Pitches worth a
thousand words

>> Illustrator Jonathan Himsworth
boosts the Stadium Art Movement

ARENA ROCKER: Himsworth

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Like so many young men of British descent, writer and illustrator Jonathan Himsworth, a Montrealer since 2003, has long been a fan of soccer—excuse me, football. “Not in the details anymore,” Himsworth explains, “but in the big picture. I follow the culture, the social identities of football fans. I’m terribly fascinated with crowd dynamics and social forces.”

Growing up in Bermuda, he decided the football team there was “no good,” so he invented his own in his head and on paper, taking liberties with the geographic specifics of the island at the same time, which sparked an interest in graphic cityscapes and urban science. It’s an obsession that has evolved into Himsworth’s championing of what he calls the Stadium Art Movement.

“There is a literature already, started by a guy named Simon Inglis [author of Football Grounds of Great Britain]. Individual football stadiums have had historical books written about them from just the aesthetic point of view, not about the events that occurred inside,” Himsworth says before launching into a disquisition on territory, order, marginal expression and, not least by far, the movement’s patron saint, pioneering stadium architect Archibald Leitch.

FIELD OF DREAMS: A Himsworth drawing

It’s a subculture he’s actively elevating with his amazingly dense and detailed freehand drawings of imaginary arenas and the cities that cradle them. “I come from not fantasy, but idealism, so if I try to draw a real football ground in the real way, the flaws stand out. I’d rather draw one that I designed myself.”

With his 2008 calendar, which you may have seen for sale around town before Christmas, Himsworth took a step forward in his efforts to “create a beachhead in the art world for this.” Further advances include an art show opening next week (posters and t-shirts will be available), an online presence (Google up his blog), and seeking out other artists with a comparable enthusiasm for stadiums.

“It was Simon Inglis who opened my eyes up to the fact that there are more people like me who are attracted to this, and cannot tell you why. It’s like trainspotters are attracted to trains.”

Vernissage at Dance Conmingo
(3655 St-Laurent, #207) on
Thursday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.