Clifford Harper: Anarchist Illustrator

Interview from ‘Realising the Impossible: Art against Authority’ 2007

Icky A

In 1989, on my 16th birthday, a used copy of Anarchy: A Graphic Guide by Clifford Harper showed up in the mail. It was frommy batty old aunt who lived in the forests of northern New York and worked in the nearby small town as a special-ed teacher. I had no idea where she got it or why she thought it would appeal to me, but it was an inspired choice. It was theonly time someone in my family got me anything that I vaguely related to at that age. It took awhile, but I got to know it well.

Anarchy: A Graphic Guide is profusely in Harper’s distinctive woodcut style, featuring sharp images of rebellion, cities, and revolutionaries. As I flipped through the book I found women, men, children, guerillsa, militias, strikers, feminists, pacifists, theorists - anarchists all! The writing was straightforward and covered anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements and ideas in a way I understood. My aunt’s offhand gift uncovered a secret history of the world, something that finally madesense. Here was a book made by someone, an artist, who attacked the deception and lies that I perceived as the statusquo, who championed the forgotten rebels, and he did it simply with pen, and paper, and a strong sense of justice.

Following this I saw Harper’s work more frequently. On stickers in the streets, on book covers, as registration badges at an anarchist conference. When I moved to New Orleans in 1997 my new housemate had a copy of The Education of Desire, (a compilation of Harper’s graphics published in 1984), containing older work I had never seen before. Amongst that small group of anarchists in Louisiana there were several people who had a similar experience with Anarchy: A Graphic Guide:finding a copy or having one passed onto them, having it be the first text on anarchism that spoke to them. In the info shop we ran there we had a few of his newer releases, handsome graphics-heavy books. And then during the late’90’s, with anarchism and the anti-globilzation movement blooming I stopped seeing anything new by him at all. What had happened?

It wasn’t until I looked for him on the internet a couple of years ago that I saw he’d been busy, illustrating in the London dailyThe Guardian, doing design work and publishing his own books on Agraphia Press. His work had grown and changed since I last saw ir, more grey and more subtlety in the line but still bold and distinctively his own.

Harper is currently revising Anarchy: A Graphic Guide: expanding, redrawing and bringing it up to date. I keep mentioning this book not only because of its personal impact on me, but also because I believe it exemplifies what is best about Harper’s work. He is a skilled illustrator whose images convey complex ideas, thoughts and emotions in ways both beautifuland clear. Since the 1970”s, Clifford Harper’s artwork has represented the international anarchist movement, and he remains a tireless promoter of this cause.

Q Where, when and how did you start making art?

I’ve been drawing and making things for as long as I can remember. My pa was a carpenter, (and a postman), and I got from him the practice of skill and creating.

Q When did making art coincide with your political beliefs?

I became an anarchist at 14 years and making serious drawings coincided. I was very attracted to the practice of making drawings.

Q What were the politicising factors in your life?

This is very complex, but essentially it was growing up as a worker and coming to anarchism in the early 1960’s, just in time for it all to kick off in 1967.

Q When did you first encounter anarchism?

1963.

Q Who was it in 1963 that you encountered and how was it different from other lefty stuff?

 I didn’t come across ‘lefties’ until much later. I hate the bastards. I’ll rephrase that - I’ve a strong and natural dislike ofauthoritarian socialists. I lived among workers and you didn’t come across many ‘lefties’ there. Who it was that I “encountered” were four sixth-form schoolgirls dressed all in black and wearing anti-bomb badges. They looked so cool. I asked my mate Bob Edgar “Who are they?” and he replied “They’re anarchists.” And that was that. I’ve been an anarchist ever since and no turning back.

Q What was the anarchist movement like at that time period?

I don’t know. I only knew the small group of anarchsis I was with. Later, by 1967, I was spending a bit of time with Freedom Press and by 1968 there were anarchists just everywhere. You couldn’t walk out of your front door without tripping over an anarchist. All kinds of anarchists, all kinds of ideas, activities, publications. ’68! Anarchism was in the air we breathed. Hard to imagine now.

