Endicott Redux

 

We'll be back from the Easter holiday break Wednesday, March 26 soon.

Lori Field in NYC

 

I'm deeply envious of all of you in the New York area right now, because you can go to Lori Field's new exhibition and I'm going to miss it! Damn.

Lori is an absolutely amazing collage artist who lives and works in Montclair, New Jersey. Her new show is on display until April 26th at the Kinz, Tillou and Feigen Gallery at 529 W. 20th Street in Manhattan, running alongside an exhibition of drawings (the "Rappaccini's Daughter" series) by Megan Greene. "Both artists," the curators note, "share an affinity for incorporating imagined and enigmatic subject matter in their fantastical work.

"Lori Field's encaustic paintings with collaged drawings portray hallucinatory visions derived from her flirtation with demonic realms, personal fairy tales, and the human world. The chimerical creatures that populate Field's mixed media works are at once familiar and mysterious. They are the realization of modern day myths that draw on a primitive lore. Her fanciful visual and cultural vocabulary is embellished with elements such as thread, lace, and insect wings - a mélange that inspires discovery and wonderment."

For more information on the Field and Greene exhibitions, visit the Kinz, Tillou and Feigen Gallery website. To see more of Lori's gorgeous, dreamlike imagery, visit the Lori Field Fine Art website.

Viktor Vasnetsov

Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926) was a Russian painter of historical, religious, and folkloric subjects. He trained at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and then reacted against the art establishment there by joining the Peredvizhniki, the Itinerants movement.

Much like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England, the Itinerants refused to confine themselves to painting polite and acceptable subjects, scandalizing 19th century audiences by depicting scenes of Russian peasant life -- much as the PRB shocked Victorian society with paintings of prostitutes and other déclassé subjects. Both the Itinerants and the early Pre-Raphaelites rebelled against the formal academy method of painting, with its adherence to rigid rules of design and a light-on-dark color palette. This younger generation of artists championed naturalism, sunlight, and a color palette that seemed shockingly bright, even garish, by the standards of the day. And both groups were influenced by the new movement for folklore scholarship that was sweeping the globe, finding inspiration in the peasant folk art traditions of their respective countries. The Itinerants were more overtly political, however, laying the groundwork for the subsequent Social Realist movement...although the PRB had their political side too, particularly in William Morris's passionate pairing of art and socialism.

Vasnetsov made his obligatory pilgrimage to Paris in 1876 -- and it was there that he began painting the fairy tale subjects that became his obsession. Returning to Russia, he continued to explore the themes of Russian folk tales and bylinas (heroic epic poems of the Slav tradition) -- and was considered by some to have betrayed the Itinerants cause with such frivolous subjects. It was one thing to ennoble peasant life (and thus champion social democracy) by referencing folk art colors and design, and quite another for a serious painter to devote his time to old wives' tales. Vasnetsov had grown up among peasants, however. He came from a highly educated family, but his father had been a priest in a small, remote village during Viktor's childhood -- thus he'd grown up hearing fairy tales from the old country storytellers, and he understood them as metaphor, as the ancient language of rural life.

In his later years, Vasnetsov concentrated more and more on theater and building design -- but even in these fields he remained true to his love of fairy tales, creating magical sets for operas and plays and championing a "fairy tale style" of Russian Revivalist architecture.

If you're heading to Moscow anytime soon, then be sure to visit the Vasnetsov "house-museum" on the Pereulok Vasnetsova. As a recent article in the Moscow News reports: "The Dom Muzei VM Vasnetsov was built by the artist in 1894 and houses some beautiful wooden furniture and tiled stoves downstairs as well as several of Vasnetsov's paintings of fairy tale characters like Sleeping Beauty and Baba Yaga in the studio upstairs. Unlike many house-museums, where the furniture has been brought in to approximate the requisite era, every thing here is original and you can sit on nineteenth century benches to admire the huge canvases in the wooden attic. Vasnetsov's pictures here are at least as good as the ones in the Tretyakov Gallery, whose facade he designed. 'A true work of art,' he believed, expresses everything about a people. 'It conveys the past, the present and perhaps the future.' "

