2014年8月，居於愛丁堡的藝術家Charles Young，跟自己立下了一個創作習慣——每天以200gsm的水彩用畫紙，製作一個小模型，並拍攝成簡單的動畫————摩天輪、風車、頂樓裝了自轉菠蘿的古怪房子、繞個高樓團團轉的巴士、長頸鹿形的樓房……全都是千奇百怪的建築物。兩年下來，他製作了六百多個，足以建立一個機動城市了。
這個被Charles Young命名為Paperholm的創作計劃，今年終於受到注目，首次獲蘇格蘭丹地舉行的數碼媒體藝術節NEoN邀請，於剛過去的11月初舉行的活動中展出。
Charles Young的作品想像力滿載，不少靈感都是源自圖書中的畫作，但更多是源自生活中尋常可見的建築物，建築師Alvar Aalto以及Jean-Jacques Lequeu的作品似乎都給予他不少創作提示。在長年的創作過程裡，他深深感到自己的製作技術的進步。「日常的練習很有幫助，雖然有時挺難開始第一步的，但只要你建立到自己的節奏，『完成每天的課題』就會變成很自然的事了。」
開始及放棄都很輕易，持之以恆卻困難重重，Charles Young長年堅持著Paperholm計劃，著實非常了不起。
In August 2014, as an artist living in Edinburgh, Charles Young began a creative daily project called Paperholm. Each day, Young uses 200gsm watercolour paper and glue to build a small model and photographs it to create animation. These bizarre models can be ferris wheel, windmill, quirky house with a spinning pineapple at the top, bus that goes around a skyscraper, or a house in the shape of a giraffe. After two years this habit has left Young with more than 600 paper models, which together form into a mechanized city.
This creative project of Charles Young finally gained its recognition and was invited by NEoN Digital Arts Festival of Dundee, Scotland, for its debut exhibition in early November 2016.
Young’s robust creativity is greatly inspired by illustrations in books, but mostly comes from architecture in daily lives. Alvar Aalto and Jean-Jacques Lequeu are two architects that deeply inspired Young. Young can feel his techniques improving from his continuous effort in creating. To him, “Regular practice really helps and although it can be hard to get started, once you get established in the rhythm of doing a daily project it becomes very natural.”
It is easy to start and to end something, what is challenging is to persist. The persistence manifested in his ceaseless project of Paperhom is a genuine quality that will impress many.