Q Was making art or even appreciating art considered to be part of the lieratory struggle?

Within anarchism it was a bit thin. But there were many artists who were known to be anarchists. It started to pick up in the 1970’s. In the leftist movements, aesthetic ideas were under the dead, grey hands of Marxists. Not any more though.

Q What is the role of the artist in the anarchist movement, and what role do you think art could or should have within the movement?

Very amusing question. Well, it’s certainly changing for the better. I don’t regard myself as an artist, by the way. I am a craftsman. I’ve an artists mind, but that’s not central to my work.

The whole thing - artists, art works, art theorists, art critics, art galleries, art schools, art money - the whole dismal show - is so compromised, so hopelessly fucking with the state - fame, greed, wealth, prestige - that it’s best left to its owndegradation. I just don’t want to be associated with it, it sticks to the soles of your shoes. It really stinks and you cannot scrape it off. For working people like me it’s just another part of the show that has to end.

Craft and skill, on the other hand, are deeply respected and practised by workers. So that’s where I’m at. Fuck art. Havingsaid that, it should be clear that I don’t want artists to have any role anywhere, except at the bottom of a very deep hole. But I would like anarchists to take a good look at creative practice and thinking. If there was more of this then things would moveon real quick. The principal, urgent task at this time is propaganda. The bosses have very effectively driven out of the people’sminds any understanding of anarchism, and replaced it with lies. We have to counter this and creatively explain to people what anarchism is and exactly what we need to do to get there. Signpost it.

I also think that creative people are good at resisting the ever-present danger of middle class leaders. We’re just notinterested in bullshit. You know - there’s a job to be done, let’s do it. In the bad old days, the last twenty-five years, mostanarchists displayed an astoundingly philistine attitude to creative work. Don’t ask me why - although I do have one or two ideas about it. the fact that we are doing this proves it, and that can only be good. The growing creative movement will push anarchism to a better place.

Q Though you said “don’t ask me why”, I’m curious about what your “one or two ideas” are and if you’d care to elaborate?

You really want to know? O.K, it goes like this: Some anarchists are into control. Creativity does its thing. No matter how you try to direct it, it always surprises. I never know how a drawing will turn out. The drawing always, to a degree, draws itself - it pushes to where it wants to go. It’s kind of…anarchist.

Some anarchists fear losing control, of going to places they’re not prepared for. It requires an open mind and a flexibleapproach. Some anarchists fear creativity contaminates the struggle. I think that they think revolution is male, and creativity female. If the male revolution is exposed to female creativity it won’t have a dick anymore. Revolution is a dick thing. Anyway, it’s just an idea and you did ask.

Q Are there specific pieces of your own work that you consider to be more effective than others, politically, and what are they?

Anarchy: A Graphic Guide - the remix. You have to see it, it’s amazing. I did drawing number 142 yesterday - Emiliano Zapata. Only 110 to go…

Q How do you feel about propaganda, and the term propaganda applied to some of your work.

Fine by me. I believe that ‘propaganda’ thing is mainly a smear, to prevent people from making committed radical work.

Q Do you worry about issues of representation, of what kind of people you draw: age, race gender ? How do you usually decide ‘who’ to draw?

Very much. It’s quite a problem, I think. In Anarchy: A graphic Guide I’m drawing as many women as I can, lots of children,dark skinned people. And lots of animals too. So far I’ve done elephants, horses and dogs. A really beautiful black horse pulling a plough through a Ukrainian field. In my day-to-day work I think very hard about this as well.

Q What do you hope to achieve in your art, both personally and in a wider sense?

I don’t hope. I’m doing it. The personal side is all about the skill, getting better at what I do, about trying new approaches, perfecting methods and also getting my work more public, which is a slow and careful road. In the “wider” sense, essentiallyI’m communicating to the world the urgent necessity of an anarchist revolution.

Q You’ve championed Masereel, Valloton and Pissaro to be remembered as anarchist artists. I was curious if you feel thereis an anarchist aesthetic? If so how does ir differ from a communist, fascist or capitalist aesthetic?

