Endicott Redux

New Year's Day Traditions

Every culture seems to have several unique ways of not only celebrating New Year's day but also insuring good luck for the following year. I must admit that in my family, my mother (a Tibetan scholar) followed the Tibetan tradition of calling out for Rabbit as the year turned new. I have never understood why entirely -- Trickster is hardly noted for being dependable -- yet I do it dutifully every year, no matter where I am. Even as friends around me are clinking glasses and singing Robbie Burn's Auld Lang Syne, I am whispering under my breath "Rabbit, Rabbit," before joining in the song.

Here's an interesting list of New Year's superstitions, ranging from eating black eyed peas for luck to making sure nothing leaves the house New Year's Day. Also have a look at this list of foods specially prepared for New Year's day (I like the Cuban tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight!). So, gentle readers, what are your New Year's traditions and superstitions? What do you do to welcome in the New Year and along with it, luck?

*Art above is from Rea Irvin, depicting a Happy New Year in 1867 and 1917...see how times have changed!

Happy New Year from the Endicott Studio

At the Entering of the New Year
by Thomas Hardy

I (Old Style)

Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,
Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements
On to the white highway,
Where nighted farers paused and muttered,
"Keep it up well, do they!"

The contrabasso's measured booming
Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,
To shepherds at their midnight lambings,
To stealthy poachers on their rounds;
And everybody caught full duly
The notes of our delight,
As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise
Hailed by our sanguine sight.

II (New Style)

We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,
As if to give ear to the muffled peal,
Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim;
But our truest heed is to words that steal
From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,
And seems, so far as our sense can see,
To feature bereaved Humanity,
As it sighs to the imminent year its say:-

"O stay without, O stay without,
Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;
Though stars irradiate thee about
Thy entrance here is undesired.
Open the gate not, mystic one;
Must we avow what we would close confine?
With thee, good friend, we would have converse none,
it the fault may not be thine."

The Sunday Poem

As we close the door on another year, and cross over the threshold towards a new one, my New Year's resolution is to live life more mindfully. Mary Oliver shows us how.

Oliver is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Primitive, Twelve Moons, Dream Work, House of Light, and other gorgeous collections of poetry and prose. "Mindful" comes from her 2005 collection, Why I Wake Early. The painting above is "Pennsylvania Landscape" by Andrew Wyeth.

Magical Realism in Art

I've always thought of Magical Realism as a literary movement, but an interesting essay on the Ten Dreams Galleries site explains the origins of the term in an art movement with its roots in World War I. The movement began in Europe just after the war (preceding Surrealism by a few years) and in North America a decade later.

"The term 'Magischer Realimus' was first used by German art critic Frank Roh in 1925 to describe a strong current in the arts toward realism...Art critics who had previously promoted Expressionism felt that a new generation of artists were producing superficial work, intended purely to exploit. At the same time, many artists felt that the Modernist movements had moved too far in the direction of abstraction. These same artists developed a realistic style, portraying everyday life but adding a twist of the bizarre and unusual. Magical Realism painters added dreamlike and fantastical elements to their art, but their subject matter still always remained within the realm of the possible." Go here to read the full essay and see examples of Magical Realist art.

The images in this post are by Pyke Koch, Alex Colville, Gino Severini, and George Tooker. The painting below by Dutch artist Paul Christiaan Bos is a contemporary work in the Magical Realist tradition.

       

Inspiring the next generation....

Here's a snippet of a talk given by illustrator/film designer Alan Lee (who worked with director Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong) discussing filmmaking with schoolchildren as part of a young filmmakers project in Devon, England. (You might want to fast-forward past the beginning. You'll find Alan's comments about half way through.)

Wait! There's more!

     

Yesterday we told you about the terrific illustration exhibition running at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. If you can get to London quickly, there's also a terrific show on until January 5th at the Chris Beetles Gallery: The British Art of Illustration, 1800 - 2007 -- featuring 1000 pictures covering 200 years of illustration history.

