It Started With a Leap of Faith
After we’d known each other for a while we felt safe enough to share our art. It brought us closer together and allowed us a deeper understanding of one and other. Connection is such a precious thing and we wondered after while if, by sharing how we connected with each other, we might start to connect with other people too. More specifically, with you.
The first time we ever put our art in conversation with one and other was years before this project. When we first met, Toby shared his poem, The Guy up Past the Skies, with Marina. She came back with the above drawing.
Who We Are
Marina de Laitre
Marina was born in Paris where she took art classes from a young age. Half french and half english, she studied in Exeter, where she became friends with Toby. Passionate about wine, she now works in Hong Kong’s wine industry.
Toby Brooks
Toby is a writer and comedian currently living in Bristol. He has been sharing his creative writing from a young age. His work has been published in a handful of small publications to date.
We met whilst studying at the University of Exeter. We both worked in a nearby vineyard and coffee shop.
We used to cycle to work together. Occasionally, on the way back from work, we would stop for a drink. After a while we began to share our poetry, drawings and paintings with each other.
Years later, with one of us in Hong Kong and the other in Bristol, we reconnected and began this project.
About Our Book
Two Windows and a Door is the record of a conversation between two friends. This conversation is carried out through poetry and artwork.
It began as us catching up about where we are in our lives; living in cities whilst holding onto an urge to create and explore. Quickly, we began to weave in our respective art forms so that they were not only illustrating the points we were making but adding to them and carrying the conversation forwards. The poems and the pictures helped us to express ourselves but also to understand each other and realise a deeper level of empathy between our experiences. Eventually, the poems, the drawings and the paintings became the conversation.
We have laid that conversation out in this book. It is not an illustrated book of poems, nor is it an annotated collection of art. That’s why we have emphasised the conversation element so much. It is also why we have laid the book out as we have.
This conversation is about the world of work and about stepping into adulthood, relationships, the passing of time, change and uncertainty.
The title, Two Windows and a Door, came as we realised what we had said follows three different stages: looking in at ourselves, looking out at the surrounding world and eventually going out and getting involved.
This is only the start of that conversation. Now, it extends to you.
