the art & writing of Desirée Isphording

Sigils in the Greenwood

2011-09-29T00:26:00.001-04:00

I took a walk in the forest yesterday. It's been far too long since I've made pilgrimages into the woods, but now that autumn is here and the weather has cooled somewhat, I feel more able to do so. My mission was to explore some paths I had not encountered before and seek out some crossroads in the wild. Before I left the house, my mother suggested I take our dog Tigger on the walk with me, but he is a bit too high strung for a sigil-crafting expedition so I decided to go alone.

Looking at the map of the area, you can trace where Old Haycock Road once connected with (Old) Ridge Road. The construction of the lake and establishment of the area as a state park bisected the original road and rendered one section of it nearly obsolete, like some sort of vestigial limb. Although most of it is still paved, the forest encroaches upon it slowly and steadily. It's obviously narrower than it once was and there are pronounced cracks sprouting with green life running across its entire width. The park maintains it as a trail for hunters and other visitors, otherwise the asphalt would already be obscured under a carpet of ground cover. There were once farms and houses along these roads and if you look carefully, you can still discern the shadows of their existence: here and there a wolf tree, a series of the same species of shrub or tree which are too conspicuously aligned and evenly-spaced, the stamped metal ribbon affixed to what might otherwise be a normal rotting log.

I found a set of crossroads as I had hoped. Tucked inside the bag slung over my shoulder is a small pouch of organic white cornmeal I bring with me to offer to the genii loci while on my walks, should the need or desire arise. I had already given some to a nine-tined Maple on the roadside. Upon encountering the first crossroad where the paved road meets perpendicularly with a wide, unpaved path into the woods, I knelt down to place some there also. Instead of simply offering pinches of cornmeal arranged in a tiny mound, I wanted to make a sigil of some kind inspired by and dedicated to the place itself.

It started with an imperfect circle. Three sets of curved horns marked the directions of the physical paths, a crescent marked an implied, unseen path. Inside the circle, a design emerged which I now think might represent the denizens of the green world: leaves furl upward and roots curl downward, in the direction of the obscure path. While I was making it, the forest seemed to come alive with sounds and peripheral movements that I had not noticed (or perhaps weren't there) before. For some reason my mind drifted to Odin, perhaps because the sigil reminded me of Icelandic galdor-staves and helms of awe. Odin sacrificed Himself to Himself to obtain knowledge of the runes, and He is involved in the magic of signs drawn, inked, and carved. It was Wodenstag after all.

At the second set of crossroads I thought I might just leave a simple offering and be on my way, but as I was placing the meal on the ground I felt compelled to make another sigil. This one began with the central dot and eventually incorporated some nearby leaves and twigs. It turned out that the impromptu art itself was an offering, along with the cornmeal with which it was drawn and the words spoken over it.

On the walk back to my car, I rounded a curve and saw a man and a dog on the road. At that distance they were not much more than silhouettes, although I could see the man was wearing a brightly-colored baseball hat. The man had the same build and stride as my father and the dog was the right size and proportion to be our Boston Terrier. My father had taken Tigger on a walk just the other day and wore a nearly neon orange cap (it's archery season so it's a good idea to distinguish yourself from the surrounding palette). It seemed that my mom had sent them to check up on me, although I didn't think I had been gone that long and figured they should be used to me taking long walks alone in the woods by now. However, as I previously mentioned, it has been some time since I've gone wandering and they'd be expecting me to start dinner soon.

As they approached the resemblance was further confirmed. I resisted the urge to wave erratically or make some sort of sarcastic comment at the figures based on an assumption of familiarity. It was only at the distance of a few yards that I was finally able to determine that they were strangers to me. The man and I exchanged hellos and then I looked down to greet to the darkly-colored dog I thought had been my own. The dog approached me, quiet and composed (in this regard quite unlike my own dog). "If you talk to him, he'll be your friend forever," the man said about his companion. I smiled at this statement and as I glanced back, I noticed the dog only had one eye. Further along down the path I saw faces appear among the trees from the corners of my eyes, only to disappear when I tried to stare at them straight on (I really should know better by now), and I half-expected to turn around only to find that the man with the graying hair and his one-eyed dog had similarly vanished.

Arterial Garden

2010-06-06T22:16:00.001-04:00

This is my submission for the exhibition which will be held in St Louis, Missouri next month. An art book featuring images from the show will also be published. I'm very excited to have my work appear in a physical show, I only wish I could be there to see it. The original piece will be for sale.

I only received notice about this show about a month ahead of the deadline so its creation was more rushed than I would have liked, but it certainly does feel good to finish something. I've been focusing so much on my jewelry for the art/craft show I'm attending in September that I haven't really had much of an opportunity to focus on drawing. This image was originally intended to be something entirely different, but as usual if I try to force something in my work it usually backfires and ends up being so unappealing to me that I abandon it. In this case, it just transformed itself into something I had not planned, which I'm sure was for the better.

The human figure came first in the composition, and shortly after beginning to do some of the shading the idea of an arterial garden came to mind and the rest of the imagery flowed from there. The woman's strong features and thick, storm cloud hair were inspired by depictions and photos of Jane Morris, one of Rossetti's main muses. The stern, pensive gaze of the figure seemed to call for some assertive display of power and frustration, hence the captured bird. I decided on a Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) simply because I like them and have not seen one in quite some time despite the fact that they are said to be so common. I've also always enjoyed their somewhat paradoxical name. In retrospect, the color scheme of this bird may not have been the best choice in the context of the rest of the piece, but perhaps it was meant to be anyways. The day after I shipped this piece to the show, a male Red-winged Blackbird flew right across our windshield on the way to the store.

I love working with toned paper but this particular paper choice proved to be a bit of a challenge as it was so fibrous. I ended up sealing the main portion with a clear acrylic topcoat to keep it in check as well as to visually increase the contrast and deepen the darker tones in the image. The fuzzy texture of the paper as I worked on it tended to diffuse the light. It also had natural dark and light inclusions which most media I used would not cover, but for the most part I liked the character they added.

Size: 11" x 8.5"
Media: watercolor, colored pencils, ink on toned paper

Disclaimer: No birdies were harmed in the creation of this image.

Gothic Art Questionnaire

2010-04-13T00:11:00.000-04:00

A few months ago I received a request from a student seeking to interview me for a project on which she was working. She had seen my work in Gothic Art Now and wanted to ask me some questions about the genre. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert on the subject nor do I feel that all of my work would fit comfortably within the genre, but I do like to be helpful. Since sending her my responses I have not heard anything so I hope they were able to be of some use to her.

1. What is gothic art?

Historically speaking (if my memory of Art History classes serves me correctly), Gothic art was produced during a certain time period in medieval Europe, although it has had its more recent revivals. It is nestled loosely between the Romanesque period and the Renaissance. Although contemporary Gothic culture is associated primarily with darkness, one of the main innovations in Gothic architecture was the use of large stained glass windows to allow radiant, colored light to stream into the buildings.

When the term "Gothic art" is used in reference to modern work, it typically involves a link with the current Gothic subculture, although one can definitely see allusions to historical Gothic art in the contemporary variety. The modern Gothic subculture arose in the early 1980s and likely derived its title from associations with the nineteenth century literary genre which includes such pivotal novels as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula rather than the earlier Germanic people. Contemporary Gothic art draws upon the same themes that fascinate and inspire other aspects of the subculture: namely an appreciation for darkness in its literal and metaphoric senses. Gothic art, in my opinion, seeks to explore the beauty, meaning, and occasionally humor in aspects of our existence that mainstream society often derides or ignores, for example death, solitude, decay, mourning, etc.

2. What mediums can be used?

I do not believe Gothic art can or should be limited to any particular media or even style. To me, the designation of Gothic comes about in reference to the subject matter and imagery depicted or the emotional response elicited by a piece — whether it is a photorealistic representation, highly stylized image, or a nearly abstract work is really irrelevant to me.

3. What prompted you to get started in this type of art?

I've been creating art since I had the motor skills to hold a crayon, and although it was not until later in my childhood that I became aware of the Gothic subculture, there have always been darker motifs throughout my artwork. Once I became more familiar with the current Gothic scene, I did begin to consciously draw more upon it artistically. While I'm content with my work being labeled as Gothic since I certainly have strong sympathies with both the modern subculture and the historical style, I do not consider my work to be limited to the umbrella of Gothic art.

4. On average, how much do you make with your art?

Honestly, I do not make very much at all with my art at the moment. I have a full-time job in an unrelated field which pays the majority of my bills and which allows me to have health insurance. My artwork is primarily for my mental, emotional, and spiritual but not financial well-being. However, I would like to start moving towards making art more into a career in addition to being my personal calling.

7. How long has gothic architecture been around?

Gothic architecture was believed to have been initiated in France in the middle of the twelfth century. The term "Gothic" later became applied to the style because it was a distinct break from the classically influenced architecture that dominated the scene just as the Goths, a Germanic people who invaded southern Europe, brought about the end of Roman civilization.

8. Where are the best avenues to display your art?

One of the best and most accessible means to display one's art is via the internet. The exposure that you can gain with a personal website or through collective online galleries can be wonderful and very extensive. I also really enjoy seeing my work in print (books, magazines, etc.) although it's harder to gauge a direct response from an audience with print media than digital media. Traditional brick-and-mortar galleries and art/craft shows are also great venues although the scope is smaller.

9. Do you create gothic art for your own sake or for other people?

I create my art for my own sake, although on occasion I do accept commissions.

10. What is the best way to make your name be known?

The answer to this question is directly tied to my response to question number 8. Displaying your work is the best way to make your name known in the context of the art world. I also recommend participating in art-related forums, groups, and associations to learn from more experienced artists and make to make valuable connections.

11. What types of emotions are involved in creating this type of art?

In my own experience, pensiveness and curiosity tend to be my primary emotional states when creating art, but I'm sure it varies greatly for other artists.

12. What types of gothic arts appeal to which groups?

I suppose that it would go without saying that I imagine Gothic art appeals to those who identify as Goths or who have a preference for a darker aesthetic. There seems to be a wide audience for certain cutesy/creepy Gothic art among young adults. Beyond general statements though, I'm not sure of the demographics.

13. How has gothic art evolved/progressed over the years?

I'm certainly not an expert on the genre of Gothic art, but my observation is that it seems to have extended its scope beyond just sexy black-clad vampires with too much eyeshadow and the Grim Reaper. There seems to be a deeper and more thoughtful examination of the themes occurring, and a realization that in order to have a real visual and emotional impact, artwork cannot just be dark or creepy or horrifying for frivolous reasons but because those attributes or imagery serves the overall goal of the piece. I believe there is now a larger pool of accepted "Gothic" symbols and imagery to draw upon than existed in the past and there is a greater sophistication in their use.

Featured

2010-03-29T00:45:00.001-04:00

Three of my fairly recent pieces are featured on Antique Children: A Mischevious Literary Arts Journal. I was completely unaware of this journal until I was approached to have my work featured within it. However, I was very happy for the introduction since just in the art section alone I've discovered so many great artists that were previously unknown to me. Antique Children features diverse artwork from various genres and styles, yet there is something subtle underlying almost every piece selected that unifies them. It's difficult to put my finger on, but there is almost universally a lovely eerie, unsettling quality about all the included imagery (I'm pleased to consider that most of my own work also falls into that category). Of course, as a literary journal they also feature a great host of articles, poetry, short stories, etc. I'm very honored to have some of my pieces chosen to appear within its digital pages and I hope you'll take the time to visit.

Several months ago I was asked to contribute the online periodical dedicated to all things faerie, Faezine. (It's very strange to me to be asked to contribute a piece of written rather than visual artwork for publication. I've always enjoyed writing and did well in classes where essays and reports were required, but I've never actually considered myself a writer. I do tend to have rather distinct [read: opinionated] views on Faery and art so if my writing is not the best it will hopefully at the very least provide a unique perspective.)

My first article, Hidden Faery Tales, appears in the Winter 2009 issue. The version included in that issue has been slightly edited from my original (perhaps for the better?) and you need a subscription, which is free, to view it in its entirety. I would definitely recommend taking a few moments to subscribe though since there are many valuable articles to ponder on Faezine. I'd really appreciate some feedback on my article if you happen to be so inclined.

Ancestors

2010-03-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

Wow. I've really been slacking on updating this blog. My apologies! I have a few things I've been wanting to post about so a couple of entries should be forthcoming.

I've been working on this piece on & off for about 2 years. I'm not sure what to title it yet so I'm tentatively calling it "Ancestors" for now. My ACEO Huldre was the precursor to this image. It's rare that I will deliberately choose to depict the same figure twice, but this particular one was really calling out for a more thorough treatment. You can also see an in-progress shot here.

The main figure is my own personal interpretation of Frau Holda ghostly emerging from the mound. The image gives the impression of being a scene from a bygone time, but upon closer inspection there are modern elements to elude to the fact that She's not just a figure from the past.

Media include: ballpoint pen, colored pencils, watercolor, and colored inks on toned paper. In the detail image below all of the delightful creatures were rendered in black ballpoint pen.

The Makings of a Wolf Girl

2009-10-22T21:39:00.006-04:00

The beginnings of a lovely wolf- or coyote-girl (she hasn't decided yet) in Victorian-inspired riding garb. I think she may be out hunting, we'll see.

This image really shows how I gradually build up layers of subtle texture with the ballpoint pen to develop shading. Everything begins with loose shapes and scribbles (often unintelligible to others) which then become a little more defined as I decide what lines to strengthen and emphasize and what ones will eventually blend into background. I then add in some very sparse crosshatching to suggest depth and determine the general light source for the image. The darker values are developed gradually; it is only very rarely that I will use full pressure of the pen to get a deep gray or black. Ballpoint pen, being the finicky creature that it is, will sometimes decide to randomly spurt out a little blob of ink, and usually I try to camouflage those by darkening a certain area more than I originally intended.

On another note, I wanted to draw attention to a great article which I discovered via Terri Windling's blog: The Value of Fantasy and Mythical Thinking.

Ego Rid, She Inspires

2009-09-18T00:19:00.005-04:00

I've always though there was something essential in names and have always mused on their deeper meanings, searching for clues via numerology and etymology. Some ancient cultures also thought names carried a certain importance and that the knowledge of someone's (or something's) true name conferred power over him, hence the tales of Rumpelstiltskin and Tom Tit Tot.