    

The artists covered include the ones we've pictured here (from top to bottom): Florence Harrison, Arthur Rackham, William Heath Robinson, Helen Jacobs, and Jane Johnson -- as well as Harry Clarke, Walter Crane, Edmund Dulac, HJ Ford, Kate Greenaway, Warwick Goble, Kay Nielsen, Beatrix Potter, Charles Robinson, Jessica Wilcox Smith, Margaret Tarrant, and many, many others. (And for those of you with deeper pockets than ours, these gorgeous pictures are all for sale.) If you can't make it to the show, you can view the art on the gallery's extensive website, and purchase their handsomely produced exhibition catalog. (With thanks to my neighbor David Wyatt, a fine illustrator himself, for bringing this exhibition to our attention.)

     

         

The Age of Enchantment

 

If you're in London, or heading that way soon, don't miss The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries, 1890 - 1930 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which is on now until February 17. Here's the gallery's description of this gem of a show:

"With the death of Aubrey Beardsley in 1898, the world of the illustrated book underwent a dramatic change. Gone were the degenerate images of scandal and deviance. The age of decadence was softened to delight rather than to shock. Whimsy and a pastel toned world of childish delights and an innocent exoticism unfolded in the pages of familiar fables, classic tales and those children’s stories like The Arabian Nights and Hans Andersen's Stories. These were published with lavish colour plates and fine bindings: these were the coffee table books of a new age.

"As a result a new generation of illustrators emerged. This new group of artists was intent upon borrowing from the past, especially the fantasies of the rococo, the rich decorative elements of the Orient, the Near East, and fairy worlds of the Victorians. The masters of this new art form were artists like Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen, whose inventive book productions, with those of Arthur Rackham, became legendary. Disciples gathered, like Jessie King and Annie French, the Scottish masters of the ethereal and the poetic, the Detmold Brothers, masters of natural fantasy, as well as those who remained in Beardsley’s shadow: the warped yet fascinating works of Sidney Sime, a joyously eccentric coal-miner turned artist, Laurence Housman, master of the fairy tale, the precious inventions from the classics by Charles Ricketts, the Irish fantasies of Harry Clarke, himself a master of stained glass as well as the gift book, and the rich and exotic world of Alaistair. Children’s stories were transformed by the imaginations of a group still bowing to the Victorians Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway and the fairies of Richard Doyle but these were now given a more colourful intensity by Charles Robinson, Patten Wilson, Anning Bell, Bernard Sleigh and Maxwell Armfield.

"The exhibition of British fantasy illustration will be the first such exhibition in Britain and the first worldwide for over 20 years (the last being in New York in 1979). All works, of which over 100 are planned, will come largely from British museums and private collections, many of these will never have been seen publicly before in Britain. The exhibition is curated by Rodney Engen."

Visit the gallery's website for more information (including pictures, videos, and an audio file of the Director's Lecture), or to purchase an exhibition catalog. The Dulwich Picture Gallery is also running a "Create A Fairy Tale Illustration" competition, with entries due Janurary 28th. The competition rules are here, and you can view the current entries here.

(We'll be back on December 27!)

Wild Child

   

The "wild child" of the forest has long been a staple of myth and folklore, and thus also of magical fiction ranging from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to Wild Boy by Jill Dawson (for young adult readers) and Alice Hoffman's Second Nature (for adults). Though some historical tales of actual wild children have turned out to be hoaxes, others have been well documented and the occasional case, surprisingly, still arises today, such as this recent account of a boy living with wolves in central Russia.

Perhaps the most famous historical feral child was Victor, the Wild Boy of Avignon, discovered on a mountainside in France in the early 19th century. His teacher, Jean–Marc–Gaspard Itard, wrote an extraordinary account of his six years with the boy — a document which inspired Francoise Truffaut's film The Wild Child and Mordicai Gerstein's wonderful novel The Wild Boy. In an essay for The Horn Book magazine, Gerstein wrote: "Itard's reports not only provide the best documentation we have of a feral child, but also one of the most thoughtful, beautifully written, and moving accounts of a teacher pupil relationship, which has as its object nothing less than learning to be a human being (or at least what Itard, as a man of his time, thought a human being to be). . .. Itard's ambition to have Victor speak ultimately failed, but even if he had succeeded, he could never know Victor better or be more truly, deeply engaged with him than those evenings, early on, when they sat together as Victor loved to, with the boy's face buried in the man's hands. But the more Itard taught Victor, the more civilized he became, the more the distance between them grew." (You'll find Gerstein's full essay here; scroll to the bottom of the page.)

