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Hire me:
I'm available as a freelance illustrator for your next magazine story, film poster, compact disc cover, book, or ad. I'm also available for commissions. Most of my back catalogue is available for sale, framed or unframed. Check out my illustrations. I also have a professional portfolio online.
Keen:
flickr, Tea, bacon-wrapped scallops, Jim Beam, Heathrow Airport, trains, steak and potatoes, after the rain, dusk, matinees, swimming, brunettes, big eyes, typography, Paul Newman, Rachel Weisz, Al Hirshcfeld, Fred Dretske, epistemology, university libraries, Cristal Cuban beer, pens, payphones, Tuesdays, May, the ACC, Esquire magazine, BorderCrossings, and Macromedia Fireworks. Also keen on hotel lobbies, Sam Cooke, Tupac Shakur, film title sequences, Jameson, Wacom, Swingline, lobster, and long-sleeve tees.
Send me a postcard:
Antony Hare
c/o Siteway
P.O. Box 23
Station 'C'
Toronto, ON M6J 3M7
antony@siteway.com
I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the springtime, 1976. The middle of three boys, I grew up in a 1960s subdivision called Springvale. I had a good upbringing and was lucky to have mostly great teachers. Especially influential was Mrs. Christian, my grade three teacher, who nurtured and encouraged my creative work at a crucial young age. I can remember now that it was around the third grade that people started to stop drawing. ¶ After high school I went to England to work as a banqueting waiter for the Grosvenor Hotel near Victoria Station. I was alone the whole summer and loved it. I was recovering from a strange year-long illness and still remember the euphoria of being in an exciting city, young, and healthy again. ¶ After my stint in the hospitality industry, I studied Economics and Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. I spent a lot of my time at university watching films, socializing, reading, and daydreaming. Academic campuses are where the best daydreaming happens. This is justification enough for post-secondary education. What people seem to forget is that universities have a tonne of resources. That you take classes is but one part of an entire life. ¶ After I dismissed the idea of becoming an architect after taking a mind-numbing drafting class in junior high school, I assumed that I could make a decent living by becoming a graphic designer. In high school I decided to visit various graphic design studios to get some direct experience of what that might be like. Lou Cable, a graphic designer from Halifax, was especially kind to me. He gave me a tour of his office, showed me how he worked, and generously humoured my naivete without patronizing me. ¶ Despite my developing skills in design, I still held (and hold) onto the idea of becoming an academic. That is why I studied what I studied at university. During my summers I worked with clients looking to get a web site. The first site I did for money was for a framing company called Image Mounting and Laminating. ¶ After my undergraduate years I moved to Toronto. I lived near the AGO in Chinatown in a semidetached house, second floor. It was a good apartment but I never really warmed to it. I landed my first job as a web designer in 1999 and then skipped town to do some graduate work at the University of Nottingham. That's when the drawing really took off and the ideas for Siteway World began to take shape. To this day I am still working on the projects I conceived in Nottingham. Recently they've taken a larger form. I am working hard on developing Tonicville, Phelts, and Coastalmatic as aspects of an art world. ¶ I work as a freelance illustrator/art director in downtown Toronto.
—AH, September 2004, updated June 2005.