While looking through a notebook of mine, I rediscovered perhaps another interesting route to investigate the inner workings of a name: the Internet Anagram Server of which a telling anagram is "I, Rearrangement Servant." By setting a few basic parameters and entering your name, you might unearth some interesting, if somewhat cryptic and surreal, phrases. Depending upon the length and letters in your name, you could literally spend all day pondering all of the possible rearrangements, but often there are themes which can be derived from the frequency of certain words in the various anagrams. The following are some of my favorite anagrams of my own name (some punctuation was added at my discretion):

ego rid, she inspires
eroded inspire sigh
a deed perishing rejoins
designed Irish rope
I sing spheroid deer
a ridged spine joins here
oh dig, inspired seer!
his red poising deer
heeding a drip, seers join
inspire his deer God
deer herd is poising
re inspire, God hides
a designer's rejoined hip
drips enjoin deer geisha
oh, inspired ridges!
she inspired God ire
a ridged, serene hip joins

Rabbit Hearted Girl

2009-09-17T21:45:00.007-04:00

I caught a fragment from the chorus of Florence & the Machine's "Rabbit Heart(Raise It Up)" on the Y Rock radio show one evening and was pleasantly surprised by the mythic references. Driving home last night I was able to catch the entire song and was further intrigued by the interesting layering of powerful female vocals, snippets of a tinkling harp, and electronic elements (a reviewer on Amazon describes it as a "thunderstorm in a flower garden"). I wasn't sure of the artist or song title, so I googled a lyric from the chorus. Upon discovering the full lyrics and was even more delighted:

Here I am, a rabbit hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I've made the final sacrifice

We raise it up, this offering
We raise it up

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Allusions to literature, a dark transaction, and the shedding of skin — what more could one want in a song? Even the very Pre-Raphaelite influenced video with its frothy whites and thick greens contains the double-edged imagery of the lyrics wherein the feasting table is transformed into a coffin. It's not really surprising to me to find that Florence Welch was an art student prior to initiating her music career.

I was able to download the single via iTunes, but it looks like the full-length CD Lungs has yet to be released in the US. The whole CD seems well worth purchasing after listening to some other songs on her website.

Strange Fairytales on Urban Walls

2009-07-17T22:06:00.005-04:00

"Without Their Arms They Were Sisters"

Herakut is the name of the entity created when two street artists chose to merge their talents and create together. Hera + Akut = Herakut. When I first discovered the collaborative work of Herakut in the February 2009 issue of Juxtapoz I was smitten by both their poignant subject matter and the intense contrast between the artists' two styles that somehow still managed to form a remarkable synthesis. Hera's rough, calligraphic strokes are tempered by Akut's smooth and nearly luminescent realism to form figures that seem to simultaneously pool out into the third dimension and etch themselves deep into the surface of a wall or canvas like a neolithic cave painting.

"Streetdart No.2"

The creatures they paint range from the adorable, but often worrysome pug boys to rabbitfolk and even (yay!) wounded deerwomen — and they usually have a tale or piece of social commentary to impart in addition to their visual appeal. They use the animal attributes, masks, and headdresses to symbolize the nature of the figures, and the symbolism is sometimes not what one's initial associations might be: the cute pug boys (and girls?) represent "a street artist in the way that a dog goes around town and shits anywhere he likes. That's real graffiti. That's what dogs do." The rabbits are not just sweet and harmless in their paintings but typically represent an exploited sexuality comparable to the "bunnies" of Playboy notoriety. Their interactions are dystopian fairytales.

Their new book Herakut: The Perfect Merge is a great collection of their work featuring not only finished pieces but preliminary drawings and in-progress photos, allowing one to really appreciate the many layers involved in their art. The following is a quotation from the book about the struggle to retain the initial freshness of a sketch in a finished painting:

Painting from sketch was like copying yourself. Making a bad sequel. Cold coffee. The sketch by itself would always be the fresh spark — but the painting that followed would be like holding your hands to the radiator: it feels like heats but it's no real fire.

But one thought finally opened up the gate to new grounds: (wow, this may sound a little weird but this is how our brains function...) Mary J Blidge — singing about 1st love — album after album after album. How could singers relive this heartfelt experience even decades after they had actually been there? Right there it clicked. A sketch was the tool for capturing a new-born thought, a genuine moment like when you're falling in love. (Intimate, strong, but at the same time fragile and never to be repeated.) [...] So, in the end: a sketch will always be like love at first sight while the pieces that follow make it a love story.

More of Herakut's work can be seen online at:
Herakut (their official website)
Herakut's Dirty Laundry Aired

A Bitty Bat to Steal Your Heart

2009-07-10T13:08:00.003-04:00

Last weekend my sister called from my parent's house insisting that I come over in order to see something that I would enjoy. She would not take no for an answer. When I arrived, she and my mom brought me to the deck in the backyard and carefully separated a certain fold in the closed umbrella atop the table to reveal....

the cutest little bat!

He was resting for the day after a long night of insect hunting by the spotlights shining out from the house. According to my mom, he has been coming back to that spot for a few days in a row. I've seen bats fluttering by in the evenings plenty of times, but I've never seen one during the day so close before. It's amazing that their wings fold back into such a small bundle, and the overall size of the bat was even smaller than I expected: he was about two inches in length if that. I wish I could have taken him home, but something tells me that wouldn't have worked out so well.

I have a soft spot in my heart for bats, especially the so-called flying foxes or fruit bats that live in tropical locations around the globe.

The Storyteller Tree

2009-07-04T22:02:00.004-04:00

This image was another trade with Ed Dougherty of Tree of Life Designs in exchange for a Native American Style flute. He had to wait a bit longer for this picture than I did for the flute, but I hope it was worth it. It is actually something of a gift for someone close to him who senses and interacts with various Nature Spirits. He requested a picture of an old, wise tree spirit set in a forest which included flowing water lined with some tall grasses.

I finally got to use the Windsor & Newton drawing inks I was given for Yule on this image and I adore them. I laid out the basic composition in sepia and loved the loose, flowing quality. I found the ink difficult to completely layer over as I didn't want to obscure it, so much more of the groundwork is visible here than in some of my other pieces.

Shifting Consciousness

2009-06-26T00:40:00.003-04:00

Wow. It's rare to find something so wonderful and moving on YouTube. The following is a portion of a talk given by Terence McKenna.

Narrow Halls of Pages

2009-06-22T00:28:00.008-04:00

It's been many years since I've visited my local library and actually borrowed books (I have been there on a rare occasion to browse and to donate books, but it doesn't seem like a real visit when you leave empty-handed). The library within walking distance from my apartment is the same library I used to walk to more than a decade ago, and visiting seems to call back a ghost of my former self. I enter and can feel some smaller part of me wisp off and eagerly head towards the sections I haunted as a girl, curling up on the floor while eyeing the worn spines and deciding which book to slip off the shelf and into the lap first.

My library card is the very same as the one I carried in those visits, and I'm always a little embarrassed to show it to the librarian. The "signature" in the strip across the front is surely on of my firsts and I can imagine that I wielded the ballpoint pen in my fist like a crayon. It's amazing that all of the lettering was fairly contained in the designated area, but I realize that I've been drawing almost all of my life so I think perhaps I had more manual dexterity than others in my age group. I dusted off that card, metaphorically speaking, and paid the $11.00 fine, literally speaking, I had racked up in late fees which had been stewing in my account all these moons, and got my fix of nepenthe.

This visit I returned home with Tithe by Holly Black and The Onion Girl by Charles DeLint. I just barely have touched on the latter, but I devoured the former in one evening and shortly after did the same with its sequel Ironside.

Black's two novels were just what I was seeking for my recently re-instituted drug habit and as an added bonus provided the brief intellectual satisfaction of being familiar with the fairylore references sprinkled throughout. They were enjoyable in supplying my desired escape, but beyond reveling in the fantasy (Roiben is as drool-worthy as Edward as a male protanganist), I wasn't very compelled by Black's portrayal of faeries. For the most part I felt the faeries were far too human in their actions and squabbles. There is an effort in the books to suggest that the Unseelie Court is not solely comprised of caricatures of villainy and that there is also kindness and wisdom in that realm, as well as treachery and deceit in the opposing Seelie Court, and those who at first seem friends are foes (or vice versa) but I don't feel like that message really saturates deeply into the core of the story.

The faerie character that felt the most true to me was the Kelpie. His "evil" nature seemed to be borne of a fierce, yet innocent fascination with human perishing rather than the contrived malevolence shown by much of the Unseelie Court in the novels who seemed more akin to classic human villains of comic books and cinema, those who know right from wrong and choose their path accordingly: "I wonder about death. I who may never know it. It looks so much like ecstasy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes wide and startled as they thrash in your hands as though with an excess of passion."

Yet, the character of Thistlewitch offers some profound statements on Faery:

So much focus on the egg — it is life, it is food, it is answer to a hundred riddles — but look at its shell. The secrets are writ on its walls. Secrets lie in the entrails of things, in the dregs.

Glamour is the stuff of illusion, but sometimes if deftly woven, it can be more than a mere disguise. Fantastical pockets can actually hold baubles, an illusionary umbrella can protect one from the rain, and magical gold can remain gold, at least until the warmth of the magician's hand fades from the coins.

From these tidbits you can sense Black actually does have a real feel for the Otherworldly, but I suppose it's hard to compose a novel where you can neatly tie in all the loose ends at the end of a few chapters if you're really trying to convey the depth and complexity of Faery (and probably more difficult to market, I imagine).

Burl

2009-06-08T01:01:00.004-04:00

By the parking area behind my apartment building there is a particular maple tree who has captured my interest. Her figure is not tall and lean as those of her nearby siblings; she is hunched, warped, and turns upon herself at peculiar angles, and yet in my opinion possesses an elegance that her sisters do not. In the frigid days following my own sister's wedding, a bouquet of white carnations lay in my passenger's seat preserved by the cold. It seemed such a waste to throw them away (what good would come of them trapped in black plastic, preventing them from joining the soil?) so I made a gift of them. Hands gnarled like her branches and numbing in the chill night air, I pulled each flower from its crowded foam base and arranged them in one of the maple's holes near the where her roots wind their way into the ground. I smiled and wordlessly thanked her for her company. It was not too long afterwords that this drawing began, and as the unusual features and awkward torsion emerged I recognized the maple tree who greets me everyday when I leave for work and return in the evenings.

A burl is a term used to refer to an abnormal, fast-growing, bulbous arboreal growth — something almost akin to a tumor. They are typically caused by some sort of stress either resulting from fungus, insects, or sometimes by human involvement and disruption. Burls can often grow to be quite large and many times trees die from their burden. Yet what otherwise might be regarded as misshapen and diseased is highly sought by woodworkers, for beneath the crumpled bark covering the burl like a scab is wood whose grain is intricately whorled and nearly liquid with motion. Certain varieties of burl wood can command high prices. It adorns items of expense and opulence, and can often be found in the interiors of luxury cars and as veneers on fine furniture. This contrast of appreciation for its outer and interior forms is represented by the ornate Roccoco border. In a strange reversal of how our society typically operates, it actually is what's inside that counts and the outer form is not usually so well-regarded.

It is also a statement about how we might wish Otherworldy creatures to perpetually appear versus how they tend to truly reveal Themselves. Contrary to today's vision of Faerie as represented by the cherubic winged sprite in the upper right corner, faeries were often strange and grotesque — and yet their homely visage did not preclude them from being respected and revered:

The representations of fairy and demon familiars found in early modern encounter-narratives reflect the animist culture of the rural village, as opposed to the theistic culture of the cloister or oak-panelled study. [...] [A]mong the common folk of this period, the assortment of spirits which came under the umbrella term of fairies — bizarre and sometimes ridiculous-looking as they were — possessed the numen of sacred beings, and as such were objects for devotion. [...] This devotion was not only reserved for the beautiful and/or noble fairy monarchy and other spirits who conformed in some way to stereotypical Christian notions about sacred beings [...].¹

I thought it was very important to anchor this piece in the real world where this tree actually grows. The background is very closely based to the actual location where this Maple spreads her branches. She would not hold the same poignancy were I to draw her in some enchanted glade where a glittering unicorn might nibble her leaves as that is not where she belongs. If we cannot find beauty where we are, there is little hope of truly finding it elsewhere.

Media: black ballpoint pen, ink, acrylic, pen & ink
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Footnotes and Bibliography

1) Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. ISBN 1-84519-078-5. 226.

A Life in Progress

2009-06-06T17:33:00.006-04:00

Above is a photo of two pieces in progress. The figure on the left has been in such a state for much longer than the one on the right, which will hopefully be completed in the not-too-distant future. Like these images, my life seems to have been halted mid-course.

For the past year or so it has been a constant struggle to find the hours and energy to delve into the work I feel like I was meant to do. As a result I've found myself in a deep depression which deprives me even of the desire to work, forcing me into a vicious cycle which just keeps pushing me farther and farther away from where I wish to be.

At one point the situation was so bleak I ended up being dependent upon a drug for weeks to make it through (not a drug in the conventional sense as it's perfectly legal, requires no doctor or psychiatrist to prescribe, and the dealers include your friendly neighborhood Barnes & Noble and Borders, but a drug nonetheless). You probably are familiar with it: a hefty series of four books centered on a love triangle between a vampire with a conscience, a werewolf, and a clumsy human. Seriously, this saga, which shall remain unnamed, is a far cry from literature — it is a highly-addictive substance specifically designed to target and mentally incapacitate a select range of females (basically anyone who felt like a social outcast in high school which is a pretty large demographic). It was escapism of the worst kind.

My full-time day job is a necessary evil as it pays the bills, but while it once seemed content to remain in the space allotted to it (approximately forty hours a week in a generic office building) it has grown insatiable in appetite, demanding to take over my attention and identity. It wants to be the sun around which the rest of my life revolves. I'm taking steps to extricate myself from the increasingly hostile environment but I don't know how long it will take to regain some sort of healthy balance. In the meantime I'm trying to find some perspective and inspiration to hold onto so I don't lose myself completely. Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese" has become a holy mantra, and I pour over the images in my mind each in turn like the beads of a rosary.

In tribal and pre-literate societies illness was often believed to be a result of a loss of essence. Personal turmoil can entangle the soul or cause it to wander away, but it can also be stolen or deliberately mislead by clever sorcerers. It was one of the shaman's many tasks to journey into the Underworld to retrieve the soul that had been lost (or taken) and reunite it with its waking self, thus restoring a person to wholeness. I need to reweave the connections with my guides so that I can find my soul again.

