Arterial Garden

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.

Ancestors

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

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.

The Storyteller Tree

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.

Burl

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

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Footnotes and Bibliography

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

A Life in Progress

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 Makings of an Artist

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

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

Of Keys and Riddles

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)

Huldre - ACEO

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

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

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

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"

Fecundity - ACEO

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

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

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 }

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.

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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