Page 125 - Vegan Life - Issue 59 (February 2020)

Creativity is enriching the

burgeoning vegan movement

and connecting people of like-

mind across the globe

Philip McCulloch-Downs talks to us about the
uncompromising power of art

hen I was 19 years old I started a job at a local animal rights as a professional artist. Ater all, being ‘an
I became vegetarian overnight, charity, and being surrounded by literature artist’ may be an admirable calling, but it
Water being stuck in trafic about dairy, eggs, leather and vivisection comes with no guarantee of security. I'm
right next to a truck full of sheep being forced me into that same ‘facing the truth’ very lucky indeed to have been allowed
transported for slaughter. I was eye-to-eye moment. Cheese, cream, and eggs could to become what I truly wanted to be. One
with the animals and I was forced to face never taste good ever again. I still feel so day, I may get a ‘proper job’!
the truth (literally) about what it meant guilty that it took 16 years of being fooled Choosing a vegan lifestyle influenced
to consume meat. Back then (in the early by advertising and my own ignorance, my art and writing for almost a decade,
1990s) it was a diferent world — there before I made this life-changing decision. but always in an oblique, subtle way. In
was no social media, and veganism was I've been painting, drawing, and 2014, I decided to be more confrontational
unknown to me, other than as an ‘extreme’ writing stories ever since I could hold a and composed a book of ethical fables,
lifestyle choice. But ater completing pencil the right way round. My parents written in a ‘magical realism’ style.
an illustration degree at Polytechnic in always encouraged me, my art teacher at I decided to illustrate one of the stories
Leicester, I began to gradually investigate school guided me through the dificult/ with a portrait of the animal rights
ways of living more ethically, and of pretentious/angst-filled teenage years, photographer, Jo-Anne McArthur, as I’d
course, this included several (failed) my polytechnic tutors broadened my just read her book We Animals and was
attempts at being vegan. It wasn't until horizons, and my partner, Catherine, incredibly moved by it. I emailed her the
2005 that the penny finally dropped. continues to support me in my adult life portrait as a surprise, expecting nothing ›

123