The Forest Queen

2009-05-08T15:48:00.000-04:00

I'm made of the bones of the branches, the boughs, and the brow-beating light
While my feet are the trunks and my head is the canopy high
And my fingers extend to the leaves and the eaves and the bright
brightest shine, it's my shine
And he was a baby abandoned, entombed in a cradle of clay
And I was the one who took pity and stole him away
And gave him the form of a fawn to inhabit by day
Brightest day, it's my day
— "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing"

The Decemberists recently released album, The Hazards of Love, was inspired by English folksongs. The entire album is one storyline flowing though different songs, following the tale of two ill-fated lovers. One of the most intriguing characters, voiced by Shara Worden, is the Forest Queen. True to the traditional balladry, she is a mysterious, powerful figure whose morals are ambiguous — she is at times merciful and vengeful, lovely and wicked by turns. Much of the story woven by the album is reminiscent to me of Tam Lin (Offa's Wall does sound similar to Carterhaugh, and there is shape-shifting and an illicit pregnancy to be had), and I think perhaps this Forest Queen may be one and the same as the Faery Queen in that famous folksong.

From Having a Genius to Being a Genius

2009-03-17T00:17:00.000-04:00

Author Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the nature of creativity and advocates a more ancient mode of understanding which does not place the individual's ego at the center and acknowledges an Otherworldly source for inspiration:

Thanks to Asharah and her blog Bellydance Paladin for exposing me to this wonderful video!

The Makings of an Artist

2009-03-16T00:27:00.002-04:00

A man who uses his hands is a laborer.
One who uses his hands and mind is a craftsman.
He who uses his hands, and his mind, and his heart is an artist.
- St. Francis

Some might wish to define an artist based upon how many media in which an individual is proficient or how many years he or she invested in honing their skills. To me those are irrelevant factors. There are those who know they are (or are destined to be) artists from a young age and their lack of years does not disqualify them. There are those too poor to afford sophisticated equipment and expensive materials and that does not prevent them from making art. I've made some of my best pieces with a cheap ballpoint pen (the kind you can buy a bag of at Walmart for about $3.00).

There is much more to being an artist than simply being able accurately reproduce an image, whether from a photo or from life. If that were the case then cameras and Xerox machines in and of themselves would be artists. Sadly most people seem to gauge artistic ability or virtue by how "realistic" a piece of art happens to be, however I've seen many realistic images which clearly display technical prowess yet completely lack the soulful aspect which I think is definitive to art — they were simply pretty pictures. On the other hand I've encountered work which shone with inspiration and yet the technical ability of the artist may have been somewhat lacking. Personally, I prefer the work which shows a real connection with the subject or idea and a less developed skill level to those works which flaunt realism without depth.

Rendering is a skill, a useful and worthy one, but it is nothing without heart, soul, and inspiration. Skill can be taught and acquired, inspiration cannot. While experience and skill in reproducing the work of others is valuable, all of the training in the world with the most expensive materials will not make you a true artist — if your work lacks soul it's just a gratuitous display of your technical proficiency, nothing more.

Personally I believe that the best artists are those that have a great balance of both skill and soul. Skill gives you the dexterity and vocabulary to express your visions with clarity and precision, but without soul you have no real vision to express. Soul gives a purpose to your skills.

The Moth Rose

2008-12-31T01:35:00.002-05:00

At long last, a new piece before the sand in 2008's glass is run. This piece was done as a trade with another artist: a maker of Native American Style wooden flutes by the name of Ed Dougherty. He crafted me a flute in the key of high B out of a marvelous redwood burl with prima vera endcaps, and in exchange I did a lovely faery portrait for his daughter. Its intended recepient received it today and from what I hear she is very pleased with her belated Christmas gift. You can see a photo of my new flute on his homepage: Tree of Life Designs.

He told me a little bit about what she likes: bright colors, pink roses, the night sky alight with moon and stars, etc. and I went from there. This is a bit of a different avenue from my preferred emphasis in Faery art, but I didn't get the impression that dark and brooding was what would suit her best.

It also have me the opportunity to illustrate moth wings which is something I have been wanting to do for a while. (Mind you, I'm not universally opposed to wings - I just think that for most artists they have become a crutch when depicting faeries and are included compulsively rather than with care and intention.)

This image is something of a speculation on the mythical origins of moths. Perhaps they are so attracted to light because of some sympathy with their birth place: a very special sort of rose glowing pink at the edges, the color of the illuminated thinness of flesh when cupped over a flashlight, with petals of tattered wings unfurled on a certain night, releasing them into the sky. The dust from their soft bodies, an interstellar medium, swirled, collided, and caught in its own momentum. Thus the stars sparked to life. Yeats speaks of "moth-like stars flickering out" in The Song of the Wandering Aengus, and maybe he had the same idea.

Size: 8 x 10 inches
Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylic, colored ink

Gothic Art Now

2008-12-19T19:11:00.001-05:00

I was asked to submit three pieces for a potential art book entitled Gothic Art Now by the lovely Jasmine Beckett-Griffith sometime last year. After submitting the images and necessary paperwork, I heard nothing. It slipped to the back of my mind after a while, and I did not think anything of the project.

A couple of months ago, I saw that the book was available for pre-order and it touted the works of such artists as Brom, HR Giger, and Chet Zar. The lack of response plus the knowledge of the style and technical ability of artists who definitely had work included in the project basically convinced me that none of my pieces were accepted for inclusion.

Then by chance I discovered a sample chapter online and, low and behold, one of my pieces was in it! I tried not to get my hopes up since I realized I may have stumbled across a draft version and perhaps my work had been edited out in the final version. A few days later, someone from UPS called to get an address correction. They said they had a package for me from Harper Collins. The book was delivered the next day, and to my surprise and delight, not only one but all three of my pieces are included!

I was also gleeful to discover that a number of my favorite artists also have work included: Steven Kenny, David Bowers, Jessica Joslin, Scott Radke, Patrick Arrasmith, Carrie Ann Baade, etc.

If you'd like to take a look firsthand, you can find it available on
Amazon and I'm sure some major booksellers also carry it. You can also find out more on the Harper Collins website.

Treading Wisely

2008-10-20T01:02:00.000-04:00

When it comes to wisely accessing the world of Faery, we've allowed ourselves to be lulled into a glitter-induced stupor. Faery is now wreathed in New Age mantras (much like similar Theosophist and Spiritualist mantras more than a century ago) like "the fairies love you, no matter what," "fairies always have our best interests at heart," and "fairies are just miniature angels." A lot of lip service is given to recognizing the dark aspects of Faery, but this usually amounts to facing up to unpleasant truths about ourselves or conceding that some faeries have a more sombre attitude (and wardrobe) than the perky ones we've come to expect. While most acknowledge that faeries are renowned tricksters, the extent of faery mischief is typically at the level of inconvenience and annoyance, for instance the mysterious disappearance of car keys or a single sock out of a matched pair is sometimes attributed to teasing sprites. We don't wish to realize that the creatures we adore as representations of the idealized, innocent childhood we never had can truly be dangerous: "This is not to say that there are not entities in the universe that we should avoid whenever possible because they desire to do harm, but they are not of the Otherworld of Faery" [itialics mine]. If for some reason the fey are not so open to our explorations "All we need to do [...] is to be more polite, show a willingness to learn and be aware, and the faeries will love us" ¹.

I do not wish to paint Faery as all gloom and doom, for it certainly is not and there is true wisdom, beauty, joy, and inspiration to be found there, but in order to do so safely one must be honestly aware of the potential risks. To do otherwise is to stroll into the den of a mother bear and her cubs and expect to be cuddled because after all, you did say "please" before you entered. A mother bear likely would desire to cause such a person harm because a wounded intruder is less threatening than an able one. Faeries are not evil just as bears are not, but there are some creatures both in this world and the Other that are inherently dangerous to court and if you deny their existence, you do so at your own peril. Flesh and blood bears should not be confused with teddy bears and the same analogy applies with Faerie.

It must also be remembered that faeries do not prescribe to the same rules of etiquette and moral codes that humans do. Even if we believe we are being polite and courteous, it may not elicit the same reaction from a faery that it would from a human being despite the color of a person's aura or the quality of her energy. Faeries can pick up on a person's true intentions and can sense beyond the physical, but this is not always to the mortal's advantage.

Footnotes

1) MacBeth, Jessica. The Perils of Faery - or should that be Pearls? http://faerywisdom.com/fperils.html. 16 October 2008.

Of Keys and Riddles

2008-07-14T15:17:00.000-04:00

This creature appeared in the margins of a notebook some time ago and decided he wanted to make his way into a more refined piece. I began this picture last year, and I nearly forgot about him until rediscovering him tucked into a pad of drawing paper after moving into my first apartment, which seems entirely fitting. He seems to delight in obscurity and even now after completing the piece, I cannot say I know a great deal more about him that when he first appeared as a simple pen sketch.

What I do know is this: He possesses keys to all the doors that ever were (and never were), including those subtle, metaphysical ones. His collection includes keys to rooms in buildings which have been demolished decades ago, keys to rusty vehicles moldering on the junk heap, keys to gates that no longer guard anything at all, and tiny keys to diaries whose pages have long since been torn out and burned away. No door, no portal is ever truly gone, he tells me.

In this image, his fingers originally grazed the key to the doorway between life and death, but we thought the depiction was a bit too literal. Now, petals from the flower of the Dogwood tree (Cornus florida) dance before his grasp. Evidently each petal represents one of his profound riddles - he reminds me that not all keys can be held.

Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylic, sumi ink, ink, collage (for the dogwood petals and flower)

The White Doe Speaks

2008-07-14T13:48:00.000-04:00

A number of months ago a poet shared a piece with me that was inspired by one of my drawings. As the Fates would have it, I was lucky enough to check my junk mail folder that day, otherwise it would have been lost to me among the oblivion of dross which normally (and thankfully) gets sorted into that location. I expressed my gratitude and appreciation for the beautiful words and asked if I might be able to post his piece along with my image somewhere. Unfortunately, I did not hear back from him (maybe my letter to him was gobbled up by his own spam filter, or perhaps he did reply and the Fates chose not to favor me a second time).

Perhaps the time was just not right, but with the new Summer 2008 edition of Goblin Fruit, the White Doe speaks:

I pull the landscape
into folds across my back,
a kimono of land and water.
To feel a leaf with one shoulder
or tree roots buried in earth
is a sacred thing
and cannot be imagined.

- spoken through the grace of Joshua Gage

I'd also like to take this opportunity to join the editors of Goblin Fruit in saying a fond farewell to The Endicott Studio which has been nurturing mythopoetic arts for the number of years as there are letters in my full name (a figure which also coincides with the day of my birth). I am too poor a writer to properly express how influential and inspirational the Endicott Studio has been for me, and I will miss it sorely. Thank you Terri and Midori!

Fée Intoxicated

2008-05-12T01:04:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I picked up a copy of The Book of Celtic Verse edited by John Matthews. Not surprisingly, it contains a number of faery-influenced pieces, including the one below:

"The Others"
by Seumas O'Sullivan (1879 - 1958)

From our hidden places
By a secret path,
We come in the moonlight
To the side of the green rath.

There the night through
We take our pleasure,
Dancing to such a measure
As earth never knew.

To song and dance
And lilt without a name,
So sweetly breathed
'Twould put a bird to shame.

And many a young maiden
Is there, or mortal birth,
Her young eyes laden
With dreams of earth.

And many a youth entranced
Moves slowly in the wildered round,
His brave lost feet enchanted
With the rhythm of faery sound.

Music so forest wild
And piercing sweet would bring
Silence on the blackbirds singing
Their best in the ear of spring.

And now they pause in their dancing,
And look with troubled eyes,
Earth straying children
With sudden memory wise.

They pause, and their eyes in the moonlight
With faery wisdom cold,
Grow dim and a thoughts goes fluttering
In the hearts no longer old.

And then the dream forsakes them,
And sighing, whispering turn anew,
As the whispering music takes them,
To the dance of the elfin crew.

O many a thrush and blackbird
Would fall to the dewy ground,
And pine away in silence
For envy of the sound.

So the night through
In our sad pleasure,
We dance to many a measure,
That earth never knew.

Huldre - ACEO

2008-04-27T18:30:00.000-04:00

Huldre

It just occurred to me that I never posted this particular ACEO to this journal. I originally uploaded it to my dA account on January 24, 2008, hence the description below.

With the bitterly cold weather and the stark elegance of bare trees, my thoughts have increasingly turned to the lands of my ancestors. The huldre (also called the huldra, huldfolk, or huldu) are the Hidden People who haunt the wild and ancient places of Northern Europe. Among their ranks are the wights of the landscape, alfs both brilliant and dark.

This huldre maid carries a stang inscribed with the rune for hail. Like the season of winter itself, this rune reveals the skeletal structure of many other runes in the Elder Futhark. Flickering candles are a reminder that in the midst of this darkness, the light is increasing.

Size: 2.5" x 3.5"
Media: pen and ink

Faery Art: Beyond Glitter & Wings

2008-02-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

DeviantART recently added a new feature where you can create collections of various artworks based upon whatever parameters strike you at the time. I've actually been wanting to create some sort of compendium of mythic faery art for some time, and this new feature really suits that purpose nicely. The only issue is, of course, that you can only include art that has been uploaded to deviantART.

Without further adieu, may I present: Faery: beyond glitter and wings

"The artist must summon all his energy, his sincerity, and the greatest modesty in order to shatter the old clichés that come so easily to hand while working, which can suffocate the little flower that does not come, ever, the way one expects." - Henri Matisse

Faery art is often sadly plagued by a reliance on a hackneyed set of features which many assume to be the totality of this enchanted state. Depictions of cute, tiny creatures decking in flower petals abound as do images of attractive women with butterfly wings. In this collection I hope to draw attention to pieces which I feel hint at the realm of Faerie as expressed in genuine mythology, legend, and folklore: mysterious, dangerous, in a constant state of flux and wonder.

I doubt if the creator of each and every piece considers their work "fairy art" and perhaps that it so much the better - Faery hides in unexpected places.

Don't get me wrong, glitter and wings can be fun. I think just about everyone, including myself, likes to indulge in them every once and a while, and for those of us who need to earn a living based upon our art, glitter and wings do tend to dominate the fairy art market right now. However, there are so many other collections of faery art (not just on DA) in which the glitter and wings are the overwhelming majority, I think it's good to show that alternatives exist.

