The monotony of life experiences can be explained to an extent by the way we’re raised. The expectations of society, your parents… whoever, all place on you the responsibility to ‘achieve’. You’ve heard the usual diatribe: finish school, take a ‘gap’ year where you have a self-enlightening sojourn overseas volunteering in an Ecuadorian orphanage that endows you with the realization of how ‘lucky you are’ compared to little Jésus and Xavíer; then come home all-knowing, worldly and wise and enrol in a University or TAFE degree that, in the end, makes you realise that you know nothing at all but you enter the fray of the workforce regardless and end up marrying that confident, competitive special someone in accounts; you buy a house together and upon receiving your promotion to Vice-Under Secretary Deputy of Marketing Strategy, you have a couple of beautiful children; then you retire and die and bestow the legacy of this cycle upon your offspring. Or something like that…

 

Although this generalised depiction of youth in Adelaide, too, carries a certain validity, it is underpinned by a sense of hopelessness. But ambivalence does not mean hope is irreparably lost; on the contrary, it is because of this general disaffection with society that there exists the desire to challenge conventions and abolish expectations. When you know yourself, you know to pursue what you love and not what someone else tells you to love. If you don’t want to be a successful accountant like daddy…then don’t. If you find the thought of transporting heroin in your arse all the way from Thailand back to Adelaide three times a year, like your uncle, a rather unpleasant vocation then ‘fuck it’, find someone else to do it for you! That would be progressive – the kind of innovative and creative thinking our city is crying out for.

 

But I digress.

 

John Willanski and Lisa King are two people giving convention the finger. The two artists/designers/entrepreneurs are from very different backgrounds yet their experiences illustrate a common will, to find an ‘out’ from Adelaide’s routine. Just chatting with them made me realise the importance of discovering your passion and investing in it.

 

John Willanski is an odd fellow. I mean John no harm in calling him ‘odd’ as it his oddity that makes him a unique individual and surely the component underpinning his distinctive artistic style which he calls Ink Rain. If you meet John once, it is fairly certain that if you meet him again he’ll have no bloody idea who you are. This is wholly attributable to his severe dyslexia that inhibits him from recognizing faces (imagine the advantages). He will only be able to remember you by abstract association; such as a distinctive shoe colour or hair style. Why is this all relevant? Well, it makes John’s success with his art/design business Ink Rain all the more remarkable and inspiring.

 

 

Although John considers his dyslexia an inherent part of his being and not an impediment to his life, it has created some obstacles. After completing his bachelor and honours degree in Multimedia, John found it rather difficult to get a job in his chosen field, as most employers required a higher level of proficiency in text-based problems than John could offer. Disenchanted with the workforce, John decided, like any decent, disillusioned graduate to exploit his true Aussie ‘right’ to the welfare system and subsequently realised that the realties of welfare payments did not quite ‘add up’ to the idea of them.

 

From many a bleary-eyed night in front of the tube watching movies and with it, the sketching of words and shapes into images as a coping mechanism for his dyslexia, John’s artistic style and art/design business Ink Rain was born. With business strategies and mentoring from the government’s New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS) John was not only able to create an outlet for his artistic expression and creativity but, moreover, could translate his passion for art into a viable, self-sustaining business that is trying hard to keep up with his growing popularity and reputation. This popularity and reputation has been generated, in large part, from the successful 2008 SALA Festival where John’s Ink Rain Overflow exhibition at Tapedeck Razorblade gained widespread support. The appeal of John’s work is perhaps due to the multiple mediums on which he has evoked his style. From badges, puppets, t-shirts to lampshades, the body of John’s work is immense, dynamic and eclectic and continues to expand. John’s burgeoning success is a clear and inspiring example of what a bit of passion, creativity and self-belief can result in.