For more information on Viktor Vasnetsov, visit the Russian Avant-Garde Gallery website. And for information on Russia's rich fairy tale tradition, read Helen Pilinovsky's "Russian Fairy Tales, Part I: The Fantastic Traditions of the East and West" and "Part II, Baba Yaga's Domain," and James Graham's "Baba Yaga in Film," in the JoMA archives. The Vasnetsov paintings above are: The Birds of Joy and Sorrow, Alyonushka, and The Tsarina Who Would Not Smile.  Below: The Three Queens of the Underground Kingdom.

 

Táin Bó Cúailnge

Táin Bó Cúailnge, better known as the Táin, and customarily translated as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, is the most important of the approximately eighty tales that make up the Ulster Cycle. Queen Medb of Connacht, equal to her husband Ailill in all things except for the possession of a prize bull, goes to Ulster to steal the Donn Cúailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, to balance the scales. The men of Ulster being laid low by the periodic curse that has come upon them, the eighteen-year-old Cú Chulainn defends the province against the army of Ireland. It is an epic tale, full of violence, treachery, daring, and feats of arms, and Ciaran Carson's new translation, The Táin, is equal to it.

Legend has it that the Táin was first written down in the seventh century, when St. Colm Cille summoned the soul of Fergus Mac Róich, one of the main protagonists of the story, from the grave. Fergus recites the entirety of the Táin to St. Ciaran of Cluain, who writes it down on the hide of his pet dun cow, thus giving the name of the manuscript, Lebor na hUidre, "The Book of the Dun Cow." As "The Book of the Dun Cow" is one of the extant manuscripts in which a partial version of the Táin is found, it is fitting that this excellent modern version is also scribed by a Ciaran. Carson's translation is fresh and powerful, successfully negotiating the variety of literary styles present in the Táin. He gives as much respect to the high poetic elements of the roscada, the shadowy episodes of verbal jousting engaged in at key points of the story, as he does to Cú Chulainn's truly astounding feats of military prowess. Above all, Carson maintains the essential Irish flavor of the story. When you finish, you know that "what you saw was a people coming together."

The Táin and the Ulster Cycle have inspired a number of exciting artistic projects. The Decemberists recorded a version in song, and Gregory Frost has written novelizations both of the Táin, and of some of the other Ulster Cycle tales in Remscela. And perhaps my favorite new version is that by Belfast writer and cartoonist Patrick Brown, who is currently creating the Ulster Cycle as a webcomic, a terrific blend of the Iron Age and the modern. His ebook translations of some of the stories are also available on his site, and I highly recommend them.

The Monday Video

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, our Monday Video comes from one of my very favorite Irish bands, The Saw Doctors, performing an accoustic version of their song "N17" at Nighthawks in Dublin. (The band's name comes from itinerant craftsmen who once traveled from sawmill to sawmill sharpening and repairing saws. And the N17, for those unfamiliar with Ireland, is a road that runs from County Sligo to County Galway.) For more information about the Saw Doctors, and a list of their CDs, visit their website. "N17" comes from an early CD, If This is Rock and Roll I Want My Old Job Back, which is terrific -- but all of their CDs are fabulous and I'd be hard put to recommend one over another.

If your taste in Irish music runs more towards the traditional, follow this link to a video of the American-Irish band Solas performing "Coconut Dog/Morning Dew," with some truly lovely fiddle and guitar playing. And then for something different again, here's "Tóg é go bog é," a Gaelic song sung to the beat of bodhrán and djembe drums, from the Dublin folk-fusion band Kíla. For more information on these bands, visit the Solas and Kíla websites.

      

Our Sunday Poem today is "How to Change a Frog Into a Prince" by Anna Denise, from the Poetry 180 website.