Childhood Friends

2008-01-07T11:35:00.001-05:00

I created these four drawings during my early elementary school years (I'm estimating in the range between kindergarten and second grade). In the form of imaginary friends and favored art subjects, deer were my constant companions.

I had some weird obsession with trying to laminate my art at that time, I suppose I felt it would help preserve them which may, in fact, be the case. The first two were laminated with a clear, sticky film that you can buy in the grocery store where you can also purchase patterned film to line kitchen drawers, while the second two were laminated with a technique I invented which involved layering pieces of Scotch tape over the image, affixing it to a cardboard backing. Both methods have caused the ink to bleed over time, and they're certainly not archival! On the bottom two images I used clippings of metallic paper as necklaces/collars for the deer.

Everyone has to start somewhere!

La Muerte - ACEO

2007-12-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

La Muerte

The imagery in this piece is derived from spending most of my free time in a tattoo shop, surrounded by panels upon panels of flash, cap-fulls of luscious ink, and the melodic buzz of running machines. It is also equally inspired by Dia de los Muertos imagery and the strangely arcane icons from cards of La Lotería which I encountered in Mexico.

For some more information regarding La Loteria I recommend "Loteria! or, The Ritual of Chance" which is concerned with the pervasive presence of this game in Mexican culture. A very basic explanation of the game itself as well as some imagery can be found at Lotería Mexicana. The Wikipedia entry on Loteria contains some brief introduction, history and a listing of the traditional 54 cards along with their accompanying riddles. To see examples of the cards themselves, which are reminiscent of Tarot decks and exist in different variations of style and theme, please visit the following links:

Loteria Cards
La Lotería: An Exploration of México
Xochico: home of the classic Don Clemente version of the cards

I currently have a number of double-sided, glossy prints of this piece available for sale at my Etsy shop.

Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, ballpoint pen, watercolor, acrylic, sumi ink
Size: 2.5" by 3.5"

Respecting your Elders

2007-11-26T21:45:00.001-05:00

As an artist, I'm interested in how humans interact with and depict faeries in the present day. But as someone who is enamored with mythology, legend, etc. and also is academically inclined, I believe that artists can gain valuable touchstones to Faery through tradition and folklore which can deepen their work. I don't believe that modern people should be chained to the lore of the past or that Faery is immutable, but I do think that there is tremendous value in seeking the knowledge and experience of people whose daily lives were much more closely entwined with Faery and Nature than ours are. (Not to mention that the faeries of folklore are much more interesting and complex than their fantastical counterparts!)

Peter M. Rojcewicz, in his essay entitled Between One Eye Blink and the Next: Fairies, UFOs, and Problems of Knowledge highlights the importance of folklore to humanity:

Folklore, because of its generally unschooled, informal, and conservative nature, more clearly presents the outlines of the mind's organization than does the more self-conscious and stylistically variable popular and elite arts. Having a more intimate relationship with their own archetypal roots, traditional societies have lived closer to the quintessential spirit of nature, which employs the human mind as the context of its own 'individuation.' Nature individualizes it spirit in all forms of cognition, human or otherwise.[...]

Anomalous folklore [...], would not, rightly speaking, point to a 'supernatural' realm but toward a natural order that embraces all life. Folklore, from this perspective, does not bring us further from reality, but brings us through our 'imaginal' archetypal roots to the nature's 'truth.' Folklore is never literally true, but it may always be fundamentally true. [...] The scientific worldview would rob the universe of spirit and purpose; fairies [...] re-enchant the world, not in the way of 'glamour' or 'pishogue,' but in the sense that the world and our place in it is more and not less than it seems to the eyes. ¹

In other words, folklore represents a collection of metaphorical truths. Unlike literature authored by one specific person, folklore was originally transmitted orally through numerous people, often generations prior to being recorded, and through this process its most potent elements are preserved and distilled: "Myths are naturally conservative, seeking out the archetypal pattern, so that whatever elaboration we make on a myth will, if it is not from the mythopoeic imagination, be forgotten. On the other hand, a comparatively trivial tale will always be remembered if it has come from there. 'If a tale can last, in oral tradition, for two of three generations, then it has either come from the real place, or it has found its way there'²." Folklore and mythology then are a series of powerful guides to humanity's relationship with the landscape, life, death, and other beings (human and non-human) which has been stripped of its nonessential and extraneous tidbits through the profound filter of time.

Much of the "knowledge" we currently take for granted regarding Faery is actually derived more from contemporary literature than from folklore, including the extremely tiny stature of the elfin people, their delicate insect wings, and their rather benevolent nature towards humanity — traits that a great number of people mistakenly believe to be the defining characteristics of faeries. To say that all literature regarding faeries (including work from such luminaries as Shakespeare whose writings have had a profound influence on the modern view of faeries) is false is not entirely accurate, of course, because to do so would be to deny that Faery does genuinely continue to inspire individuals. However, to take the views presented by literature as the only truths and to ignore the lessons of folklore regarding Faery is a grave mistake.

Footnotes and Bibliography

1) Rojcewicz, Peter M. "Between One Eye Blink and the Next: Fairies, UFOs, and Problems of Knowledge." The Good People: New Fairylore Essays. Peter Narváez ed. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997. 502-503. ISBN: 0-8131-0939-6.

2) Harpur, Patrick. The Philosopher's secret Fire: A History of the Imagination. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 2002. 82. ISBN: 1-56663-485-7.

Threads that Shimmer

2007-11-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time something need not be literal to be real and meaningful, and myths were not falsehoods. The passage of time snarls into unwieldy knots and on rare occasions smooths into deliberate plaits. The hands of the weavers include the profound influence of Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) which place extreme importance on the historicity of their spiritual stories which they have fixed from the fluid wreath of oral teachings and rich imagery into the written word; dualistic perspectives which seek to divide and conquer, and nary shall one of the subjugated seep through the barriers to associate with another; and the cool, detached scrutiny of science. Through their hands and those of others the tapestry of our consciousness has changed. The shimmering beneath the surface of ideas, of tales, of the membranes of water, skin, stone, and leaf which threaded the world together with significance is either denied or demonized by prevailing viewpoints: those hands who would weave in their own favor.

Only what is repeatedly verifiable in controlled environments is real, they say. Only what coincides with our interpretation of holy text is true, they say. They have been saying it for so long and with such persuasion that we believe it. Their rhetoric saturates deeper than we can imagine and with profound repercussions. And then we forget that there ever was another way to perceive and relate.

Deprived of a context to make sense of that shimmering beneath the surface, we may mistake it to be a manufactured glitter we tucked under the rug in order to avoid a stern scolding for the lack of neatness and conformity in our abodes. There is a brief tolerance of so-called "magical thinking" in children, but even this is only a temporary respite until the powers that be educate the enchantment from the world:

It is said that some people retain a vivid memory of the passage from earliest childhood and its magical, fluid world to an awareness of the discrete and ordered adult world. Visual, tactile, and other sensory impressions mark such children so profoundly they forever seek to reexperience or re-create them, to keep life sensuous, mysterious, and whole, perhaps to the point of changing appearances and meaning. Perception rides on watery ripples, "real" life refuses to stay within the lines. Storytellers and artists mine these veins, Reality masks a different language, beauty its antecedent and far, far closer to instinct.¹

Despite the long-standing (and largely successful) attempts by the major forces of Western culture to eradicate, ignore and dismiss the wisdom of ancestors, artists, shamans, and mystics who say that Otherworlds permeate our own, the mortal soul still hungers for that interaction, a relationship which in the past was seen as an integral part of being human.

Footnotes and Bibliography

1) Meloy, Ellen. The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky. New York, Vintage Books, 2002. 61. ISBN 0-375-70813-8.

Fecundity - ACEO

2007-11-06T14:01:00.000-05:00

Fecundity

My second ACEO piece is in homage to creativity in its highly sensual aspects (as opposed to a more intellectual approach) which I believe is fairly self evident in the imagery itself. The concepts of fecundity, fruitfulness, and fertility have often been represented visually via the soft curves of the female form. For example, the prehistoric sculpture known as the "Venus of Willendorf" with her pendulous breasts and rotund belly is commonly cited as a fertility figure and potentially a Goddess of growth. The association between women and fecundity in the physical realm is a strong one, of course, because women have the ability to literally give birth to new life. However, I personally do not think the association between women and creativity should only be a matter of biology nor that fecundity should relate only to making babies (or producing seeds, spores, etc.). This image is intended to convey another more metaphorical view of fecundity.

The swirling green patterns were intended to represent stylized flora and foliage, but it also ended up resembling green fire which is also appropriate in some sense.

Size: 2.5" x 3.5"
Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylic

Dusk + Down: the beginning of an ACEO journey

2007-10-26T00:55:00.000-04:00

Dusk + Down

This is my very first ACEO (Art Cards, Editions and Originals) image. I only truly learned about this art movement rather recently, although I had some knowledge of ATC (Artist Trading Cards) which are essentially the same except for the fact that ATCs cannot be sold, only traded. In keeping with the requirements of ACEOs, this drawing is 2.5" x 3.5" meaning that the full size image on your screen is bigger than the actual piece. This drawing actually began in black ballpoint pen while I was contorted in the seat of a plane on my way to Mexico.

The title is inspired by the color palette and by the texture of soft feathers. Perhaps the figure is Freyja with Her falcon cloak? He or She was not very forthcoming with His/Her identity.

I think ACEOs will prove to be a true blessing for me at this point in my hectic life. Long periods without art-making cause me to feel as if some integral part of my soul begins to slip away, and numbness begins to bleed in from the edges - I start to become someone other than myself. While I have not had the time to produce larger images, the small format (and thus portability) of ACEOs have opened up a portal for me to more easily incorporate my art in my schedule. They are pages from a Book of Hours of my own devising.

Size: 2.5" x 3.5"
Media: black ballpoint pen, Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylics, sumi ink

A Muse in México

2007-10-08T15:18:00.000-04:00

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Mayan Riviera region of Mexico for some sorely-needed respite from my busy schedule (I'm actually going back to that same area in a few days for business too). When browsing the shops lining 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen, my boyfriend and I took notice of some wonderful artwork created by a local artist. While there is certainly no shortage of shops offering hand-crafted folk art, crafts, jewelry, etc. I was really taken by this artist's unique melding of traditional imagery with her own vision and style. Luckily, she has a website so her work can be shared more readily than having to take a plane or cruise ship to Playa del Carmen (seeing some of her work in person is a lovely excuse to escape to the Mayan Riviera though, not that one really needs an excuse to visit!):

The Art of Alejandra Mendoza

Her work is an interesting combination of playfulness and eroticism populated by scarlet-horned women, dual-tailed sirens, bird- and insect-winged folk, and numerous hybrid creatures. Much of it is embellished with Mendoza's own scrawled handwriting (en Español, of course) as well as with found materials:

My work is a primitive struggle between sweet nightmares and grotesque dreams, of people with tame bull horns and bitter bird wings, fish tails, forgotten insects, impossible bodies dancing with unnatural positions to music that never happened...

I have learned that art has a life on its own and how I play with it is my endless task. I could say my work is often aggressively-whimsical, much like my own country México.

Although not native to the region of Mexico I visited, the Yucatan peninsula, there were numerous pieces of art available for sale created by the indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) people of western Mexico. Upon entering one particular shop, I was immediately drawn to a yarn painting of a deerwoman with a resonant voice singing beneath a midnight sun (or at least that is my interpretation). I knew that piece was going to have to come home with me. I also purchased another beautiful painting of a multi-hued deer sigil so she would not be too lonely ;) Deer play a very important part in Wixárika mythology not only because they are a major, sacred food source, but also because the God Kauyumarie in the form of a deer enables shamans to communicate with the rest of the Wixárika pantheon. Deer are also said to have the ability to transform themselves into the greatest sacrament of the Wixárika, the peyote cactus Lophophora williamsii, which is ingested to inspire divine visions and for medicinal purposes. (You can click on the image at left to see a larger version.)

Brian Froud's World of Faerie { book review }

2007-09-09T18:09:00.001-04:00

I always look foreword to new offerings from Brian Froud, and World of Faerie is no exception. Overall, I was pleased with this collection of words and images, and my reaction to this, his first major faery-dedicated book in numerous years, is composed more of commentary rather than any real criticism. The original Faeries will always be the pinnacle of his work, in my opinion, but this is not to suggest that his artistic growth in the past 25 years since its publication is not valuable; it is just that Faeries had such a profound influence on my own artwork and worldview from a very early age that it's difficult to supplant something so personally significant. (I also have to take into consideration that 'Faeries' was a collaboration with an equally-gifted artist, Alan Lee, and I do believe that 'Faeries' contains more enchantment than the sum of the talents of both artists.)

This book is something of a compilation and its contents span the course of Froud's thirty-year eldritch journey. There are familiar and well-loved images in its pages — paintings recognizable from Faeries, The Faerie Oracle, The Runes of Elfland, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries, work that has made fleeting appearances on his website over the years, etc. In addition, it includes numerous pieces which were created to accompany Terri Windling's lovely mythopoetic novel The Wood Wife. While these images have appeared online on the Endicott Studio website, I believe this may be the first time they are widely available in print. For die-hard Froudians, there are a few never-before (publicly) seen paintings and drawings scattered throughout. The Unicorn Women are richly-detailed, symbol-laden pieces which are brand new.

Observant fans of Froud's work will also find not just familiar pieces within its pages, but also familiar faces. To my knowledge, Froud often uses his own photographs of friends and acquaintances who pose for him as reference for his artwork, and one can note the features of his favorite muses (including, of course, his preeminent muse Wendy Froud to whom the book is dedicated) reflected throughout. For example, the male faery in the drawing on page 121 is obviously based on the same model for the painting on page 128. The gorgeous olive-skinned fay on page 39 also appears in sketch form on page 8. One of my only criticisms though might be that there are a handful of paintings in which virtually the same exact pose and/or composition is replicated. There is a painting of a faery called "Lilu" in Good Faeries/Bad Faeries whose visage also appears in World of Faery on page 44 along with other members of the Unseelie Court. For some reason this is especially the case with his depictions of Frog Women. I would love to see Brian take a slightly new perspective on these beautiful creatures who are some of my favorite of the fae who visit his studio.

