BOLD BRAVE and a bit QUIRKY

It was at our regular curry lunch that the subject came up: Paul Fairweather had written a book. A shrug of the shoulder was the response when one asked about the subject matter. “Oh, it is a bit of everything,” was the reply. “Would you like to read it?” – and the book was handed to me without further comment: Paul Fairweather’s book, Bold Brave and a bit Quirky, published by AndAlso Books, Brisbane, 2025.

Paul had been an architectural student of ours many years ago. It would be interesting to see what had inspired him to write a book. One is always a little wary of those who want to publish something, because there is the worry that this choice might be merely a response to the cliché that says everyone has ‘a book’ in them, without specifying what – just a publication, a book, which is generally presumed to be a novel or perhaps a memoir. Instead of taking off a few months and sitting at the local coffee shop waiting for inspiration - as one friend actually did, and still there is no novel – one might hope that the need to write might come first, and then the book might appear as a matter of course, as an organic necessity, rather than vice versa, with the thought of creating a book being the outcome of something more essential than the hackneyed perception suggests. The fear was that Fairweather’s book might be of the latter cliché ilk, and have more to do with self-promotion/expression than essential communication. Was it self-published?# It appears not to be. The only other book that has been read by this publisher was the one on Lloyd Rees and the Architects – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/12/lloyd-rees-and-architects.html. The blurb described the publisher as: based in Brisbane (Australia); Specialising in creative writing and history from our home state of Queensland – and also art, design, and music culture/history; (Member of the Independent Publishers Network Australia). The publisher appeared to be a local, ‘artistic’ enthusiast.

The Fairweather book was opened on the tram on the way home, and perused. It had more of a notebook or diary format than a novel or a researched tome, anecdotal, using a bits’n’pieces theme, selected recollections, with a format of one illustration per one or two pages of text – a thought for each day as it were - with each piece of writing telling something about life, creativity, and experience. One is reminded of the daily devotional and ‘creative’ books that are available.^ It seemed to be a chatty publication. In one way, the book can be seen as biographical, perhaps confessional, but it is not a biography or an apologia. Fairweather sees it a his latent, ‘creative,’ story-telling urge coming to the fore. Is he now at a stage of his life where reflection on the past becomes an important anchor, a framework into which one can confirm achievement? ‘A bit quirky’ seemed to sum things up; and one supposed that the author had to be ‘bold and brave’ to publish what really just looked like random reminiscences presented as schematic narratives and interesting yarns, episodic tales from his life’s experience, highlighting its hopes, visions, and lessons, with each story accompanied by one of Fairweather’s water colour renderings.

These water colour illustrations all have a lovely ‘Whatman’ looseness about them, with washes generally blotching nicely over the textured surface to give the desired expressions as impressions. From the dates on each drawing, these renderings all seem to have been prepared within a few months for this 2025 publication. Fairweather has a knack of being able to catch a likeness which is impressive, but sometimes the washes seem to get overworked, smudged just too much, or left uncertain, muddled, muddied in their indefinite articulation that asks the eye for forgiveness while demanding tolerance. He tells how he was shortlisted one year for the Archibald prize – an impressive feat for anyone. These illustrations usually relate to the text in some way, and sometimes they do not - there seems to be no rules, just creative inspiration - but they are interesting in their own way, even though some seem more schematic than others, where the fuzzy water colour technique might not have been the best medium for the expression of the subject. Still, the approach gives some cohesion to what is really an ad hoc collection of lived bits and pieces Fairweather considers to be his little ‘gems’ in life: pieces of string too short to save, and, one assumes, too long to throw out, is the nice analogy.

