SUCCESS IS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE

A profile of Ben Redlich published in The Courier-Mail on May 14, 2005.

By Patrick Watson

Pictures by Anthony Weate

EVERYTHING Ben Redlich touches turns to absolute nonsense.

His workplace is crowded with insane-looking chickens, gramophones with dinosaurs coming out of the speakers and a "noise-a-matron" device is doodled across his briefs. The small desk in his cramped room is messy, the random paint blotches across his wall as aimlessly busy as his many thoughts.

But Redlich, 28, is serious about his nonsense ­ and it's beautiful. When you're an illustrator of children's books the talent to create beauty comes in handy.

He's been plugging away at his imagination, and workspace, for the past five years. In that time he has illustrated six books. His seventh, Circus Carnivore, has been picked up by both an American and Australian publisher.

Written by Brisbane writer Mark Svendsen and illustrated by Redlich, Circus Carnivore has the detailed invention that is so impressive in the work of that other much-loved children's book illustrator, Shaun Tan. It shares with Tan's work, too, the surprising inventiveness of the busy drawings.

"Mark just sent me a whole series of poems and story ideas and stuff like that," Redlich says. "The one called Circus Carnivore was all nonsense. I absolutely loved it, I fell in love with it.

"I had no idea what it was about, but that's the beauty of nonsense poetry. It's the ride there that's fun."

Though the storyline will read differently for everyone, it is largely that of a young girl whose creative voices inside her head are being wiped out. To save their own skins, the voices refashion themselves into performers in Circus Carnivore, their bizarre skills ranging from chook balancing to being able to pack themselves into tiny suitcases.

Of course, creativity wins out in the end, the overall message being that imagination is a worthwhile pursuit. It's a story Redlich can relate to well. In a very serious world, it's also a pleasant exercise in silliness.

For someone like Redlich, who has always drawn and who survives on small royalties, arts grants and his one-day-a-week cleaning job, Circus Carnivore is a tremendous achievement.

"I was different from my brothers who were always batting each other on their heads with things. My mother said I was an angel. Mum would sit me in a room with paper and pens. It would keep me busy for hours," he says.

"I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. I can't remember when I started. It's just been a steady diet of comics and cartoons. They just kind of inspire you."

Redlich says the drawings in his books are the kind he never had as a child.

"I spent three years in a TAFE animation course, but spent all my time doing films, not animation, so I went back again to finish all those subjects. I haven't actually got any certificates, but I made three films," he jokes. "I'm very independently minded. It never fancied me to work for Disney somewhere, drawing someone else's things. That's one reason I never did that."

Not that it matters much. Like most illustrators, his break into the industry came virtually by accident.

"It all happened by chance. I'd always been trying to get in with publishers, even though I'd never tried to get in to children's stories. It was my friend's brother's girlfriend's, his wife now, uncle," he laughs at the random connections that helped get where he is today. "He (the uncle) was really enthusiastic about my portfolio. He kind of acted like a free agent for me. It all kind of snowballed."

But that's not to suggest it has been easy. The idea for Circus Carnivore was hatched in 2001 and rejected by about 12 publishers before being picked up by Lothian in Melbourne and Houghton-Mifflin in Boston. Even then, it took three separate approaches to the two publishers who had shown any interest.

"They accepted it, then they rejected it, which was my first lesson in not getting too excited," he says. "One day we got an e-mail from an editor in Boston who was really excited about what we sent her. It's all been kind of amazing really.

"We're very, very happy. We're very happy. We fought over a lot of things and got a lot of things the way we wanted it. It was all kind of worth it in the end."

Which for most of us would be a difficult thing to rationalise, especially when your work and living area is the same and incoming royalties only comprise about 10 per cent of any book's sale price.

"I'll start at 10.30 and sometimes work till 10 or 1 at night. I've been going straight for a year. You have to love it. Your heart really has to be in it. Because I love the story so much it never ever felt like a waste of time," he said.

"Space is the hardest thing I find about it. I'm working in such a small room with oils. It can't be good for your health. You get light-headed. I spent most of my nights last year sleeping out on the futon to get away from the fumes.

"I promise myself I'm not going to do another book 'til I've actually got a proper studio space."

Which may be pretty soon if Circus Carnivore cracks the lucrative American market. In the meantime, Redlich isn't keeping to his promise of getting a studio. He and Svendsen have secured a contract for future books with Lothian, and he's got plenty of other projects on the go in the meantime.

"I think I'm a reclusive illustrator. I think they tend to get together and bitch about a few things in the industry. I haven't really done that in quite a few years. I guess I'm the snob. A lot of them are probably more established and can afford to take more time off," he says.

"It's a very slow process. I've been at this now for five years, but I'm much further along than where I was years ago. I've done a lot better than I expected."

As far as head-space goes, though, that's still something to be put off.

"This book is all nonsense, but it's become so normal to me. It's hard to know how people will react to it. You watch people flip through it, it all makes perfect sense to me. You kind of forget how weird it actually is," he says.

What a load of nonsense.