Taking a presentational cue from the Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy series, this book also incorporates three smaller booklets: one in memory of a late friend and composer, one of Froud's digital/photomanipulated art, and one relating to Greenmen and other arboreal fay. There is also a poster tucked away on the inside of the back cover featuring a poem by Neil Gaiman. Froud mentions in his introduction that an alternate title for World of Faerie is "Brian Froud's Book on How to Paint and Draw Faeries," and Gaiman's Instructions is definitely in the spirit of a genuine approach to creating mythic art, infinitely more so than the slew of previously published books which claim to teach one to do so.

The conscious role of World of Faerie as a catalyst to (hopefully) initiate a shifting towards more soulful faery art in the face of the overly-commercialized facet of the genre is only indirectly derived from Froud's own words — the explicit statements to this affect are outlined in Ari Berk's foreword. Berk is an author/artist/scholar after my own heart, and I am pleased to see concerns and sentiments that I have been writing about for years¹ expressed in such a broadly dispersed, printed form.

I wholeheartedly agree with David Riche's statements in his review regarding this book as a powerful touchstone to counter the onslaught of superficial "fairy art" which has become popular in recent years:

A major publication from Brian Froud his `World of Faerie' and his image of faeries scythes through popular fairy art and Disney type fairies.[...]It seeks maturity in the tide of current commercial perception of fairy, on this point alone Froud will continue to be revered.[...][H]is work may be seen as mad and incomprehensible especially to those influenced by lack of folklore knowledge and vision, yet energy bursts artistically from every page with detailed explanation. His timing to publish on the current wave of juvenile images and enthusiasm such a volume is a brave and welcome lesson for adolescent artists to reach maturity he will undoubtedly be regarded with awe and devotion.²

I feel it is also important to explicate that the juvenility which is cited in Riche's comments as well as being implied in Berk's foreword should not be bounded by biological age. In my experience, some of the more juvenile visual approaches to depicting Faery (please note that a visual approach is not necessarily synonymous with artistic skill level and one may be independent from the other) come from older individuals while there are younger artists whose work resonates more with the "knowledge of the past, sacrifice, and dedication" which Berk rightfully highlights as paramount in the creation of mythic faery art. With all due respect to Riche, however, I feel that this book (specifically Berk's foreword) is intended to counter much of the content that is presented in Riche's own roster of fairy art books and products, which he has been kind enough to list below his review. In my own personal opinion, his books have greatly helped to encourage the perception of faeries which Froud and Berk seek to dispel with their own artistic endeavors: "[W]ith wings thrown in to add mere difference, we are shown fairies with attitude but little verisimilitude; little symbolic meaning or resonance; little learning or lore or experience behind their depiction; no depth." Perhaps though Riche's review is a testament to the truly transformative power of Froud's new book, in which case a wonderful change has been wrought, and I can only hope that World of Faery will have a similar effect upon other readers.

Another thoughtful review of this book was written by Brenda Sutton for the Mythic Imagination Institute.

Footnotes and Bibliography

1) For example, see my essay A Personal Philosophy of Faery Art which was written in September of 2004. The major points I present in that essay as well as in my numerous writings addressing the issue here and on my website are mirrored in Ari Berk's foreword quite closely. I do wonder if Berk has read that essay or if we just happen to be on the same wavelength.

Update 10/15/07: A short while ago I was contacted by one of Dr. Berk's students who mentioned that Dr. Berk recommended my Livejournal to him (see the comment dated from September 26th). So obviously Dr. Berk is familiar with at least some of my art and writing.

2) David J. Riche, "Fairy Godfather." Energy bursts artistically from every page. September 6, 2007. http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A37GSFJ5J01N88/ref=cm_cr_auth/102-4002391-8706502?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview

Mistress of the Wild Hunt

2007-08-27T20:06:00.001-04:00

This piece was inspired by traditional tales of the Wilde Jagd (German for "Wild Hunt") gleaned from various sources, and specifically by a particular entry describing Frau Goden as the main huntress of this spectral procession in German folklore. "Goden" is likely a morphing of the name of the God Woden/Odin who was also said to lead the Wild Hunt in Teutonic lore, and She is likely His female counterpart. Frau Holda in some cases also takes this role.

The Wild Hunt in various forms existed across many European cultures as a group of hounds and riders spilling out from the Otherworld in a fevered search for quarry. In Scotland the Wild Hunt was expressed in the form of the Sluagh or the Host and was composed of the restless spirits of the Unforgiven Dead. In other cases, the daimons which ravenged the countryside could be composed of the souls of the unbaptized, fallen angels, and/or the fay Themselves.

The faery hounds accompanying the Hunt are often said to be either black or white with red-tipped ears, and they have also accumulated their own share of names depending upon the locality including: Gabriel Hounds, sky yelpers, Gabriel Ratchets, Yell-Hounds, Yeth-Hounds, Wish Hounds (these former three terms are said to refer to a headless variety), Devil's Dandy Dogs, Cwn Annwn, hell hounds, etc.

In my depiction of this fey mistress she carries a horn inscribed with Norse knotwork, and woven through her fingers she balances a stone-tipped arrow. In the past, the discovery of Neolithic arrowheads was often attributed to faery craftsmen. The fey were said to use such arrowheads in the infliction of the "elf-shot" or "elf-blow" which could cause immediate paralysis and indicated that the soul of the person or animal wounded had been carried off by Them, leaving only a physical shell behind.

If you are interested in learning more about the Wild Hunt in folklore, and especially in the context of Germanic culture, I would highly recommend Penance, Power, and Pursuit: On the Trail of the Wild Hunt.

Size: 4.5" x 6"
Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, acrylic, ink, and watercolor on wood panel (the actual panel has semi-circular shapes which are cut out of each corner)

All Underneath the Eildon Tree

2007-07-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

I was contacted a sort while ago by Aranea/Drema of If... Journal with the prospect of illustrating the cover image for the July 2007 issue on the potent topic of Spiritual Transformation. She presented me with three visually evocative ideas:

"Either:
the face of a person, the face appearing worn, slightly off-color or
sickly, peeling away (like an apple peeling, reminiscent of the
Escher sketch?) to reveal the same face beneath, but clean, shining,
healthy and glowing
Or
a face peeling away to reveal the same face beneath, but the face
that is peeling away is all black and white, while the face being
revealed is all full color
Or
a person's face with their hand reaching up to pull away the outer
face as if it were a mask (same with coloration and imagery above,
but pulling away a "mask" instead of peeling it away)."

She also suggested perhaps a background of butterflies. The imagery in all of the options was definitely appealing and I intended to stick to those ideas fairly closely. I was a bit strapped for time, so I had decided to take a straight forward approach and depict exactly what was suggested in my own style. Actually, I chose to accept the commission in the first place due to the tight deadline. It had been too long since I had the luxury to make a piece like this, and I knew the time constraints would prove a great impetus to complete such a work.

Somehow along the way though the image became much more personal. The idea of the removal of a mask or the shedding of a worn skin morphed into the semblance of dry and crackling leaves being torn away by the wind. The leaves necessitated a tree, and that tree became one with thorns (representing the fact that spiritual transformation rarely comes without pain and/or sacrifice). "It should be a hawthorn tree," I thought to myself.

I was determined from the beginning that the figure would be male. Again it was another challenge I presented for myself on top of the short time period I had to complete the piece. As the face progressed layer by layer it appropriately went through a similar transformation. The golden yellow of the paper made him initially sallow and wan, and early in the process he had very deep crevices along his nose and mouth which made him appear almost sinister. Along the way the background illuminating the transformed face glowed a vibrant green.

Although at first unbeknownst to me, it later became clear that this was my vision of Thomas the Rhymer. True Thomas (another of his well-known epithets) has featured very strongly in my own personal spirituality over the past year or so, corresponding with my immersion in traditional faerylore. I have been in the process of writing a very pivotal essay (pivotal to me, anyways; that essay is actually in hiding until completion in this very journal) revolving around both the themes of the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer and the Romance of Thomas the Rhymer since last October. In brief, Thomas Rhymer was a medieval bard who was taken by the Faery Queen to Elphame where he remained for seven years. There his eyes were opened and he was given the gift of a tongue that cannot lie - in other words, he was transformed. At the end of his seven year service, he returned from the realm of Faerie with the abilities to prophecy and write inspired poetry and songs.

When Thomas first meets the Faery Queen she is wearing a "shirt o' the grass-green silk." Upon his return to the mortal world, he was given "a coat of even cloth / and a pair of shoes of velvet green" which were a tokens of his transformation. Clearly in the ballad and the romance, green represents Faery and its gifts, therefore it only makes sense that the verdant glow in my image is associated with the transformed portion of the face.

The title of this piece is a verse taken directly from the ballad. Thomas meets the Faery Queen after awakening from a nap which he has taken beneath the boughs of the Eildon tree, a particular hawthorn which once grew in the Eildon Hills of Scotland.

Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylic, sumi-e ink, pen & ink
Size: approximately 8.5" x 11"
copyright Desirée Isphording 2007 - all rights reserved -

Dearly Beloved

2007-06-17T20:33:00.000-04:00

Lest you think I have been in complete hibernation . . .

These two pen & ink drawings are for a project I am working on which will hopefully come to light in the not-too-distant future. They are inspired by a great deal of Art Nouveau illustration and book design. The thorny vines are intended to be stylized wild rasberries while the plants at their feet are bloodroot.

Some brief musings on the Otherworld

2007-06-04T12:55:00.000-04:00

Otherworldy should not necessarily be taken to mean supernatural or extraterrestrial. Otherworldly simply and literally means "of another world", and "world" is a thoroughly human idea: a globe criss-crossed with imaginary tracery segregating political, social, cultural realms of influence. "World" is an abstract created by humans for human use. The Earth, on the other hand, existed long before humanity and will continue to do so regardless of regime changes, revolutions, and the redrawing of boundaries.

Faeries belong to another world, one not defined by humans and our social conventions and mores but irrevocably tied to our own nonetheless. Like the worlds of animals, plants, fungi, and the elements themselves, we perpetually live beside - even within - the Otherworld, yet just as with the animal and plant kingdoms (again, note more political terminology applied by humans to non-human Nature) these realms are generally inscrutable to us. They can certainly seem alien to us at times, but flora, fauna, and faery are certainly not alien to this planet.

"Fairyland is a state or condition, realm of place, very much like, if not the same as, that wherein civilized and uncivilized men alike place the souls of the dead, in company with other invisible beings such as gods, daemons, and all sorts of good and bad spirits. Not only do both educated and uneducated Celtic seers so conceive Fairyland, but they go much further, and say that Fairyland actually exists as an invisible world within which the visible world is immersed like an island in an unexplored ocean, and that it is peopled by more species of living beings than this world, because incomparably more vast and varied in its possibilities."
- W.Y. Evans-Wentz in The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries

"The Underworld is not just under the ground; it is under/within the surface of every leaf, under the surface of every human thought, under the surface of every pool or water, and deep in the infinite heart of even a tiny pebble."
- Robin Artisson in The Witching Way of the Hollow Hill

"The Otherworld begins where this world ends. Tradtionally it is imagined as a parallel society of daimons or animals or the Dead. It can even be adjacent to us, in the forest or wilderness outside the sacred enclosure of the village. It can be underground, or in the sky, or in the west - or even, like the land of the Sidhe, in all of these places. Indeed, 'it may not be far from any of us'. [...] The Otherworld lies, as it were, all around us, at the points where our world ceases. It lies beyond the edge of the maps where 'there be dragons', or below the threshold of consciousness where there be archetypes.[...] The boundaries where this world ends and the Otherworld begins are always shifting - but Nature contains them both."
- Patrick Harpur in The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination

"Sometimes Faerie is not a country but a shifting light upon the land, a wistful song, a moment in between other moments. Some people have a greater facility for feeling its presence than others. Children see it easily and often. So do the mad. Shamans and visionaries can travel there and back again. So can the artist who humbly gives his life over to mystery."
- Ari Berk in the foreword to Brian Froud's World of Faerie

Sallow Mushroom Elder

2007-04-09T14:43:00.000-04:00

Sallow Mushroom Elder

Like many of my finished pieces, this one began as a doodle using the supplies I had available at the time. Initially I did not have a subject matter in mind and was simply laying down some interesting forms and lines with the highlighter marker. The central portion of those forms became a wizened face, and the swirling area surrounding it was first a shroud, then hair, and finally an equally wizened tree. Due to the worn nature of the face and hands, the fungi, as well as the yellow tone of the marker, I tentatively titled this piece "Sallow Mushroom Elder." At that point in time it was still incomplete and I wasn't sure who this imposing figure was, I also had no idea if this figure was male or female.

Around the same time period I really began trying to investigate Teutonic faerylore. Resources on Celtic faerylore abound (there are some that seem to believe that the Celts have a sort of cultural monopoly on faeries, but this is definitely not the case), but I am also interested in learning about the creatures my ancestors may have recognized and honored. The Irish have been known to reroute new highways around trees and hedges sacred to the fae, Icelanders have been known to do likewise with stones sacred to the fae. The religions of the Germanic ruling classes have come down to us more preserved in the form of Eddas and Sagas than the beliefs and practices of commoners, but even in those we find the Light Elves residing in Alfheim and Dark Elves who reside in Svartálfaheim. Beyond the more "official" mythology, there is also strong faery presence in Teutonic folklore.

One faery of folklore that caught my attention was the Hylde-Moer ("Elder Mother") or Hylde-Vinde ("Elder Queen"), who is the guardian spirit of a certain tree, the Sambucus nigra. It was customary to request permission from this spirit before taking any of her wood. She required a compact of sorts before someone took the task of cutting her tree: "Ourd gal, give me of thy wood / An Oi will give some of moine / when Oi grows inter a tree" and "Lady Elder, give me some of thy wood; then I will give thee, also, some of mine when it grows in the forest" are variations on that promise. In some cases, this tree was regarded as a witch in plant form.

Size: 5.5" by 6.75"
Media: black ballpoint pen, highlighter marker

EverGreen: Baby and the Faerie Queene

2007-02-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

EverGreen: Baby and the Faerie Queene is a piece dedicated to my late cat Baby, who my mother and I found deceased on the side of the road in front of my home on Friday, October 13th of 2006, presumably the victim of a passing car. I have lost pets before, but not in such an untimely manner. Our other pets were old and obviously suffering, for them death was a quiet release. For Baby it seemed too soon and we were not there to ease his transition. We discovered him already stiff and cold. We had adopted him as an adult cat from one of my mother's coworkers who was moving and could not bring him with her, but he fit in perfectly with our already multiple-pet household. He was there to greet me when I went to school or work and he was there to welcome me back when I returned.

