Welcome to my author site. Here you’ll find my debut book, Cowbells on the Kill Floor, alongside the art and influences that shaped it. Thank you for visiting.
I began as an illustrator before moving into oil painting, with exhibitions in London including Muse at Harrods (2011) and Out of Work Angels in Mayfair (2015).
For over twenty-five years, my wife, Gail, has been my model and muse — and the one who opened my eyes to veganism.
She said something I couldn’t argue with: her life was no more important than a sparrow’s or a dog’s. I said mine was. Gail asked why. What followed was a tumble of familiar fallacies — intelligence, history, tools — none of which bore scrutiny. They couldn’t, because I’d never really examined the question.
When Gail showed me a video of what happens on a dairy farm, that was it. I turned vegan the same day.
“Look through an animal’s eyes. There lies your humanity.” I coined that phrase not long after, and wish I’d known it sooner.
Later, Gail had another simple idea: “Why don’t you write a book?” It was the gift of someone who sees your potential when you do not. Identity found more room to breathe; expression another outlet.
Many of us inherit roles early — within families, social circles — and keep them long after they’ve stopped fitting. Growing beyond them can unsettle an old order that prefers things unchanged. What we need then is a fresh pair of knowing eyes to remind us there’s more — there always was.
Now, with my debut book Cowbells on the Kill Floor, I write with the same aim as I paint: to uncover what we ignore.
“Urgent, informed, and morally clear. Blakely challenges us to face what we’ve been taught to ignore—with a voice that speaks to our need for compassion, coherence, and change.” — Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., author of The Emotional Lives of Animals
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The Message
Cowbells on the Kill Floor gathers the full argument: ethical, ecological, nutritional, historical and psychological, into one coherent picture.
It dismantles the myths that sustain animal exploitation and challenges the cultural habits that normalise harm. From the comforting fantasy of “humane slaughter” to the marketing of “sustainable meat,” Hamish Blakely exposes the contradictions that lurk beneath one of the most destructive legacies of human history.
This work does not simply defend veganism — it obliterates the ideology that resists it. Blending philosophy, science, and lived experience, Blakely argues that ending animal exploitation is not a marginal concern but a central ethical task, one bound up with justice, sustainability, and the future our children will inherit.
With intellectual clarity and moral urgency, Cowbells on the Kill Floor shows how denial and inherited myths have shaped our world, and how they can be undone. It offers no illusions of comfort, but it does offer hope: that a more honest relationship with animals, and with ourselves, can build a different world, one that no child will ever have to justify.