Yes, I used to wonder about this, but now I mainly think who gives a fuck about communist, fascist, capitalist or religiousart? It’s all due for the scrap heap anyway, one way or another, so why bother? But as far as an anarchist aesthetic goes -you betcha! What else is there? If you’re creative and you want a political position, them anarchism is the only show in town. It’s creative politics. The two go together like coffee and cigarettes. Q Why illustrate poetry?

Why not. Poetry and illustration are brother and sister. They’ve similar scale, and they’re both very much about the page, theirhome. They work well together and they often inhabit a lowly place, often ignored or overlooked. This is a good place forsubversive and questioning work to cut its teeth. In previous times all the anarchist press around the world carried a lot ofpoetry and illustration. There used to be a lot of major poets and illustrators who were anarchists, so it made sense. Bothforms carried a lot of anarchist ‘ideas’.

Q Some of your recent work has shown a vast amount of detail, complexity and wildness in nature. Is this reflective of a shift in your interests?

No. It’s just what I get asked to do. Here the countryside is a big social question these days. Rural life is very important for the English, especially as we’ve been driven into the cities. What you call “ detai’ is mainly seeing what the drawing will do, whereit wants to go and if it leads into difficult complexity, then seeing it through to the end.

Q At least in the U.S, the anarchist movement seems more homogenous than it once was and although I think it is growing up it is still based on youth culture. Was the movement you came up in more diverse and in what ways?

I think anarchism is in the best shape I’ve ever seen it. I agree it’s under the boot of youth and they keep on re-inventing the wheel, but this is solvable. It just requires a programme of education . But our job is telling people what anarchism’s all about. Agitation and propaganda.

The anarchisms I knew in the 1960’s and early 1970’s were, on the one hand good classical anarchism with the addition of ideas from Paul Goodman, the Beat poets, Colin Ward, Wilhelm Reich and the Solidarity Group. On the other the anarchism that came from the alternative, underground, head and music scenes. So yes, it was quite a bit broader, diverse. Especially in age and the thinking was somehow more practical, more grounded in everyday life, while at the same time quite mixed up in avant grade and bohemian matters. But I would say it was much less visible than now.

It also appealed to people who were non-conformist. It was, for some, quite attractive. People liked anarchists. There wasa popular idea that anarchists were somehow needed, they were good people to have around. Not next door, but around. When I was a kid there was a popular saying and idea - the awkward squad. People would say of someone who askeddifficult questions or didn’t toe the line-“He’s one of the awkward squad…” And when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up, leave home, find the awkward squad and join up. Couldn’t wait.

Anarchism is on the up, which I just love. It’s really wonderful that this is happening just when it’s needed. I’m 57 years old,which means that I’ve lived through more than one resurgence of anarchism. Or rather, I used to think that I’ve lived throughresurgences of anarchism, more or less once every decade. But now in 2006 I see this very differently. I now see through allthose years there is a clear trajectory. Anarchists are increasing in numbers, working class anarchists are back, anarchism is becoming more effective again.

Q Where have the elders gone?

In my experience elders get old. They drink, they get ill, they get tired, they see the revolution as distant as ever, they retreat from this appalling world, they get ignored, sidelined, disrespected, they die. You know, they get treated like old people.

Q Are you involved in any kind of organised political work?

At the moment I’m deeply into my own thing, which is pretty organised and definitely political. But I always respond when anarchists ask for something.

Q Your Utopian Visions series depicts a post-revolutionary society. At the time you drew these did you feel a revolution was imminent? Was it a project of hope or dreams?

I drew those in 1974. I was part of the radical technology, radical ecology, radical science thing. The magazine Undercurrents, which was semi-anarchist, was asked by the publisher Wildwood House to put together a big book on all that. I did those drawings, guided very precisely by the scientists - great fun - for the wonderful book Radical Technology, editedby Godfrey Boyle and Peter Harper. I and many others felt around ’71 - ’74 that revolution was on the cards.

