PETER ANDREW JONES : Artist's Studio Blog

David A. Hardy asked = "I'd be interested to know when/why you started becoming known by your full name?"

Answer >

Looking back through my records, and looking at scans of paintings, as far as I can assess, recall, I did not sign my work between mid 1973 (my first job, A Castle of Bone, Puffin Books) and sometime during 1974 (the early stages of my

Panther/Mayflower works).

I THINK it was 1974 that I started using the "PAJ" signature.

Around about then, I was in the office of Steve Abis, the late, great Art Director at, as it was then, Panther/Mayflower books, based on the edge of London's Soho, and because my works had passed the point of being "just some young illustrator to who I gave a job or two" and had become a significant sales asset to the company, and as a result was getting a regular stream of work and offers of contracts (contracts I refused because I wanted to "scope around") it came up in conversation that perhaps I could have a logo or some such on my pictures but I was pretty much at a loss as to what to do about it.

There then was a "tense event" one day - I had been specifically, like so many of us, been told "hardware sells" and I spent all my time trying NOT to have my stuff look like Chris Foss every time I was asked to do "a spaceship". I did everything I could think of NOT to make it like Chris's. Made them move, made them crash, attack each other, covered them with alien graphics, anything, to avoid "the shadow of Foss" because I actually thought that wasn't what artists were supposed to do, copy other artists (but did understand it was a "sales" direction so just did as I was requested because I didn't want a "regular job").

Then one day, it got just TOO much, not "being me" and, while Steve Abis was away on holiday I, quite spontaneously and not even thinking what I was risking, created a couple of "figurative" covers . . . . (Clans of The Alphane Moon being one of them).

When Steve got back from holiday he said "you deliberately disobeyed my instructions (I hadn't, I had "unconsciously rebelled") but luckily for you, they sold very well. So, perhaps it's time to sort that logo out?!"

:) Bless him.

Anyway, we kicked the idea around for 10 or 20 minutes and somewhere along the line one of us, I can't recall who, suggested adding my middle initial.

This was how the "PAJ" signature came into being.

As to using my full name, whenever it appeared, I can't recall . . . . . but that was further along the line, years-wise.

My father got very irritated one day and said "if you stood on a street corner, and blew a trumpet very loud, you might just about be drawing people's attention to how much talent you've got".

I felt, to be honest, just "blank" about it.

As I'd never set out to be a "known" artist (I was just trying to find something exciting to do for a living) I was happy enough creating pictures and getting paid for it and enjoying all the twists and turns, negotiations, jumping on Jumbos to Hollywood, whatever, and so the idea of being "a famous artist" never once entered my mind.

It simply didn't mean anything to me.

In fact, when I first had a website it didn't even have my name on it and traded under the name "Solvista" (as in "Solar Wind") until one day, a young friend and I were having a conversation, literally on a street corner, and he gave me a really (kind hearted) rollicking for not using my own name, implying I was an idiot because "If I'd done half the things you've done I slap my name right across the top of the page" which, to me, was awkward, because I'm not in any way really that way inclined, in fact, I loath egotistical, arrogant artists who "project" themselves forcibly at their desired audience - that's just "not me", at least "deep down".

Then, it happened again, this time another friend said something along the same lines, and so I thought, "oh, to hell with it" and I spent a weekend "rectifying my letterheads" because I thought, "OK, I admit it, I'm just hiding behind the logo".

So, I made myself use my full name and, after awhile, it became invisible to me and I don't think about it 99% of the time, it's there. as a "brand" and I guess it works, but it was never, ever, a kind of "My name is so-and-so and I am a famous artist" type thing.

I'm sure that sounds daft to some people, but the truth is, I was just, from a very, very early age, "drawing pictures" (Fred Flintstone, The Mekon, Batman etc) in cheap sketchbooks bought from the local shop as a way of blotting-out my "social circumstances" - art was an escape basically.

So I was (and am) happy enough to have something fun to do and any other benefits that came along as a result of my artistic output were "unplanned extras".

Some artists are shy, some are pushy, so it is that their work gets projected, or alternatively, maybe doesn't so much.

Me, I'm just a bit odd, I just never thought about it until people put me on the spot about it, then I'd, mainly just to "get it over with" listen to what they said, considered if it had logic and value to it, if it did, I adopted it.

It wasn't, ever, "a plan".

PAJ (Peter Andrew Jones)