I was not angry at Death for taking him, I was just deeply sad and it was almost incomprehensible to me to realize that the only contact I would have with him from that point on would be relegated to dreams, visions, and memories.

This piece is such a vision - my vision of Baby's transition to the Otherworld. He is welcomed by the Mistress of the Wild Hunt for souls Herself, the Faerie Queene. They share milk from an earthenware chalice. The milk is significant in two main aspects: firstly, Baby was a stereotypical feline in that he adored drinking milk, and secondly, milk and/or cream are traditional offerings left for the fae, especially as payment for the household spirits who often perform domestic chores on the property. Baby performed his share of domestic duties by being a diligent mouse- and mole-catcher. The chalice itself is directly inspired by the goblet in Victorian faery artist Richard Dadd's 1862 painting Bacchanalian Scene. In Dadd's piece it also is adorned with a Death's head motif, but there is also a verse in Latin inscribed upon it. On the reverse of his painting is a legible version of the same phrase which translated means "Each man then has his own unlucky fate both here and beyond - like must be added to like and one's due paid to the appointed spirit." The winged Death's head in my version though is drawn from American gravestone art.

The Faerie Queene is Herself a blending of the western and northern European traditions from which She hails and physical features which link her to the soil in which Baby was actually laid to rest. I believe that Faery is deeply tied to the Land, it may perhaps be regarded as the Land's dreaming heart. I also believe that the spiritual creatures, much like their material counterparts in plants and animals, endemic to a certain landscape reflect its uniqueness. Therefore, I don't necessarily think that the Faerie Queene in the south-eastern woodlands of Pennsylvania may appear exactly as She does in the forests of Germany or in the English countryside.

In traditional fairylore the realm of the dead and the ancestors was associated and in some cases perceived to by synonymous with the Faery world. Early accounts even go so far as to link the Faery Queen and King with the rulers of the classical Underworld, Proserpina and Pluto. The faeries themselves were said to especially haunt ancient barrows and tombs, and human visitors to Elfhame often reported seeing their deceased friends and relatives among the inhabitants of the Otherworld.

The title "EverGreen" is both a hopeful metaphor for the life beyond this life and a reference to the main sylvan component in this piece, Taxus baccata otherwise known as the Yew tree. Since it produces small, red, cup-like fruits known as arils and does not yield resin, it is technically not a coniferous tree, but it is evergreen and possesses needles rather than leaves. Yews are among the longest-lived trees on earth, yet they also grow at a very slow rate. The Norse commemorated the Yew as the 13th rune in the Elder Futhark, "eiwaz" and regarded it as a symbol of of the related nature of death and rebirth. Due to such associations, Yews are to be found planted at gravesites. While Christian churches often sit beside these cemeteries, the Yews themselves often greatly predate the construction of those buildings.

Size: approximately 11" in width x 12" in height
Media: Prismacolor colored pencils, watercolor, acrylic, sumi-e ink

My Art is being featured at the Endicott Studio blog!

2006-11-13T14:24:00.000-05:00

I am thrilled beyond belief!
I commented on an entry at the Endicott Studio blog yesterday regarding a poem about a DeerWoman and included links to two of my DeerWoman-based pieces. To my immense delight delight and honor, Terri Windling chose to highlight both of those images and my artwork in general in today's blog entry! You can read the entry yourself if you like: November 13, 2006.

If there ever was an occasion that warranted a "Squeakers of joy!" this is certainly it!

The White Doe of Nara

2006-10-29T14:37:00.000-05:00

In many ways, my piece entitled DeerWoman was an artistic turning point for me. Although I have been creating images of deerwomen since early childhood, that particular work signaled something significant for me; reactions from both within and without indicated that I should follow that path beyond the tapestry of hunters deeper into the forest. In a sense the White Doe of Nara, created about three years after DeerWoman, is both a kind of commemoration and a futher exploration on the mythology and theme of my beloved DeerWoman. Yet the White Doe is not just a reinterpretation of the same figure in a different cultural context, in fact, the White Doe's character and tale is nearly a direct compliment to that of DeerWoman's.

Where DeerWoman is tragic, perhaps a victim or perhaps a reluctant but mythically necessary sacrifice, the White Doe is a figure with power. While destiny is something DeerWoman succumbs to, the White Doe has a direct hand in weaving it. DeerWoman avoids the viewer's gaze, the White Doe commands it. I feel that the compositional appearance of the landscapes in both images is significant also; DeerWoman is poised at a threshold between worlds, but the White Doe is the threshold, a manifestation of it as well as a gatekeeper of sorts. Unlike the melancholy DeerWoman, the White Doe sprouts antler spikes - she has a means of defense (or offense!). And, of course, there is the rather obvious distinction in cultural context. A Western European influence is prevalent in DeerWoman, but there is a pan-Asian inspiration for this piece.

My main cultural influence for this painting, revealed in its very title, is from Japan. I have long been captivated by Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock prints, particularly by the Bijin-ga genre prints of Kitagawa Utamaro. In fact, the background texture and partially revealed hand of the figure in my piece were very much inspired by similar techniques used by him in a circa 1793 print entitled "Infrequent Love." In addition to my usual methods utilizing colored pencil and watercolor, I also experimented with other techniques literally involving processes of printing and stamping. I really wanted to combine my love of the gorgeous graphic quality of Ukiyo-e with my propensity for illustrating portraits in subtle gradations of color and shadow. The aforementioned processes, which I have never used in combination with my colored pencil technique, also allowed me to incorporate a stronger element of chance and randomness into the overall composition. When I work with colored pencil and watercolor, my method is very deliberate, direct, and controlled, however, these other processes were more indirect and much less predictable.

In addition to the aesthetic Japanese connection, there is also a mythological one. Within Japan's indigenous religion of Shinto, Sika deer (Cervus nippon) are regarded as sacred messengers of the Gods. In a particular region of Japan known as Nara in which the Kasuga Shrine is situated, it has been forbidden to hunt the deer for centuries. Deprived of the fear of immediate death at the hands of humans, the deer in Nara Park have become rather tame, freely approaching visitors seeking food and roaming the countryside without care. Legend tells that when the God Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto first arrived to inhabit the shrine, he traveled on the back of a white deer. Deer also have a strong ties to Buddhism, another major religion in Japan. Siddharta Gautama's first sermon occured in Deer Park in Sarnath, and as this sermon set the Buddhist Wheel of Law into motion, deer are often depicted next to the symbolic representation of the Wheel.

While the Japanese influence is certainly the most prominent, I was also inspired by the art of other regions of Asia. For instance, the landscape depicted within the White Doe's kimono was inspired by Chinese screens and ink-wash paintings. White deer are also associated with divine figures in China as well; there is a painting in the Field Museum in Chicago depicting the Chinese Goddess Ma-Ku with a white hart. The White Doe's central hair ornament is a homage to a piece of Balinese metalwork which was once an earring for a large sculpture. The motif is traditional, but I have modified it somewhat for this image.

Original size: 8.5" by 11"
Media: prismacolor colored pencils, acrylic, watercolor, sumi-e ink, etc.
(This entry is backdated to reflect the date I originally uploaded it to my deviantARt gallery, but I added this piece to this journal on 2/14/07)

Sympathies

2006-09-24T17:38:00.000-04:00

"I'm often called a 'fantasy' painter," Brian notes, "but my imagery springs from myth, folklore and the old oral story–telling tradition, not from the modern fantasy genre — although I'm grateful for the support that fantasy readers have given me over the years. I have to confess that, unlike Wendy, I rarely read fiction at all. Most of my reading is nonfiction: history, mythology, archetypal psychology and the like. I prefer the enchantment of a story told rather than one that is written down. In the oral tradition, where stories are told around the fireplace in semi–darkness, the words are alive: they leave the lips, enter into the air and before they fall onto your ear they transform themselves into magic. They're not fixed; they change from telling to telling, and from listener to listener. I want my pictures to have that same quality of mutability. I don't want things to be fixed too solidly or explained too fully; I want each viewing to be like a re–telling of a tale, full of new possibilities." [. . .]

"I find that some fantasy genre painters tend to over–paint their pictures; they're a bit too . . .over–wrought for my taste. When I look at them I find them much too bright and shiny. The artist has finished every detail, and every edge is hard and bright — which doesn't allow me into their world, my eye slides right off that shiny surface. I prefer to keep the rendering as loose as possible, just on the edge of being finished. I want a painting to give just enough information for the picture to make sense; there should always be a little bit kept back, a few pieces missing, which the viewer must supply himself. In doing that, the picture comes to life. It becomes part of a reciprocal process, a communication. The painting allows you inside, where it can grow, and you can grow."

- Brian Froud as quoted in an essay by Terri Windling, Brian Froud: Portrait Painter to the Fairies

I both sympathize and emphathize.

Capturing the Elusive with the Stroke of a Brush

2006-07-27T00:22:00.000-04:00

Artwork of fey-creatures and shape-shifters for your appreciation:

• Bacchanalian Scene by Richard Dadd
My first glimpse of this painting was as thumbnail image of the cover of Loreena McKennitt's To Drive the Cold Winter Away, and I was immediately captivated. I'm seriously considering this image for my first tattoo. Thalia Took, an artist herself, has scribed some beautiful and entirely apropos words to describe his work:

Dadd was a Victorian fairy painter who in his early twenties developed schizophrenia/severe bi-polar disorder and then murdered his father. He spent the rest of his life in an institution, where he continued painting. Some, not all, of his paintings have a fey, alien quality to them. The best I can say is that his humans are not human, and have a genuine wildness to them, a deep unconsciousness, impartial and malevolent, like looking into the eyes of a leopard. Gorgeous yet disturbing. Very compelling.

I doubt that I could have described it better myself.

• The Bacchante or Head of a Woman with the Horns of a Ram by Jean-Léon Gérome
This painting verges on being stark, but the delicate folds in the Bacchante's sleeve and the aching curves of the horns endow it with a surprising sensitivity.

• Birthday by Dorothea Tanning
I had the pleasure of discovering this painting in person at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where it inhabits the Modern and Contemprary Galleries. This .jpeg reproduction does the painting little justice. While it is a surrealist self-portrait, it nevertheless seems to possess the taint of fey. The artist, in her tendril-adorned dress, reveals a series of open doors stretching to infinity. Her strange, winged familiar is poised by her feet.

• Lavinia, Deer, and Rabbit by Sam Weber
I discovered the work of this artist in the 2006 Illustration annual of Communication Arts magazine. I am enamored with his technique of rendering trees, a method which gives the impression that he glues elegant pieces of driftwood directly to the paper. Upon visiting his website, I was delighted to find animal-people among his subjects. His sketch of "Rabbit" reveals something of a trickster character. (I couldn't resist including "Deer" in this list, because, well - it's an illustration of deer!)

• Flidais by Forest Rogers
I was guided to the remarkable work of Forest Rogers some time ago through a link on the Endicott Studio webpage, but I had not visited her site recently (shame on me!). I was again guided back to her amazing figurative sculptures/art dolls through the Endicott Studio and discovered this piece which especially tugs at my heartstrings: Flidais a simply gorgeous rendition of a WhiteDeerWoman. She is the artist's vision of a Celtic Goddess of wild creatures and sexual potency. Be sure to view all of the photos in this gallery otherwise you may be apt to miss some lovely details. Her feet are particularly well conceived - at first glance it might appear as if she simply has her toes curled in an interesting fashion, but this is not the case. Her creations possess a Pre-Raphaelite beauty which I really appreciate, and her commentary is also intelligent. She has an all-around great website which I highly recommend.

• Faun by Lou Rogers
This remarkable painting was created by sculptor Forest Roger's late mother. Evidently artistic talent runs in the family!

• First Blessing by Dawn Wilson-Enoch
Fresh out of college Dawn emerged as a fantasy book cover illustrator. Although she gained renown for her work in that field, the type of art required of her in that career became spiritually draining. She now creates visionary paintings and jewelry based upon the landscape surrounding her New Mexico home. First Blessing is a piece partially inspired by the work of another artist enchanted with the desert southwest, Windling's novel The Wood Wife.

Faery Nature & the Nature of Faery {a work in progress}

2006-07-25T19:06:00.000-04:00

Two paths mark the way to Faery ¹. The first dazzles the eye with an assortment of glittering accessories and pretty trifles. It is easy to locate; the merchandise will lead the way. The second path is a bit more difficult to come by. Legend tells us that it can sometimes be found while trying to follow the ghostly blur of a white deer through the forest or by stumbling upon a ring of mushrooms and fertile grass.

Like so very many things, Faery is not what it seems. Even the fairy tales of our youth, in their true forms, contain sometimes gruesome elements, and there is not always such a happy ending awaiting the protagonist at the end of the story. Many so called "fairy tales" began as folktales catered to an adult audience. The sanitized versions that are read to children to sooth them into sleep and assure them that the hero/heroine always triumphs came later. For instance, in Hans Christian Andersen's original The Little Mermaid, the title character does not marry her handsome prince, nor does she acquire an everlasting human soul through his reciprocal romantic love, in fact, she commits suicide, throwing herself into the ocean while still in human form.