There is a lovely thread, (no string pun intended), that runs through these subjects in this same vein, (oops, not intended), highlighting how ordinary, apparently insignificant things in life can become memorable and important as events and moral lessons. Sadly, the book also promotes another matter: a rational, considered approach to creativity. Fairweather apparently runs sessions on this subject as a public speaker, and workshops as a tutor/facilitator that seem to take their motto from the title of one of the worst books I have ever read, with the theme: You Too Can Be An Artist. The book - oh, how the memory grinds and insults good work and clear, honest intentions with its crassness – spells out an endless variety of different - dare one say quirky? - techniques that can be used to make one ‘creative,’ an artist. This is the older version of what we now see in video clips online, where, for example, viewers are shown how containers of paint can be dribbled over a canvas – (canvases are what artists use) – and flipped, dragged, and maybe spun to give interesting ‘artistic’ patterns to create a ‘modern’ painting – (one video was in the ‘news’ just today: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdtJBMExoA); or sometimes the containers themselves are shrewdly transformed into an arresting ‘sculpture’; or again, in another format, one is tutored in How to paint more traditionally in shows like those of the late Bob Ross. As the title suggests, one is encouraged to be BOLD BRAVE and a bit QUIRKY if one is to become an artist, or, in other words, to be ‘creative.’ This is a sad state of affairs that turns art into a tricky game of chance technique – doing odd things, never knowing when a work of art might materialise. Art is much more than this flippancy and spin encouraged by intellectual analysis. One must remember the Zen message: if you find the Buddha on the way, kill him.

Then there are the other stories that Fairweather seems to think are important: those where he has interfaced with celebrity, or come close to this. OK, he did well with the Archibald, but wanting to include his interactions with, say, Robin Williams, or talking about his role as an extra in a TV show, or as a TED presenter, seems to have something to do with his searching for status or significance – maybe meaning, importance, recognition? Perhaps this book really is a ‘time of life’ matter, a reminiscence? Fairweather has even included photographs at the end of the book that show him in a variety of quirky circumstances: me as a child actor; me with . . . ; me doing . . . , etc. This reminds one of the monthly PR pamphlet one gets from the local MP that includes an excess photographs of the MP here, there, and everywhere, with X, and near Y, doing A, and presenting something to B, etc.

BOLD BRAVE and a bit QUIRKY is a publication that can be both liked and disliked; admired and scorned: ‘fair weather or foul?’ comes to mind. One might have hoped that an editor could have taken the idea proposed and shaped it into a little gem that included an array of those truly important things, rather than leaving the collection as a random mix of bits and pieces, a shambles of stories, some long, some short, but with many that did need to be thrown out or revised rather than published. What did the editor do? If this revision had happened, the book could have become a classic. In the form in which it has been published, the book remains an ordinary whimsical, collection of local memories that read too personally to be truly meaningful, too indulgent to be universal, even if there are things that ‘stick,’ as Fairweather notes. It is difficult to make claims for a successful outcome on the basis of one aspect of a work alone. As it is, the book remains more of a curiosity than anything else. It would have been marvellous if everything in the book had touched something of the string quality without the drooling ‘creative’ narratives – whatever this string quality is, and however ‘meaningless’ these subtleties might appear. Little things in life are important and touch and shape most of our lives in some way or another. If the story is important, why might it not have been a beautifully written biography rather than the crazy patchwork that it is?

Sadly, encouraging folk to be bold, brave and a bit quirky might give ‘interesting’ outcomes, and may indeed be a part of the ‘creative’ process, but inspiration is more than cheeky chance, with skill and thought being involved too – and much more than this that cannot to be told. Ananda Coomaraswamy noted the traditional position that the artist was not a special kind of man, but that every person was a special kind of artist, but this did not mean that everyone jumped up and began being a bold, brave, and a bit quirky in a random fashion, hoping to crack a work of art. Indeed, Coomaraswamy emphasised how art was never personal expression, noting how this individual ambition was a mere sad perversion. Art has more meaning and necessity than this fanciful act, as Lloyd Rees noted; it cannot be spoken about, but it can be recognised and respected; nurtured.

