Sunday Herald checks out daft words and daft drawings

For Argyll has long championed the wildly creative and cannily businesslike Waje merchants from Helensburgh’s AnElephantCant publishing company – Brian Cairnduff (‘daft words’) and Phil Burns (‘daft drawings’).

Today’s Sunday Herald has recognised their unusual blend of abilities and their sheer joie de vivre in a 2 page spread in the magazine (Page 16).

Entitled ‘Me and my… Waje Maker’ and subtitled’ How business partners discovered a more creative outlet’, it carries one narrative from Brian ’Having not had a bad idea in a while…’ Cairnduff and one from Phil ‘If it’s not fun, move on’ Burns.

They publish children’s books with words by Brian and drawings by Phil. They also produce waje – wall jewellery – of Phil’s paintings printed on a unique silk fabric and with an equally unique adhesive which allows wajes to be endlessly repositioned like posters but without marking walls.

The Herald’s piece marks another major coup, which we reported a few weeks ago – with Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) taking almost 100 pieces of waje for the Gallery shop.

Brian says ‘So now we can say we’re in the Mitchell Library with the books and in the GoMA with the wajes and we’ve only been doing this for two years’.

Phil says ‘I tell everybody to check out my exhibition at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art. I don’t mention that it’s only in the shop. There’s a lot of snobbery in the art world.’.

The advent of waje should knock seven bells out of that sort of attitude.