The same can be said of Faery. Modern culture has taught us to regard faeries in much the same way as we now regard fairy tales. We have been fed a pre-packaged, sugar-coated, and well-tamed version of the original:

At the end of the 17th century the sophisticated French fairy-stories of Perrault and Madame D'Aulnoy were translated into English. They began as real traditional tales, polished to meet the taste of the French court, and they were equally popular in England. Half the court seem to have tried their hands at them, and as time went on they moved farther away from their original. The fairy godmothers, already at one remove from folk fairies, became relentless moralists, driving their protégés along the path to virtue. The trend persisted into the 19th century, and it was not until a quarter of it had passed that the researches of the folklorists began to have some effect on children's literature. [...] At the beginning of the 20th century, an extreme tenderness and sensibility about children almost overwhelmed the folk fairies and turned them into airy, tenuous, pretty creatures without meat or muscles, made up of froth and whimsy.²

Faeries are an extremely diverse group, encompassing many, many emanations, yet at present many only acknowledge a very limited portion of their potentialities. The word faery (or "fairy") in our times conjures images of childlike sprites dressed in leaves and flower petals, beings who only exist to be of benefit to humanity. Another exceedingly popular image is that of an attractive female with butterfly wings. Some individuals seem to honestly believe that these archetypes define Faery – that it begins and ends with such shallow, hackneyed images. These people speak only of fresh morning dew, sparkling fairydust, toadstools, and delicate wildflowers. They cannot speak for the totality of Faery, and there is more to Faery than meets the eye: "Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels...Elves are terrific. They beget terror...No-one ever said elves are nice."³

If one is to discard the definition of a faery as simply a diminutive humanoid being with pointed ears and a penchant for mischievous behavior, then we are forced to ask: what is Faery? Admittedly, this is not an easy question to answer. In fact, it may not be a question that we are entirely capable of answering. Faery will not manifest itself in a lab setting to be measured, dissected, and classified by empirical science. This trait of Faery is likely why a belief in it has persisted even until the present day when science and segments of "rational" society have denied its existence: at the moment, science cannot prove its existence, yet it cannot disprove it either. While a belief in faeries by the uneducated peasantry can often be dismissed as the product of ignorance and an active imagination, "this is not enough. Even let it be granted that nine out of every ten cases of experiences with fairies can be analyzed and explained away - there remains the tenth. In this tenth case one is obliged to admit that there is something at work which we do not understand, some force in play which, as yet, we know not. In spite of ourselves we feel 'There's Powers that's in'"⁴.

But still the question intrigues us, and so many have sought a working "definition" of Faery. Probably the best and most encompassing definition, in my opinion, is that faeries are spirits of Nature. Of course, even this description begs us to question further what both the notion of spirit and Nature really imply. The term "nature spirit," and even the word "Nature" itself, is often construed as having a much narrower realm of influence and implication than perhaps it should. Some find the application of "nature spirits" to describe faeries as almost demeaning and hopelessly limited. For instance, author Rae Beth matter-of-factly dismisses that term: "Faeries are not nature spirits, they are not flower devas, and they are not tiny. [. . .] Their business, partly, is to weave fate." ⁵ While there are certainly ample examples in myth and folklore of faeries who are tied to specific plots of earth, landscape features, and even to particular trees or bodies of water, Nature can have much deeper, more profound connotations with regard to the nature of Faery. Nature is not simply the physical soil beneath our feet and that which grows from it. It is not simply pastoral scenes and verdant gardens. Nature can also refer to the nature of existence, the nature of the unseen world which is embodied by and intersects with our own. Nature is not exhausted by its familiar, tactile manifestations in flowers and rocks and winding streams – Nature should be considered a verb as well as a noun. The relationships and processes that bring those tactile elements into form and erode them back into oblivion are also Nature. Ultimately, Nature is the fiber from which Fate is woven, and it is also the complex, interlacing patterns that define the fabric of Fate itself. Therefore, "nature spirits" is only limiting insofar as an individual's concept of Nature is hopelessly limited.

Tracing the roots and routes of language can often reveal older patterns of thought, illuminating links that were previously sensed
between entities and acknowledging their true ancestral connections, thereby reinforcing intuition with history. Etymology has indeed linked "fairy" and "faery" with the mysterious powers of Fate. Though a more recently introduced term in the vocabulary of the intimate, yet generally invisible realm of the Otherworld and its inhabitants, Faery and its linguistic variants has been almost universally adopted in reference to that realm by European cultures. In numerous lands, however, even though that word is widely known, it may not be widely used by those who truly understand how close at hand the Otherworld is. Comprehending both the inherent potency in that term as well as the fact that faeries revile mortals who try to pry too deeply into their affairs, these folk will nearly always avoid its usage and will instead choose to either refer obliquely to "Them" or to exercise a bit of humble glamour by utilizing less dangerous, more pleasant-sounding euphemisms.

"[W]e are madly erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast 'clod of the valley' which he tills and condemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation."⁶

"It is obviously the purest anthropomorphism to assume that the absence of a human quality in bird, cloud, or star is the presence of a total blank, or to assume that what is not conscious is merely unconscious. Nature is not necessarily arranged in accordance with the system of mutually exclusive alternatives which characterize our language and logic. Furthermore, may it not be that when we speak of nature as blind, and of matter-energy as unintelligent, we are simply projecting upon them the blankness which we feel when we try to know our own consciousness as an object, when we try to see our own eyes or taste our own tongues?"⁷

Footnotes and Bibliography

1) Technically, according to the traditional ballad "Thomas the Rhymer," it is the third path that is the road to Faery: "O see not ye yon narrow road, / So thick beset wi thorns and briers? / That is the path of righteousness, / tho after it but few enquires. / And see not ye that braid braid road, / That lies across yon lillie leven? / That is the path of wickedness, / Tho some call it the road to heaven. / And see not ye that bonny road, / Which winds about the fernie brae? / That is the road to fair Elfland, / Whe(re) you and I this night maun gae."
2) Briggs, Katharine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon Books, 1976. 166-167.
3) Pratchett, Terry. Lords and Ladies. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 169 - 70.
4) Evans-Wentz, W.Y. The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries: The Classic Study of Leprechauns, Pixies, and Other Fairy Spirits. New York: Citadel Press, 1994. 119.
5) Beth, Rae. The Wiccan Way: Magical Spirituality for the Solitary Pagan. Blaine, WA: Phoenix Publishing Inc., 2001. 84.
6) Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Island of the Fay." Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2001. 228.
7) Watts, Alan W. Nature, Man and Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 1958. 6-7.

The Loonatiques

2006-07-24T23:02:00.001-04:00

5/9/2006
Since my childhood, it has been an annual tradition for many of the men in our family, namely my father but also other members including my uncle and grandfather, to take a sojourn to Ontario, Canada for week of fishing (and likely a fair share of beer-drinking). On his way home my father generally picks up gifts for my sister, my mother, and me at a duty-free shop near the US/Canadian border. My mother and sister have asked him to bring them back typical souvenir fare: keychains, sweatshirts, etc. Although I have received such items in the past as tokens of his trips north, I never asked for them myself.

However, every year I present him with a request, and after all these years this request has yet to be fulfilled. Perhaps it will never be.

Each year I ask my father to bring me back a Loon (Gávia ímmer) feather. { In a strange way, my request mirrors a similar one made by the youngest daughter in the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. When Beauty's father sets out on his journey, his two eldest daughters requested fine jewels and gowns, reminders of their former affluence. Beauty requests a single rose, "Since you have the goodness to think of me, [...] be so kind to bring me a rose, for as none grows hereabouts, they are a kind of rarity." }

Despite the number of loons that dwell around the lakes where my father goes fishing, he has never been able to locate even a small feather to bring home with him. I suspect that someone must collect stray loon feathers in the wavering hours between twilight and dawn. These mysterious figures venture out after the last small lights have returned to the docks but before the earliest riser casts his first line - an in-between time.

The loose sketch above accompanies this text in my paper journal. After paging through a collection of Remedios Varo's work, which shelters all sorts of delightful OwlWomen and other feathered shape-shifters, in the school library, I was reminded of the loons. I hope that one day this will become a fully-fledged image, but for now it is simply germinating in my humble sketchbook/journal.

The Art of Faery { book review }

2006-07-05T19:11:00.003-04:00

Some people experience Faerie at the level of of art and story, at the level of wonder. Historically, there has been a 'Faery Faith,' and references to it appear in the folklore of rural people all over the world. These beliefs have very little to do with the frivolity and fashion that embodies some of today's interest. The early Faery Faith had a lot to do with safely traversing your local landscapes, and the folklore was filed with warnings, instructions and suggestions for living in harmony with the land on which your people lived.[. . .] Many people today who are interested in faeries enjoy the artistry, the mirth, the costumes, the sparkly-bits (if you will). No problem, faeries have never minded a bit of fun and game. But under all that glitter, something wild and ancient may yet be seen...if you care to look.
- Ari Berk in Faerie Magazine Spring 2007 issue, pages 75-76

Update 7/16/07: Although many of my opinions regarding much of popular fairy art (aptly represented by the volume in question) are still quite intact, my views and overall approach to the contemporary fairy craze and changed and softened somewhat. My earlier, more asinine reflections on the movement were not, as some might suggest ¹, due to jealousy borne of the commercial success of some of the artists who are at the vanguard of the genre. Rather my initial fervor has entirely to do with the fact that something very near and dear to me is being cheapened and deprived of its integral mystery and ambiguity largely for the purposes of financial gain and popularity.

If contemporary fairy artists derive joy from their art, it is hardly my place to attempt to intervene. I also completely understand that artists have to eat, and if fairy art is the vehicle though which they obtain the funds to do so, then more power to them. I still feel that there is a great deal more to Faery than what is displayed in most of their work, and to the extent that what they do contributes to the growing superficiality and watering-down of a deep, profound tradition I cannot fully endorse it (sometimes this is born from the artist's genuine lack of knowledge of the subject, other times it is a blithe, arrogant disregard for viewpoints contrary to their own).

My new approach has been to seek to initiate change from the inside of the movement rather than by shunning and trying to disassociate from it entirely. An apt phrase comes to mind: "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Instead of focusing on what I believe to be detrimental, I am working to encourage that which reveals the depth and potency of Faery, hopefully by planting some seeds in the vast soil of the fairy movement with my own art and writing. I want to make peace with the contemporary fairy art scene so I can more readily focus on my own work, and it is much more valuable to me to work on establishing and strengthening an alternative path for those genuinely interested in Faery than to waste precious time with too much criticism. Thankfully, I am not the only one seeking towards this end.

In keeping with this more tolerant, progressive approach, I have voluntarily removed the following review on the Amazon website where it had the most exposure, and I have also deleted or disabled numerous other entries in my blogs. The review contains what I still believe to be valid points, which is why I am allowing it to be viewable here, but most of them were stated in a much harsher manner than I would now prefer, and so I have heavily edited even the currently viewable versions. I think my central ideas are still very present in this newer version, however the segments which I deem as too brash and truthfully distracting from those ideas have been deleted.

There's nothing wrong with a compendium of fantasy fairy art when it is presented as such. The problem occurs when people mistakenly equate the cutesy, whimsical, winged little creatures fabricated in the past few hundred years with the same sphere of Faery that is documented in genuine world mythology and folklore. Unfortunately, only one or two pieces in this book really seem to hint at the true Faery of legend and myth.

Brian Froud's keynote introduction and the opening statement on the back cover lead the reader to anticipate a deeper, more sensitive visual response to the challenge of representing Faery beings than is actually supplied by the book. One anticipates that the artwork will, in the words of Froud, "illuminate the dark inner recesses of nature and our relationship with it." Despite this book's ardent desire and claim to promote Faery as an "individual connection to nature," it really has a great deal more to do with an obsession with the insipid legacy left to us by the Victorians — faeries as spritely creatures of fantasy, drained of their original power, wildness, menace, and expressive potency. Froud makes another telling comment in his foreword which more accurately relates to the book's true contents. He writes of the perception of faeries over time as being "reduced to the tritest and gaudiest products of the human mind, washed up on the shorelines of nurseries." Taking into consideration the many saccarine, winged toddlers and preteens; elfin babies; and the horde of vapid supermodels-turned-fey vixens within these pages, I believe this collection of imagery is far closer to the "trite and gaudy" end of the spectrum. This would not be such a jarring issue if the book claimed to be a collection of fantasy fairy art.

I find it strange that many of the artists within this book list Alan Lee and Brian Froud's seminal book Faeries as a major influence, yet their own work doesn't seem to indicate that they actually read it and/or seriously investigated the illustrations therein. On the contrary, it seems like they may have skimmed the book, taking note only of the petite creatures that suited their pre-conditioned notions of Faery while ignoring the vast majority of information presented. The denizens of Faery are linked not only to the spiritual heart of the landscape, but also to the realm of the dead and the mysterious weavings of fate. Faeries of old were not merely acknowledged by humans, but greatly respected, and, in some cases, feared. Despite the attempts of certain artists to depict so-called "dark faeries" in this volume, the figures they paint are simply the same fairy characters as in their other pieces playing dress-up; there's nothing inherently menacing, disturbing, or powerful about them other than the fact that these particular fairies apparently shop at Hot Topic instead of at the typical Renaissance Faire or hippie clothing store at which they normally purchase their garments.

The website of one artist included in this work hailed The Art of Faery as a compendium of "the best faery artists in the world." While this book does contain the work of a handful of skilled individuals who have a decent handle on human proportions, shading, perspective, color, etc. (as well as containing the work of a number of those at the other end of the spectrum who definitely do not have a good understanding of the human form or a sensitivity to their chosen medium) nearly every example of the faery art in this book suffers from an extremely limited visual vocabulary. Virtually every single image in The Art of Faery, regardless of the talent and skill of the artist in question, is hidebound by convention and stereotype. With scarcely any exceptions, all of the supposed faeries these artists depict embody a cookie-cutter mentality: they are either cutsey children with wings and clothing of petals and foliage, or they are winged Victoria's Secret models with similar botanical decorations.

Some of the more technically proficient, stylistically refined artists include Marja Lee Kruÿt, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, John Arthur, Maxine Gadd, and James Browne. Sadly, a number of artists included in this volume, some of them at the forefront of the contemporary Fairy Art movement, do not simply create images of fairies, they manufacture them using their own established stock of poses, clothing design, faces, motifs, etc.

Undoubtedly, this book will be (and already has) become a cherished addition to the libraries of many fantasy fairy enthusiasts. It is a pleasant, pretty, and whimsical volume sure to provide inspiration for many mental flights of fancy. However, for those interested in genuine, mythic Faery art this collection may largely prove to be disappointing. To find artwork that earnestly seeks to "illuminate the dark inner recesses of nature and our relationship with it," one needs to look elsewhere. There is so much more to the fey than the pleasant, pretty, and whimsical modern veneer many assume is the totality of Faery. Don't be fooled into confusing fantastical fairies with the real thing; enjoy these fantasy fairies for what they are — creatures of fantasy.

1) Galbreth, Jessica. "Advice from Jessica." Enchanted Art. http://enchanted-art.com/pages/advice.php.
I'm referring specifically to the following statements: "Of course with the huge amount of artists springing up, there is bound to be a bit of negativity as well. [...] We must remember that this is just like any other industry. And, some people react to other's successes by trying to tear them down, maybe with the hopes that if they do, there will be more room for them."