In India in the 1920s two small girls were discovered living in the wild among a pack of wolves. They were captured (their "wolf mother" shot) and taken into an orphanage run by a missionary, Reverend Joseph Singh. Singh attempted to teach the girls to speak, walk upright, and behave like humans, not as wolves — with limited success. His diaries can be read online here, and are fascinating if occasionally horrifying. Several works of fiction were inspired by this story, but the ones I particularly recommend are Jane Yolen's novel Children of the Wolf and Karen Russell's story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" (in her collection of the same title).

For more about wild children I recommend Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children by Michael Newton. You also might be interested in my article in the JoMA archives: Lost and Found: The Orphaned Hero in Myth, Folklore, and Fantasy. There's a reading list of recommended fiction on page 3 of the article.

Art credits: The drawing at the top of this post is by Tang Sin Yun; you can see more of the artist's work here. The second drawing is by Rudyard Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling.

The Sunday Poem

Our Sunday Poem -- in honor of Winter Solstice (and of the 16th century cottage discussed in the post below) -- is "Now Winter Nights Enlarge" by the 16th century English poet and composer Thomas Campion.

The art is "Christmas Evening" by the 19th/early-20th century Swedish painter Carl Larsson. 

The turning of the seasons....

 

Thank you, everyone, for your patience this past month while our blog went on a brief, unscheduled hiatus. And happy Winter Solstice!

The solstice has been a particularly significant one for me this year, not only marking the turning of the seasons but also the end of a long chapter of my life and the beginning of a new one. In the last month, I have sold and moved out of Weaver's Cottage, the magical 16th century cottage that has been my home in Devon for over 15 years  --  with its thick cob walls, crooked beams and floors, its enormous walk-in fireplace, its courtyard garden covered with roses and its kitchen covered with goblins painted on the walls by Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Charles Vess, Dennis Nolan and other artists. Leaving it, as I'm sure you can imagine, was both a time-consuming and emotional process. I haven't moved far (just down the street, in fact), and I'm moving for good reasons, not bad ones. Yet woven into the excitement of starting a brand new phase of life is a silver thread of nostalgic sadness, honoring all the wonderful years that passed there. (A very nice family will live in Weaver's now, and I'm pleased to report that they intend to preserve the goblins.)

I remember the day I first moved in so vividly. I owned so little furniture back then that my bed was just a mattress on the floor, my living room had just a table and two rush-seated chairs, the kitchen didn't yet have its famous goblins, the garden didn't yet have a single tree or rose bush...and yet it was still the most beautiful place I could ever imagine calling my own. After the last boxes were moved in, we toasted the place with a bottle of champagne and then my friends left, and I was alone in Weaver's for the very first time. I went upstairs and found, to my great surprise, that sometime during the bustle of the move Brian Froud had snuck upstairs without my knowing and left a painting for me there -- the image you see here on the right. I was completely bowled over (or "gob-smacked," as they say here in Britain). 

Midori, too, has gone through big changes this year, moving from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Tucson, Arizona and leaving the teaching profession to go back to writing again full time. (Hooray!) And the Journal of Mythic Arts is undergoing changes too, starting with the new format we debuted this autumn. We've got some exciting things in store for you in the new year, so stay tuned. And thank you, all of you in the Mythic Arts community, for your continued support. May all your solstice changes be good ones too.

 

Top photograph, Froud Goblins in Weaver's Kitchen, by Alan Lee; bottom photograph, Corner of Weaver's Garden [with me reading, as usual], Summer 2007, by Helen Mason.

