, Full-Spread illustrations
The best thing about editorial illustration is that I'm constantly challenged not only by articles written in English (which obviously is not my mother-tongue), but also by ideas expressed in those articles. It's always easier to do assignments in popular science which expands my knowledge of encyclopedic facts or just plays with the imagination by futuristic and almost Sci-Fi ideas, but when it comes to social-historic-political illustrations, it sometimes really makes me to rethink every stereotype or believe I thought I had even if I don't want it to at first. This was the case with Jacobin Magazine - voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.
First of all, I am far from a leftist. Secondly, even a sound of a word 'Marxist' makes me nervous, having in mind that I come from Lithuania which was occupied by communist SSSR and trust me, re-invented Marxist ideas didn't do any good here. This word always resonates with bloody history of East Europe, though I do understand, that the term means different things in the Western political theory and the meaning of 'Marxism' is different in nations who didn't get to see the worst actions of post-war and cold-war communism.
So you could imagine me reading a brief mentioning the dirty word 'Marxism' and how it made me cringe at first. But I'm in business of challenging myself, so I've kept reading articles focusing on tensions between (neo)Marxist ideas in social economy versus Keynesian economics. I've kept digging and saw that I wasn't alone - all articles in the magazine were arguing different points of views inside leftist political and social theory proving there is more in those terms than my own 'dirty' stereotypes.
And no, a process of illustrating leftist point of view didn't make me a leftist, but it expanded my viewpoint and knowledge in some means more than illustrating an article on popular science, full of encyclopedic facts or playful futuristic concepts. It's sometimes great to be forced to dig in to something you thought you would never read yourself, it's great to put those thesis into your own brain and live with them for few days in sake of generating a conceptual illustration in the end of the process. It's like facing some old ghost, who was hiding under your bed for years: I didn't change my political views, but I had to face different opinions and once again I was reminded that one can respectfully listen to opinions and arguments easily with an open mind even if one doesn't agree with most of them.
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| Jacobin Magazine, Cover Illustration ©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2013. AD Remeike Forbes |
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| Jacobin Magazine, Spot Illustration ©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2013. AD Remeike Forbes |
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Check out for more illustrations and updated client list at my portfolio www.kata-illustration.com.