William Grill, a 29-year-old author and illustrator, doesn’t like reading and he doesn’t like books. More often than not, he would judge a book by its interesting and exciting cover, only to find himself disappointed by the complex content within. Which is why it might be surprising that the annual Fox-Adler Lecture series — which completed its 31st year this September — was presented by the British author. His lecture was titled “The Art of Distillation: The Unlikely Road to Making Books.”
The Fox-Adler lecture series is an annual event which hosts speakers who specialize in art and literature. The event is made possible by the lasting legacies of Norman M. Fox and Hannah Moriarta Adler. These two individuals are Saratogians, who shared a friendship and a passion for collecting 18th and 19th century books and art. Their extensive library was donated to the college in 2016, after Fox’s death.
President Phillip Glotzbach opened the event by welcoming William Grill. He discussed the importance of Grill’s work by emphasizing the ever-increasing need in this day and age for visual and media literacy.
The Fox family was recognized by Catherine J. Golden, a professor of English here at Skidmore, as well as a Tisch Chair in Arts and Letters. A friend of Norman M. Fox, she spoke of his journey from service in the army to opening the Saratoga Plant Shop and Fox Jewelers, and his fondness for this lecture series.
This year’s featured speaker was William Grill, the award-winning children’s book author and illustrator. At a young age, Grill found out that he had dyslexia. But, he soon began reading graphic novels and comic books and fell in love with the creative ways that a story can be told visually, without relying as heavily on language. As he put it, graphic novels opened his mind to what books can be beyond text.
In William Grill’s final year at Falmouth School of Art in Falmouth, UK, he began working on his first book, Shackleton’s Journey. It followed the true story of the explorer Ernest Shackleton and his epic journey across the Arctic through Antarctica. Against all odds, Shackleton and his crew (and their dogs) survived this dangerous and thrilling adventure. His second book, The Wolves of Currumpaw, was inspired by an old book Grill picked up at a second-hand store because it looked cool. It follows the story of a wolf pack in 19th century New Mexico, and the relentless British naturalist who is determined to hunt down its leader, Lobo.
Grill has always been fascinated by stories like these: those of man versus nature and incredible feats of the human spirit. He brought us through his entire creative process, from sketches to storyboards to publication.
Nature is a major theme of Grill’s work and a passion in his personal life. He passed around twenty of his personal sketchbooks during his lecture, depicting drawings from New York, London, and the American Southwest. While researching for his books, he would often travel to the locations where his stories took place, not only to better draw the environments, but to better understand the people and places that he wrote about. When it comes to Grill’s specific style, he sketches his characters hundreds of times before landing on a version that he is content with.
A young, successful author and artist, Grill has been recognized not only in England, but worldwide for his achievements. His first two books have received countless awards, and there are high expectations for his next work (which he hinted to be about elephants, Myanmar, and the war zone that consumed the country during the 1940s).
Hardly ten years out of university, William Grill has begun an exciting career, and Skidmore was lucky to have hosted him for this lecture, where students, faculty, and the local residents of Saratoga Springs got the opportunity to hear about his work and his process. One of the major takeaways of his talk was the emphasis on process over product, and the importance for communicating clearly through not only words, but images and visual media.
