I’d never heard of the Highland Clearances when June Sawyers asked me to illustrate her play about them. That play, along with Sawyers’ book on the subject, Bearing the People Away, proved to be invaluable resources as I worked away at the twenty-seven watercolor and Sumi ink paintings that comprise my contribution to her project.

Along with the written record, Sawyers shared many period photographs and illustrations. I based my paintings on these and many other images I found online on my own. I’m not an artist who trusts or is much interested in his imagination. I need to be looking at something in order to make marks on paper. It has to be pegged to something I believe to be real. That said, photography is a fraught and suspect medium to me. It’s always a wrestling match to wring some life out of those frozen frames; but, lacking a time machine, I made do.

My goal whenever I illustrate a book—be it my own or someone else’s—is not necessarily to dramatize key scenes but rather to enhance or accentuate the reading experience, sometimes to even provide a bit of counterpoint. I think of what I do as somewhat related to illuminating a manuscript rather than illustrating it like a children’s book or a comic. The pictures should provide pauses to reflect or daydream rather than do the work of the words.

I hope the paintings I made help tell Sawyers’ harrowing tale. Reading it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how there seems to be no end to the ways people will find to torment one another. Still, painting sheep, grass-covered vistas, and groups of men and women in antiquated garb was a joy. Doing this work is the only way I know to come to grips with the sorrow and despair that inspires it.

I talked to Alex Sorondo about his epic profiles of William Vollmann and Mark Danielewski, as well as Substack and other things.

I wrote about David Cronenberg’s new film, hoping it’s not his last and talked to Mallory about the delightful Horrors of the Black Museum.

Watch Adam Curtis’s Shifty. It’s about England at the end of the 20th century but even more so about now.