Graduations and Goodbyes

Dear Friends and Readers: Terri and I are having yet another one of those intense transitional weeks. Terri is currently saying good bye to the Goblins of Weaver's Cottage and is knee deep in boxes and packing for the big move happening this week. I am on my way to three graduations: my son's Naval graduation in California immediately followed by my husband's Phd. graduation and daughter's undergraduate graduation in Wisconsin (which I read is buried under snow and cold...not ready for that let me tell you). So we are begging your forbearance as we take off to address all these momentous events. We will return to this blog shortly before Christmas.

Capoiera print by Alegria.

8, The Endless Forest, and The Path: Interactive Games from Tale of Tales Studio

Over the last two years I have been following the work of a very talented pair, Michael Samyn and Aurie Harvey, of Tale of Tales, a Belgian studio producing interactive online computer games based on fairy tales. Currently they have three projects in various stages of development: "8," "The Endless Forest," and more recently a new game called The Path, a spooky (and very punk-looking) version of Little Red Riding Hood.

Their first experiment, 8, is an exploration of different versions of Sleeping Beauty which takes the player through some beautifully designed locations. Here's a description of the plot: "A young girl gets trapped in a luxurious palace surrounded by a thick forest. Everyone in the palace is asleep. They should have woken up by now. The Prince should have come by now. But the Princess is in no condition to meet him. Assisted by a Wicked Fairy out for revenge, eight unworthy princes have penetrated the forest and disrupted the magic that once protected the sleeping court. The power of the spell is fading. The forest branches are growing. The palace walls are crumbling." The project is still in its developmental stages, but the website lets one wander through the fascinating landscapes and have a peek at the conceptual art created by Lina Kusaite, Martin Michl and Gorik Lindemans.

In The Endless Forest, a multi-player online game, one enters the game in the form of deer (the various avatars are wonderful!) to explore an enchanted landscape and interact with other deer and with this magical world. From the description: "Although not goal-oriented, there are several activities that you can engage in. Nothing very demanding or violent. Just fun things to do in a nice environment. Once every so often, the forest deities will appear, either in person or through their divine powers. Beware of falling rocks and sudden showers!" There's lots of fun to be had here -- one can change other players' horns or pelts, or even shapeshift them into squirrels, bats, frogs, or birds through spells collected from eating mushrooms, from pinecones, or from mushroom "fairy circles." (With more fabulous concept art from Lina Kusaite.)

The most recent project is The Path, the team's first commercial single player game (available 2009), based on a very dark interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. Here's the introduction: "There is something wrong with the forest. No matter how bright the sun shines, it remains dark and foggy. It smells like something died. Strange noises fill the rusty air. Squeaks and screeches. The dull thump of someone chopping trees. The wind playing eerie melodies on ghostlike flutes. Shivers run down her spine. She just left the city. Cars can't drive here anymore. Mother told her to go visit grandmother. The old lady lives all alone at the other side of the forest. Quite a walk from here. It's probably best if she stays on the path." As before, there is no set goal for this game, rather an invitation to journey through the dark forest and decide whether to adhere to the path, or to wander....

(*Thanks to Carisa Swenson for reminding me about this wonderful studio.)

Online Salon with The Interstitial Arts Foundation

   
I recently received word from Interstitial Arts Foundation board member Kris McDermott that the topic of their upcoming online salon is THE comics collective The Chemistry Set...

The comic that caught our eye was one by Phillipine artist Andrew Drilon, called Mang Tomas the Story Hunter – in which the Hero mutters, “INTERSTITIAL FICTION – KISS MY GUN!” We’re not sure if he’s giving us a shout-out or a slam, but we loved it! And then, of course, we wanted more.

He – and many of the other writer/artists on the site – approach graphic storytelling from a joyous mix of perspectives. I’m particularly intrigued by Drilon’s incorporation of Filipino archetypes and myths into his stories, but other series – Steven Goldman’s Styx Taxi, and Elizabeth Genco’s Scheherazade also use the handy vehicle of myth to explore some exciting intersections between visual and literary culture.

