Nick Dewar

I just heard the sad news about the loss of Nick Dewar. We just featured Nick in both current issues of 3x3 and Creative Quarterly. When I originally contacted Nick about the 3x3 article he warned me that he was headed into the hospital and that the recovery would be about six weeks--but he was anxious to do the article--and also the cover art--if we could wait til after the recovery time. We of course said yes, though we also offered to postpone the article until the following issue but he persevered.

Then when we were putting CQ together last month we decided to reach a different audience with his work and again he came through for us. We had no idea how serious the illness was, he never complained, never tarried and quickly helped us meet yet another deadline.

Working with Nick on the cover I was reminded by Nick that he was old-school using paint made by the Cartoon Colour Company on illustration board. In the digital age he preferred the tactile quality of paint on board laid down with a brush. In the opening spread of his article in 3x3 there's a picture of his computer, you'll see in the background a photo which Nick took of an apple on a tree in Ladahk, Nick told me: "I hung it over the computer to remind me that there is life away from the monitor". Another of his photos is the inspiration image he sent us for CQ, a photo taken in Thimphu, Bhutan during a festival honouring Guru Padmasambhava. "It is a photograph of a mother clasping her hands behind her back. Her child is sleeping in the folds of the cloth we see at the top of the picture." Nick told us.

His words to live by for our 3x3 Twenty Questions feature: "Life is short, filled with stuff, I don't know what for..." - Lux Interior. Lux, the founding member of the legendary garage punk band, The Cramps, died suddenly in February 2009, aged 62. I didn't think much about the words at the time, obviously I was thinking he had skirted something major but in fact he was reminding us of something we don't think about enough. Life is short.