Not Recommended as a Career Path

At Norwescon last month I ran into my old friend Mark Ferrari, an illustrator who has become a celebrated fantasy novelist.  Apart from his always having an itch to write, just how the transition occurred I didn’t really know.  I hadn’t talked to Mark in years.

Mark shared his tale: he was run over by a truck while bike riding.  While he recovered fairly quickly, considering his injuries, he found he had lost the ability to render in colored pencil, which was integral to his painstaking technique.

So the time was ripe for following a different dream.

That sounds a bit pat, so let me emphasize the cold horror of this.  Mark lived every artist's second most dreaded catastrophe -- the loss of the use of his hands for creating art.  Only blindness could be worse.

Brr.

I never got to ask the question that occurred: has Mark ever had the chance to commiserate with Stephen King?

Comments

[Mark Ferrari]

Hey Paul,

Someone just called your blog entry to my attention. :) As for whether I've commiserated with Stephen King, I'm not so much 'commiserating' as 'emulating.' I figure, 'S.K. got hit by a truck - and he's a famous writer, so if M.F. follows suit, maybe A will lead to B for him too! ... Yeah. Not recommended. :D

(Also, BTW, my hands work fine. The right one just doesn't 'communicate' in a lot of the same ways about subtle shifts in stroke pressure, direction, and intensity as it used to - making the process for a drawing that used to take me three weeks, now take three months. I can still do it. It's just not 'fun' or cost effective anymore. But as you noted, the one thing just opened doors to some even better thing!)

It was great to see you again - however briefly, and now that your blog is on my radar, think I'll gog cruise around it some more. :)

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