So visit the site and come back to discuss your impression of this project. Is the graphic novel/comic book the most interstitial form of pop culture going today, and if so, what is its future? What else have you encountered like “The Chemistry Set”? Does multiculturalism aid and abet interstitiality – and vice versa? Our conversation will begin here on December 8 and continue for a week. Hope to see you there!

WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 8-Saturday, Dec. 15
WHERE: This thread @ the IAF message board
WHAT: Discuss The Chemistry Set – we call ‘em interstitial; do you?

Needless to say, I'm tickled. Andrew Drilon is a stunning talent - if you haven't checked out his Kare-Kare Komiks yet, you're in for a treat! Andrew recently took 2nd place at 2nd Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards.  He's definitely a creator for fans of mythic arts to watch. 

My latest favorite from Andrew: Grinwit.

The Golden Dreydl by Ellen Kushner

Today is the first day of Hanukkah, so if you are looking for a special present for a 9-12 year old, we'd like to recommend Ellen Kushner's exciting adventure tale, The Golden Dreydl. The story: It is Hanukkah, and Sara, dragged to a party by her mother, finds playing with the dreydls (little spinning tops which are part of Hanukkah's festivities) boring ... that is until Tante Miriam gives her an ancient golden dreydl. During a squabble over possession of the dreydl, the television screen and the dreydl are broken, revealing the magical worlds hidden within both of them. From the broken dreydl a princess emerges who leads Sara on a mythical journey (through the smashed T.V. screen). When the princess is captured by the Demon King, Sara, aided by a Fool, must use all her cunning and courage to outwit the Demon King, rescue the princess, and return home again.

The novel is charming, fast-paced, filled with imagery and characters from Jewish folklore(including riddles! my favorite), and sparkles with Ellen's considerable humor. This edition also has lovely black and white illustrations from artist Ilene Winn-Lederer. You can find more information about the book here.

The story was first created by Ellen Kushner in collaboration with the Boston-based six-piece klezmer band Shirim as the script to a stage show. In performance, Ellen narrates her story, while the band weaves their music behind and between her narration. Since its Boston premiere in 2000, the Golden Dreydl stage show has toured the country, and continues to be available for holiday festivities.

Green Man Review celebrates 20 years of Years Best Fantasy and Horror

The Green Man Review librarian Iain Nicholas Mackenzie has put together a terrific collection of reviews, interviews, and personal responses to celebrate the past 20 years of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant. There is a rare and wonderful interview with artist Tom Canty, who designed the wrap around covers, always a beautiful combination of elegant fantasy and smoldering horror. There is a lively interview with current editors Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link here, and, holy cats, there are reviews for every volume produced.

*Art banner above by Tom Canty.

"We Who Live Below and Between"

There is an entire city underneath Seattle. When I was growing up, this was one of my favorite places to visit. I would walk through the shadowy tunnels, look up through the cracked glass the sun had turned violet, and wonder what it would be like to live down there, in that alternate Seattle.   

I recently read Ekaterina Sedia's lovely book The Secret History of Moscow (for the review, please click here). Moscow, it seems, also has a city beneath the city -- an old city, layered with fractured histories and half-forgotten gods. Strange and dark, this Moscow beneath was more real, more alive than the Moscow of the real world.

Sedia is not the only author to write about a city beneath a city. China Miéville's Un Lun Dun (reviewed here) takes place in an alternate London; Tappan King's Down Town takes place underneath the city of New York; Lisa Goldstein creates an underworld connected by the subway systems of cities around the world in Dark Cities Underground; and there is, of course, the book from which I borrowed the title of this post, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which takes place in London Below.