There was a recent report concerning the statement that one frequently hears with modern abstract art: “Oh, I could have painted that.” The author noted that his response is always, “Then why didn’t you?” Perhaps the person may not have been sufficiently bold, brave, or a bit quirky, but there is more than this: simple, quiet necessity – that same quality that demands that a book be published. Alas, this publication remains a tangled set of bits’n’pieces that mean something to Fairweather: some interesting; some indulgent; some misguided; interspersed with some memorable gems. It could have been much better than what its lingering nostalgia offers with the ‘me, my creative life, and my family’ theme that complicates, smudges its intentions as it tries to squeeze in everything, with the nice excuse of being inspired by the box of tangled string, a conceptual pun which rationalises the strategy that needs more.

P.S.

Oh! https://www.amazon.com.au/Bald-Brave-bit-QUIRKY-misadventures/dp/0645788805 - After a quick search, one finds that the book, (or a book with much the same title), has been published previously by Paul Fairweather,# (no longer available on Amazon), as Bald, Brave, Bold and a bit Quirky A memoir of creative misadventures, 2023 – 176 pages: (c.f. 183 pages in the 2025 ed.). ‘Speaker’ Fairweather is ‘punny’ as the new publication reveals. Why has this previous publication, (with a slightly different ISBN-13: 978-0-6-457888-0-8), not been mentioned in what appears to be the 2025 edition (ISBN-13: 978-0-6-457888-9-1)? Is the Bald version now an embarrassment?

Then one discovers that the Fairweather shop - https://www.paulfairweather.com/store-1 - is selling merchandise: a $30 tea towel printed with the No.8 S.E.E.D. Lemonarte-styled water colour illustration. One can purchase the book and the tea towel package, (why a tea towel?), for $60: creative merchandising. Can we expect pens; water colour sets; t shirts; mugs . . . and the like? Mugs . . . mmm?

The promo headline on the store site is:

Paul (all in different ‘creative kindergarten’ colours) Fairweather The Power of Bold Thinking. Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale come to mind and change how one sees things.

#

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Paul Fairweather

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 31 August 2023

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 176 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0645788805

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0645788808

• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 195 g

• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 1.04 x 20.32 cm

Associated blurb:

Follow the inspiring and often hilarious journey of one man's transition from a successful architect to visual storyteller. This memoir chronicles Paul Fairweather's life of creative misadventures, where he navigates the challenges of finding his true passion and purpose. With wit and humility, Paul shares his struggles with writing, the importance of titles in art, and the funny quirks that make him who he is. Through it all, Paul reflects on the moments of genius and what it means to pursue ambition. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of taking a leap of faith and following their passion.

Given this previous 2023 publication, it is odd that we get this promo on Instagram (from an Internet Google search 24 June 2026):

Instagram – paulfairweather.speaker

10+ likes – 9 months ago (today is 22 June 26)

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I'll be releasing my new book, Bold, Brave, and a Bit Quirky, published by And Also Books. It is part memoir, part manifesto. Illustrations, ...

It’s been a journey – and one still in motion. This November, I’ll be releasing my new book, Bold, Brave, and a Bit Quirky, published by And Also Books. It is part memoir, part manifesto – and a physical manifestation of the work I’ve been doing with leaders and teams through my keynote, The Power of Bold Thinking and my workshop, Bold, Brave and Better. Packed with stories, insights, and my own watercolour illustrations, it’s designed to spark the kind of bold thinking that comes from the courage to create and the confidence to connect. Stay tuned for launch details – and an exhibition of the original watercolours. As I scan across these watercolour illustrations, I see the path I’ve travelled: stories collected, moments shared, ideas tested. Each image is a step in the journey that began with my Bold, Brave better workshops and continues on stage in my keynote, The Power of Bold Thinking. I’m eagerly awaiting the proofs – the final step before printing presses roll into motion. Stay tuned for launch details – and an exhibition of original watercolours.

^

The titles of three books seen recently in a bookshop at Ballina, New South Wales:

The Bible in 52 Weeks; 52 Weeks of Creativity; and Creativity: and there were more in the same vein.