The Visions series depicted things we thought were very imminent, aspects existed, so they were more like a summing up of where we’d reached. So in a sense they were not utopian at all, but pragmatic drawings, almost blueprints. The idea wasthat with those drawings in your hands, you could simply go and set it all up.

Q Would you undertake a project like this today?

I don’t think I’d be interested. Those drawings emerged from a context. They were of their time. Now, in this time, my workis about looking back, not forward. The way I draw, the sty less and so on, are all from the past. The Visions were all about the here and now - then.

Q You’ve done some artwork for punk bands. How would you assess punk’s influence on anarchism?

Regrettable. People go on about punk being new, shaking things up, being youthful and iconoclastic, blah-blah. But it wasdisrespectful of the ’60’s, and it hadn’t earned the right to put down the efforts of an entire generation of ‘hippies’, whatever the fuck that means. Punk joined in the reaction to the big changes that were attempted in the 1960”s and did it with thecrude lies put about by the right - that the ’60’s were a waste of time, ineffectual, flower power, peace ’n’ love.

Q How did the end papers and more decorative work for the Rebel Press titles come about? Or the Elephant Pocket Bookseries? Were these your ideas or theirs? What kind of working relationship do you have with anarchist presses?

All the designs were my ideas. The decorative work was partly against the design and production ethos of punk. The crude DIY look. Essentially it grows from my deepening craft. I try to put everything into a drawing, to get it rightand do it as best as I can. So when it comes to book design I want to maintain that process beyond the drawing and out into the whole book. Also I want to give whoever has the book a beautiful book, and to do it as cheaply as possible, to cut the rope that joins beauty to money and join it instead to anarchism. As to anarchist presses, as long as they do what I wantthem to do then everything is cool.

Q Your recent artwork is really stunning. I wonder if your more abstract work or the more recent stuff, if the change is deliberate and focused on over time or if it’s something that comes naturally and unconsciously for you?

Thanks. I really think it’s about working hard at getting better. I don’t find my work is easy, it’s very hard work, very tiring, but it’s all I can do.

Q How much time do you spend on an illustration?

How long is a piece of string? Roughly speaking, an A6 (4.13 x 5.83 inches), black and white drawing takes about a day, a day and a half.

Q Do you draw from life? From your head? From photo’s?

Google images - Praise the Lord!

Q Do you ever have writers/artists block of some sort?

Yep. Sometimes drawings are just crap and that’s that. Tear it up and start again. If it’s still crap then leave it for a day or two, if you can.

Q Have you been able to make a living by making art?

All the time. I’m a professional illustrator, it’s how I pay my rent and buy my grass. Q Has this ever felt compromising?

Nope. If it did I wouldn’t do it. People who commission me know I’m an anarchist. So I don’t get the well paid work. Boo-hoo-hoo.

Q What do you make of the current anarchist movement, particularly groups and movements that gained momentum out of the anti-globilization struggles?

As I’ve lived through 40 years of anarchism I see from where we are now that what seemed like a disjointed series of stopsand starts - 1968, 1974, 1979, the 1980’s, the 1990’s and now - has really been a steady growth of anarchism, and it’s better now than it’s been in my lifetime. And the trajectory is definitely up.

My own thing is what should be called classic working class anarchism and that’s taken something of a knock-back in thelast two decades, within anarchism itself. Which just should not be. But again that is changing a lot now, which is how itshould be. I’m not too concerned about anarchists, it’s up to them to sort themselves out, but my direction is outside of the movement - out to the people. It’s that time.

Q In the U.S in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s your graphics were all over…on fliers for demos and punk shows, onstickers, at anarchist conferences. At some point you dropped out of view over here. Was it deliberate?

Not really. I was working, but I was concentrating more on working in newspapers, which made me get good andprofessional, a really useful process-“Become the Media.” Also, stuff happened and I got into trouble.

Q What kind of stuff?

Cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women.

Q Can we expect another collection of your illustrations any time in the future?

It’s not up to me. I need to get Anarchy finished first.