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!

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.)

Dearly Beloved

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.

The White Doe of Nara

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)

Hope in Peripheral Shimmering

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.

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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!