Faery Trappings

2006-06-28T14:51:00.000-04:00

"Those who seek elves have minds so full of preconceived ideas about what they are looking for that they no longer see anything."
- Pierre Dubois in The Complete Enclyclopedia of Elves, Goblins, and Other Little Creatures

From my paper-based journal:
We become so caught up in the trappings of Faery that we have lost any real conception as to what Faery means in the first place. The visual shorthand, articles of which may have once housed deeper, more profound meaning, is now mistaken to be the genuine item to such a degree that Faery is now often defined as the shorthand itself. The trappings are no longer seen as a vehicle for representation but as the reality itself.

In a recent article in a popular fairy-enthusiast magazine, one woman essentially used an entire page of type relating to her readers her favorite faery attributes: she's enamored with the work of Amy Brown, Jessica Galbreth, and David Delamare (she has such shocking and original preferences, I know!). She loves their fairies' romantic garments, lean figures, pointed ears, and diaphanous wings; she was even adventurous enough to admit to indulging in the sultry gazes of so-called "dark faeries" from time to time. All in all, she basically wastes a full page on superficiality, blithely frolicking with her one-dimensional visages while gleefully steering clear of any hint of substance. Why does she love faeries? The answer is simple: because they have great fashion sense and cool, fanciful accessories (i.e. wings, ear attachments, etc.).

I stumbled upon an Amazon recommended reading list today which made me smile. I wish the author of the list would have had more recommendations and some specific commentary for the books he suggests, but some comments in the first paragraph are worth repeating (I didn't fix his spelling errors):

"If you are brave...really brave...and find the 'status quo' a bore...then perhaps you are ready to learn about the REAL realm of fairy. Not chicly dressed fairy's in thigh high boots with coordinating hose...but REAL FAERIES -
Then read on...
There are places on this earth where it is common knowledge that the realm of fairy is very real, very present and waiting to connect with their human cousins...us. Be open minded because real fairys do not shop at the mall for their wardrobe but are more akin to nature spirits…and are not something you see (although some can) but something you sense."

When I manage to accumulate some extra money, I plan on purchasing a number of R.J. Stewart's books

Impressions of Faery

2006-05-11T12:07:00.000-04:00

I draw largely upon my own personal experiences and impressions of the fey within my own work. This is largely due to the fact that my more recent faery work is inspired by local land/nature spirits, and, to my knowledge, there exists no compendium of mythology directly related to them for me to reference, so my own impressions are all I have to work with.

I find that my own experiences with the fey are difficult to describe. I have yet to physically see a faery in humanoid form appear before me (although I don't necessarily think that faeries always manifest physically as human-like, which is supported by both mythology and UPG), but I do believe I have sensed their presence on numerous occasions. Many of my impressions derive from simply being immersed in a certain landscape or location and being perceptive of its qualities and characteristics. I take in its sensual aspects, i.e. the colors, textures, scents, sounds, local wildlife, weather, etc., and I also try to get a deeper sense of the energy and consciousness of that specific area, and from those perceptions I create my art. I believe that such sensitive immersion and appreciation often facilitates nonverbal communication with the fey that reside there.

The Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are blooming! The verdant spikes of hostas have now unfurled, bursting into lush foliate mounds. The bitter greens and dusky reds of early spring are just starting to deepen.

Hope in Peripheral Shimmering

2006-05-01T21:05:00.000-04:00

Counterpoint. Just as I was again losing hope in the whole prospect of art relating to Faery, I found myself being led down various paths and discovering a section of the Endicott Studio I had not visited before. Although I am familiar with Oliver Hunter's art and writings, these journal entries of his are brand new to me (if you are unfamiliar with his creations, I highly recommend that you remedy that by visiting the journal link, A Cupfull of Oliver, or the remnants of his former website at Muse Hill):

"In a metamorphosis of states, the Invisible — a word, a character, a point of view — dresses ceremoniously in the garb of the visible as a disguise. Faery as an ocean is unfathomable; a strange and green ocean. Cocteau allies himself with the Invisible. He would have us believe, not only that there is an invisible existence, but that he too is a creature of this element. I may be writing this out of jealousy that my bones don't harbour as much, but then again, I don't necessarily want them to. I am content in my humanness, I don't trace my lineage in the hopes of finding mystics or demigods — it feels too uncomfortably melodramatic. My relationship with the invisible, with Faery, is one of carefully considered distance and respect. I don't presume to know its innermost facets; I know that such presumptuousness is delusion, a dangerous position in which I am liable to invoke the wrath of the unknown. But I also stress that neither is this relationship one of superstition, which implies that my attitude might be unreasonable and born from ignorance. I do not weaken the Invisible by dismissing its existence as nonsense, but nor do I demonically wrap myself up in its cape, laughing at the rest of the world in its petty mortal state. Quite simply, I take the invisible seriously. I attempt to meet it on its own terms. It is not such a silly thing to believe, as Ljerka once mentioned to me, in the 'connectedness of all things.'

Invisible connections, then what does this have to do with painting? I'm looking across the riddled treetops of Faery, hunting for something — not a secret exactly (not something to be made visible), but a sign, a directive to action. This is cheapened by giving Faery an opaque and fathomable character because it places the (human) author in an omnipresent position, which does not and cannot apply in the case of the invisible. The best ghost stories are written from a limited perspective, where the unknown retains its dignity by cloaking its motives (if indeed it has any at all) in darkness and doubt. The invisible maintains this essential invisibility even when disguising itself, as Cocteau points out, in the semblance of the visible. But underneath the forms of the faeries are leaf mold and moss (pigment, binder and canvas). These visible forms are like garments in that they contain clues for the human to interpret. We are wrong if we attempt to unveil the invisibles by these clues, for by nature they are consistently inconsistent. They are monstrously convoluted messages about ourselves."

In these two paragraphs, he has expressed eloquently something I with which I was verbally struggling in my ruminations on mythic art (see previous entry). I have in my own notes that "fantasy artist tend to depict mythical beings, creatures, etc. as if they are corporal, flesh-and-blood whereas mythic artists are inclined to depict them visualizations of symbolic traits, as emanations/representations of generally non-ordinary beings. Within fantasy artwork, creatures like dragons, elves, etc. are shown and conceived of just as humans and other animals are." I wasn't satisfied with the manner in which I attempted to impart the real concept I had in mind, so I left that section out. Oliver Hunter bore to the heart of what I intended to say: "I'm looking across the riddled treetops of Faery, hunting for something — not a secret exactly (not something to be made visible), but a sign, a directive to action. This is cheapened by giving Faery an opaque and fathomable character because it places the (human) author in an omnipresent position, which does not and cannot apply in the case of the invisible."

Exactly. Mythic art is deeply involved in what it conceals and reveals, and it acknowledges that it cannot reveal everything and thus leaves potent space for the viewer (and indeed the artist him or herself) to probe. On the other hand, fantasy art tends to be extremely concerned with forming every detail of costume, motive, character, language, landscape - the artist seeks to build an entire, meticulously-ordered, pre-determined, self-contained world inside their own skull. The creatures and characters in fantasy artwork are entirely solid: although in one particular image we might not be able to see the underbelly of some great, lolling beast, there is no doubt that the artist has conceived the texture and color of that underbelly.

When I utilized the term solid in the previous sentence to refer to creatures in fantasy artwork, it was not to suggest that the mythic is in all manifestations non-physical, non-tactile. Physical, tactile things have their mythic aspects. Deer, for instance, are real creatures which exist in our ordinary, so-called objective reality. One can touch them, dissect them, even ingest them, yet for all of that we cannot deny their mythic quality (i.e. the Invisible facet of which Oliver speaks and the "mystery" Joseph Campbell refers to in the quotations in my previous entry): "Craving the dialect of cities, I forgot the way deer steal into the yard with their big hearts and fragile dreams. I wasn't here to follow their gaunt, level eyes, or the staggering poetry of their hooves" (Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses). Mythic artwork is engrossed with somehow imparting the "staggering poetry of their hooves;" fantasy tends to depict its subjects, whether "real" or "imaginary" with the fervor of scientific illustration.

Kakuzo Okakura writes in his The Book of Tea that "[i]n leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your aesthetic emotion." This is why East Asian artists are often seen as the masters of empty space, why their landscapes often writhe in a mist that defines the majority of the composition as seemingly empty, allowing the character of the paper itself to become part of the painting. Personally though, I disagree with Okakura's use of the term "vacuum" in reference to those significant, ill-defined places - at least in the context of mythic artwork. A vacuum to me implies void, nothingness, whereas I believe in actuality those ill-defined places are in fact quite the opposite: teeming with possibilities simply because they do not provide such distinct limitations to the viewer. Those spaces are "blank" or vague not because they represent lack, but because the artist comes to terms with the fact that her splay of many-hued leads, her wells of jewel-like ink, impressive as they are, do not contain the liminal, shimmering colors necessary to truly "complete" the tableau. And as Oliver stated, it would only cheapen the subject to suppose that one could render the mythic in its entirety.

When I posted my drawing of The CatfishWoman to my Epilogue gallery, one individual wrote that by choosing to crop the figure of the faery as I had was teasing the viewer, "Your description of her only makes me want to see how you would draw the rest of her. What you have here is quite a tease!" When I posted the same drawing in my Elfwood gallery, someone commented that judging by what portions of her anatomy could be perceived in this image, she was far too human to be considered adequately within fantasy genre and he expressed that the image was lacking. I responded, "I agree that I have not pushed the boundaries as far as I could have regarding her degree of catfishiness, but the representation felt right to me at the time and I'm still pleased with how it turned out. I envision her as a shapeshifter who can embody a broad range of forms between wholly human and wholly catfish. Perhaps I will depict her in another piece in an aspect closer to the catfish end of the spectrum. The way I chose to frame and compose this piece should also be taken into consideration. Perhaps her arms and torso lead off the page and form elegant fins, perhaps not. I like giving the viewer room to put their own imagination to use. Someone over at my Epilogue gallery commented that this image was a 'tease' since I didn't show her in her entirety, and in a way they're quite right, and I personally think the image might become too dull and predictable if I just handed the viewer all of the information."

Shimmering peripheries. Potent spaces. Although they can be embodied in the clean absence of pigment in Chinese ink paintings, I believe there are other manners of allowing potentiality, ambiguity, mystery into one's artwork, more ways than I could possibly enumerate.

In other news, I have a new friend! :D A recent trip to Skippack, Pennsylvania introduced me to a small shop which included among its wares a collection of Native American style flutes. Tsunami flutes to be precise. I hit it off with a lovely flute in the key of F, its body crafted of Tulip Poplar and its bird/block/fetish of Palownia. The natural tone of both woods is quite light: a pale flute for a pale girl. I have a particular affinity with Tulip Poplar as that species of tree populates much of the land surrounding my home. (Tulip Poplar spires wreath my Horned God's brow and a Tulip Poplar leaf-pen entwine my Green Lady's hair.)

Well, that's enough writing for one night I think!

The Catfishwoman

2005-08-05T00:00:00.001-04:00

This piece represents a personal impression of a genius loci or 'spirit of place'. I've sensed this particular faery many times while walking along the shore of the lake near my home. She tends to be elusive, somewhat sullen, but always watchful of her territory. Like many other mermaids (and lakemaids, for that matter) in world myth, she possesses a dangerous side, and her murky waters have been known to lure men to their death.

Even though the lake itself is man-made, I do not believe that she is a new inhabitant of the area; she very likely resided in the immediate vicinity when only the stream, which was dammed to create the lake, ran through the valley. I think it is very possible though that her haunt expanded as a result of the building of the lake. The larger body of water allows her a greater vantage point from which to guard and observe. As a creature of the dark, weed-choked waters of the lake, it seemed entirely befitting that she revealed herself as a CatfishWoman in this image. Specifically, her form and coloring are based on the Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), a species which actually does live in the lake. Sleek and scaleless, she is adept at slipping below the surface without leaving a solitary ring in her wake. Interestingly, another common name for this fish is "lady cat."

While in the middle of writing a book review, at a time when I had temporarily set this piece aside with only the foreground and mid-ground completed since I couldn't determine the proper background setting, a strange verse suddenly came into my head:

follow the Catfish Woman
to the edge of the ravine
but beware the ring of trout lilies
all is not as it seems

In European folklore, rings of fertile grass or mushrooms were said to mark the circular paths of Faery revelry. That same body of folklore also cautions against tresspassing the boundary of a fairy ring or otherwise disturbing it. People who dared to pass into the ring sometimes never reemerged on the other side, and if they did return to the land of mortals it was often as great cost, for time passes strangely in Faery: a youth could step into the circle, but a haggard old man steps out; someone strong and able could enter, but the one who exits could be withered and lame. Scientifically speaking, the phenomenon historically called fairy rings are the result of a spreading fungus which grows outwards in a radial fashion. This little rhyme finally gave me the inspiration to finish the piece. In this case, the boundary of the faery ring is marked with Trout Lilies (Erythronium americanum). These flowers bloom in early spring at the actual locations represented in the mid- and background of this piece.

A few years ago, a local artist had created an impromptu sculpture out of driftwood in the lake which appeared from the road high above to be the silhouette of some large serpentine creature gracefully arching its back above the surface while its head curled gently out of the ripples to peer around. It reminded me a great deal of the famous photographs of the supposed Loch Ness Monster, and based on that similarity, I personally dubbed the sculpture the "Nock Ness Monster." Unfortunately, the sculpture was dismantled/destroyed some time ago. While attempting to do some research on my area, I stumbled across the webpage of a storyteller who used to live by the lake, and in one of his stories he mentions the elusive Nock Ness Monster:

As I leave the lily pads behind, I notice swirls of muddy water rising from the bottom alongside my kayak. My paddle must be coming close enough to the bottom to cause this disturbance. As I pay more attention the swirls are just off the bow, ahead of where my paddle moves the water. I'm not sure what the cause of this can be, until I catch a glimpse of lake bottom, and of a twenty inch catfish that is stirring the silt as it touches down in its search for supper. At about this same time, something large almost breeches the surface just ahead of my craft, actually pushing the filamentous weeds here above the surface. Another catfish? Or the Nock Ness monster?

I do not know whether this man had seen the sculpture and had come to similar conclusions about it or if he too sensed some Other Presence in the area, but apparently the Nock Ness Monster lives outside of my own head and is known to others in some guise. It's especially intriguing to me that this author associates the Nock Ness with catfish. I wonder if my CatfishWoman and the Nock Ness Monster are one and the same creatures, perceived through varying lenses. Considering her ambivalent nature, it wouldn't surprise me if some people might view her as a monster of sorts.