Five minutes with Paul McDermott

Posted on 31 August, 2020

Not that he needs an introduction in Canberra, but Paul McDermott is a comedian, actor, writer, director, singer, artist and television personality.

As a comedian, he is best known both for Good News Week and for his role as a member of Canberra musical comedy group the Doug Anthony All Stars.

Now, Paul is also the author and illustrator of Ghostbear, a newly published story of love, loss and loneliness. It is a meditation on memory and the transient beauty of life. The themes in Ghostbear subtly touch upon the effects of climate change, death and beyond.

Ahead of Paul’s Online In Conversation event on Wednesday 2  September presented by Canberra’s Harry Hartog, we caught up with the Paul to find out a bit more.

Ghostbear was initially a short film—what motivated you to turn it into a book?

Ghostbear started life as a series of 32 small paintings (12×12 inches) which were part of The Dark Garden, a large exhibition I mounted with the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2013.

I showed the small paintings, but also made giant reproductions of them printed on the flowing drops that allowed people to walk through the work while a constantly shifting soundscape designed by Mat Blackwell played.

Guests at the exhibition were profoundly moved by the wordless piece. In many ways it was already a book—it just hadn’t been bound.

The themes in Ghostbear subtly touch upon the effects of climate change, love, loss and loneliness. A profoundly moving read. Why did you choose to tell the story in the form of a children’s picture book?

The story of Ghostbear is very simple, but it does deal with difficult concepts.

My hope is that Ghostbear provides a space for carers, parents and children to initiate conversations into the concepts mentioned.

Your creative exploits started in Canberra through the Canberra School of Art, The Doug Anthony Allstars, does Canberra still have an influence on your creativity?

The Canberra School of Art was an extraordinary experience and one I will always be grateful for (especially for my head lecturer Petr Herel—an amazing man).

Canberra continues to haunt and inspire me, less visually but certainly musically (I’ve written a suite of songs about Canberra that I hope to play there one day).

What is the message that Ghostbear can help parents, pass on to their children?

The issues facing our children, the quality of their lives and future generations are unlikely anything humanity has faced before. The longer we, as adults, are incapable of acting the more dire and devastating for them.

We are part of nature, we are not separate from it, and we need to understand the respect our dependence on the natural world. The human mind is the most complex machine we have yet discovered. It can also be the most cruel, selfish and stupid.

What was the most enjoyable and most difficult part of writing/illustrating Ghostbear?

I actually painted the series to distract myself from heavier more difficult work in The Dark Garden. It was a way to start my day.

So, I began painting quickly, not thinking too much, just excited to get the images down. But as the story formed in my head it had an emotional impact on me I wasn’t expecting.

Where do you get inspiration from? Do any particular artists or themes influence your work?

Inspiration is everywhere, in everything, it is unstoppable and ceaseless. The problem is not the inspiration, it’s the effort required to knuckle down and create something from the moment—a unique interpretation of your experience that can be shared with others.