These stories are not the first to take place in fantastic worlds that touch the real world so closely that one could get to them by falling through a puddle or opening a door. Alice, after all, fell down a rabbit hole. And I am certain I am not the only one who carefully explored the back of closets, hoping to step into a snowy wood and meet a faun. But the difference between Wonderland and Narnia and Sedia's Moscow or London Below is that while Narnia and Wonderland bordered the real world close enough to touch, they were decidedly different places. More than that, as marvelous as they were, they were just settings. The cities in Sedia's, Miéville's, and Gaiman's books are beyond place, very nearly character. It is as if Neverwhere has begun a genre of the fantasy of place, where real cities are set on a slant in order to let the magic in.

Perhaps under the city is replacing the archetypal into the woods in an increasingly urban world. Or perhaps cities have lives, too. In the shadows. Under the violet lights. Below.

*The image above is from artist Peter Milton's "Hidden Cities Series." Stop by and visit Miltn's website to see more of his incredible imaginary worlds.

Sunday Poem

As I have recently mentioned the Ruskin Library exhibit on Persephone, I thought it was a perfect time to spot-light Gabriel Fried's spare, anguished poem "Demeter After" at From the Fishouse -- a terrific site to discover and hear new, emerging voices in poetry. In addition to listening to Fried read his poem, you can also hear him discuss its genesis, and how the other poems on the web page loosely echo the Persephone and Demeter myth. (A second favorite for me is The Places We Knew Not to Go to as Children.)

Born in New York, Gabriel Fried's poetry has been published in The American Scholar, Drunken Boat, The Gettysburg Review, The Great River Review, and The Paris Review. He currently lives in New York City, where he is the poetry editor for Persea Books. His collection Making the New Lamb Take (Sarabande Books 2007) won the 2006 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry.

*The art above is "Demeter" by Jean-Francois Millet.

New Diana Wynne Jones

Here's a bit of exciting news for Wynne Jones fans:

"HarperCollins Children’s Books has acquired a new novel from Diana Wynne Jones. House of Many Ways, a sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle (1986), and Castle in the Air (1990), will be published in June 2008. It is set a few years on in the neighbouring mountainous kingdom of High Norland.

"The deal was concluded by fiction editorial director Stella Paskins and literary agent Laura Cecil for UK and Commonwealth rights (including Canada). The novel will be published simultaneously by Greenwillow in the US." (via Bookseller.com)

Ruskin and the Persephone Myth

For those of you near Lancaster University in England, do stop by to see this amazing exhibit of art inspired by the Demeter and Persephone myths. The exhibit, which runs until December 21, is housed at the Ruskin Library at the university.

The exhibit is divided into distinct galleries. The first gallery "offers a variety of artistic responses to the Persephone myth. The intention is to provide an environment in which the visitor can become familiar with different aspects and interpretations of the myth; soak in it; taste it; have the opportunity to become aware of the enriching power that it has always possessed, and still does. Its range is intentionally wide, stretching from the high art of Rossetti’s Proserpine to the everyday culture of modern children’s  books." (Kudos to author and artist Kris Waldherr who has a piece of art in this exhibit.)

The second gallery is devoted to John Ruskin's work on the myth, including "his books and drawings of Greek coins; his studies of flowers and plants; his mythologizing of the natural world; the tragedy of his love of Rose La Touche and his identification of her with Proserpine; and of course his book devoted to a new, humanised, mythologised botany - Proserpina itself. An important purpose of the exhibition is to show Ruskin’s mythologizing in a light that illuminates its highly personal characteristics, while also making clear its deep roots in universal human experience."

This exhibit has managed to collect some incredible pieces of art: "Dinah Prentice’s innovative and moving Persephone Rising, lent by the artist, is the largest work (twelve feet by nine) so far exhibited in the Ruskin Library; and the works by Rossetti and Burne-Jones lent by Birmingham Art Gallery provide a powerful underpinning to the whole display. In particular, the presence here in Lancaster of Rossetti’s Proserpine (pictured above) -– one of the most  famous of all Pre-Raphaelite images."

And stop by the Journal of Mythic Art's archives and read a terrific article on Demeter and Persephone, "Death and Return in the Myth of Demeter and Persephone" by Kathie Carlson. And check out more of Dinah Prentice's art here (especially her images of the Maenads all done in hand dyed and sewn silk).