art

ART FOR ART’S SAKE in conversation with animator Sheila Graber

/ Alikivi

Meeting up with contributors to this site I’ve asked how they survive in the arts. Some talk of persistence and others simply being obsessed by it. I think to give yourself a good chance you’ve got to be prepared to work on it day in day out basically 24/7/365 days a year.

85 year old Sheila featured on this site in June 2018 where she talked about spending her life in art – so she was the perfect person to ask.

Surviving in the arts is for me going with the flow. I believe in my Mam’s saying ‘Every day in every way in everyday I’m getting better and better’ particularly when you are feeling crap or when things have gone wrong. In the arts you need this saying because there are times when things just don’t happen for you. Tempered with that my Dad used to say ‘worse things happen at sea’! So never, never, give up. Keep positive and keep going.

After attending Art College Sheila then went to Birmingham School for Training Art Teachers in 1961.

That was the best thing to happen to me. I was shown that everyone is an artist in their own way and it’s your job as an art teacher to bring it out. It’s about giving something positive to people in their lives.

I first taught art in comprehensive schools in South Shields and by 1970 I was divorced and had time to play so bought a super 8 cine camera. Play is very important plus having a messy room or studio where no one tidies up after you!

My first messy place was at home in South Shields working at a desk looking out onto our little garden. Later it was a studio in the Pilot Office overlooking the river Tyne. Then by the mid 70s I got a break in animation.

I was contacted by an agent for World TV who sold the short films I made globally. She later commissioned me to animate 10×10 minute ‘Just So Stories’. The actual process of animation can take a long time to produce minutes on video so the only way I could produce this was to give up teaching – which I did in 1980.

Sheila animating Frame by Frame for World TV and her Mam crocheting for a local shop – a true cottage industry.

Sheila also works with various charities, the last post features Anna Malia and North East Animal Rights, how did you get involved with them?

When I lived in Ireland I saw an incident, not to go into it here too much as it’s really upsetting, but there was a field of cows and a calf that broke free from the herd. It was about how it was dealt with by the farmer that really affected me. I thought if I get the chance I would do something for you – for that calf.

I heard a song by North East musician Jen Stevens, loved it, and thought that would really work with images. I asked Jen if I could use it and she said yes. We put it out and Anna Malia from North East Animal Rights got in touch and we took it from there.

Link to Jen Stevens song & video >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMDkdZ3TaEk

Sheila is currently working on a book about George McVay, a little known artist who lived from 1902-1967. Former Shields Gazette journalist Janis Blower is in the process of editing it.

George was a very good photographer which accounts for the very large detail in his pictures. His style of painting was very photographic. When I was 8 my mam bought a set of his prints that the Gazette had commissioned and I loved looking at them like kids look at ipads now. For a long time I done plasticene models of them.

All his life he drew some amazing illustrations of Shields and surrounding areas. Some people may recognise his black and white drawings, very clear, very precise everything from the old Town Hall to the piers, the river and the Groyne. In the book Janis Blower will be adding underneath a description and history of George’s picture.

In his early days I gather he worked at Readhead Shipyard, he was studying planning, design and engineering. His Dad was mayors secretary at South Shields Town Hall and was a good photographer. It’s thought he said to his son that he should work in the Town Hall and he eventually did, he was employed in the ratings department.

Out of the goodness of his heart he’s done drawings for presentations at the town hall. There are some amazing manuscripts, whatever was required he could do it even when people leave. He also done commissions for the Shields Gazette.

The Shields museum have some in their store. He has stuff in the Hancock and Discovery museum, Newcastle. He did a showing at the Laing Art Gallery and down in London but all track of that is lost. Unfortunately, nobody has given him the recognition that he deserves.

What I’ve found over the years is that he and I have followed parallel tracks. We have both done a lot of work for charity and both drawn the most popular buildings and views in Shields because we love the place.

To contact Sheila check out her official site at >>>

Products — SHEILA GRABER ART

Alikivi  July 2025

COMIC STRIP PRESENTS Northumberland cartoonist David Haldane

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A series of talks by cartoonist David Haldane have been booked into venues this September including the Civic Theatre, Gosforth and The Word in South Shields.

‘I started work at the Shields Gazette in 1977. It was a great job really enjoyed it. It was my first real wage packet. We used to get paid weekly. In cash!’ recalls David.

Born in Blyth in 1954 David last featured in April this year talking about his work at national newspapers including the Mirror, the Guardian and The Times (link below). In a recent phone call he looked back to his early days and what inspired him.

‘I noticed cartoons when I was young. At the age of 7 I got scarlet fever which then was quite serious, luckily there were anti biotics. I remember I was isolated in my bedroom at home and couldn’t touch any of my books or they would have to be destroyed’.

‘There was a guy who lived in the street who was a Merchant seaman, he brought back some papers like the Chicago Tribune. I had a pile of papers on my bed with loads of full colour comic strips inside like Popeye and Prince Valiant.’

‘Me mam bought me a jotter from Woolworths, I just sat and copied them when I was ill. From then on I drew regularly, in particular funny stuff.  When I was studying for my ‘O’ levels in Blyth library I noticed a whole series of Punch annuals which I started to read and from then on fell in love with the cartoons.’

‘People have heroes – rock stars, singers, guitarists, my heroes were cartoonists. I was 15 year old sitting in Blyth library thinking I wanna do this – never thinking I actually could or meet these people.’

‘There was a magazine called The North which featured walks and the like in places like Berwick. The art teacher put me in touch with the editor. That magazine is where I done my first published strip. I was still at school at the time and did it for a couple of years. Did I get paid? Put it this way I gave up my paper round for it.’

‘When I enrolled on a Design course at Newcastle Polytechnic I was doing a few cartoons on the side sending them in to magazines like Punch. When I got my first cartoon published in Punch it was when I was at the Gazette in 1977.’

‘The Shields Gazette were building up the art department working on advertising, editorial and illustration and four of us got a job at the same time. The newspaper then was absolutely thriving they used to do three or four editions a day. Other papers were published in the area – Whitley Bay, Chronicle and others it was a real Fleet Street on the Tyne.’

‘I remember local punk band the Angelic Upstarts came in to be interviewed by the editor, they were big, like the North East Sex Pistols. There were many wild rumours about them – the pigs head on stage was one!’

‘We were mainly advertising stuff like a pull out of Ocean Road which would feature all the shops. They would pay for adverts and we used to draw them up. This was before computers so it was all hand drawn. It was like a little factory in there we used to churn the stuff out on a daily basis.’

‘Working there was experienced journalists like Janis Blower, John Landells the waterfront reporter, his son Steve joined later. Mike Blackah was the editor. There was a huge room with a lot of sub-editors. It was a very busy, thriving newspaper office. When I started working at the real Fleet Street in London, I realised how similar they were.’

‘In the early 80s I worked on a short run of TV show Spitting Image. This was during the Thatcher years – the real hardcore political stuff. Ian Hislop and Nick Newman were writing short sketches which played before and after the commercial breaks. They wanted cartoonists to fill in the bits without puppets. Newman asked cartoonists who were working on Punch and Private Eye. Four or five of us worked on them and subsequently I got a few sketches on.’

‘I remember going to a script meeting in London. It was great meeting the scriptwriters who went on to produce a lot of shows. One of them told me to stick to drawing cartoons as you’ll make a lot more money. I took his advice. They still release box set DVDs of the show, I’m grateful to still receive the odd royalty payment.’

‘When I’m drawing I listen to film soundtracks – Japanese, Korean, quite niche, also Italian horror movies, spaghetti western, jazz sometimes. I have some Michael Nyman here as well, beautiful stuff. The music is on in the background but not when I’m thinking of ideas. I tend to sit in silence to work out ideas.’

To find out more of the life and work of David Haldane he will be appearing at ‘An Evening With’ at The Word, South Shields on September 24th & Gosforth Civic Theatre September 30th 2025.

Alikivi   May 2025

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DRAWING NEWCASTLE’S LIT & PHIL – with Blyth born cartoonist David Haldane | ALIKIVI : NORTH EAST UK CULTURE