Anna Denise was born in Livermore, California, and now lives in Davis. She received her MLS from San Jose State and currently works as a children's librarian. She is also a storyteller and is at work on a collection of fairy-tales poems.

The painting above is "The Frog Prince" by Maxfield Parrish.

Young Artists Spotlight: Nadia Turner

     

The charming paintings above are by Nadia Turner, a freelance illustrator out of Melbourne, Australia. Her inspiration, she says, comes from many sources: the art of the Surrealists and the Pre-Raphaelites, traditional folk art, children's book illustration, and music -- especially the Celtic harp and all the mythology and folklore associated with it.

Visit her website to see more of her work. (With thanks to Desiree Isphording for the link.)

Little Red Riding Hood Dolls

Stop by doll maker Jo James' wonderful blog The Cart Before the Horse, and have a look at the terrific collection of Little Red Riding Hood Dolls produced  by "Coffee With Tea," a collective of women artists. Sadly, some of them have already sold on ebay, or are not for sale -- but they sure are charming. The one pictured above is a quilted piece by Jo James, and both the figures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf are removable. You can see more on the process of making the piece here.The doll below is by Nina Mason, and stands about 15 inches high. Little Red Riding Hood carries a vintage basket and can also be removed and reposed. The wolf, about 21 inches long, is covered in fur that has been dipped in paint to give it more texture. You can see more closeup photos of the pair here.

Remember those lovely fairy tale beds we were drooling over recently? (They were here and here.) Well, I've just stumbled across the perfect linens for them: The Curious World of Fairy Tales Boudoir Pillows from Atelier Dageurre.

Atelier Daguerre is a housewares company featuring the work of Candyhog (a.k.a. the designers Abigail Hamilton and Richard L. Thompson). The company is located on Bainbridge Island, off the coast of Washington state.

Check out the Atelier Daguerre website, which is filled with delights -- including the cunning little fairy tale dress on the right.   

Speaking of fools...

Yesterday's post on the Fool-ish theatre company Maison Foo reminded me of a couple of interesting Fool articles out there on the web that you might enjoy perusing: "Fools are Everywhere" by Beatrice K. Otto, and "The Survival of the Fool in Modern Heroic Fantasy" by Roger Schlobin. (For more information on fools, clowns, and tricksters of all sorts, see the Winter 07 issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts.)

Maison Foo

Our "Monday Video" this week comes from the Maison Foo Theatre Company, presenting highlights from their dramatic adaptation of Carol Ann Duffy's mythic poetry collection The World's Wife.

Maison Foo is a theatre collective based in Derbyshire, England. Their name, they say comes from "Maison (house, home, dwelling, abode, address, residence, quarters, place, igloo) and Foo (an indescribable word given to indefinable things; happiness; influenced by the Yiddish word 'feh' and the English word 'Fool'; a rare species of dog; cult word in early Surrealist comic strips; rooted in the French word 'Fou,' meaning to be mad)." To learn more about the company, and their production of The World's Wife, visit their website.

The Sunday Poem

This winter we've been looking at the varied ways in which contemporary poets address the Persephone/Demeter myth.* Today we have a fresh new take on the theme: "Demeter in Winter" by Celia Bland...followed by an equally gorgeous mythic poem, "Zeus' First Wife," further down the same web page.

Celia Bland is the author of Soft Box (CavanKerry Press) and a member of the Albany Poets group. Her work has appeared in Natural Bridge, Bard Papers, Sui Generis, Prima Matera, Heliotrope, Chain, The Alembic, The Mystic River Review and other journals. (I particularly recommend her delightful piece Captions for Cartoons Not Yet Drawn, on the Entelechy Journal site.) For more information on the author, please visit her website.

The art above is by Jacqueline Morreau.

* See the previous Persephone/Demeter posts: November 18th, December 2nd and March 5th. And going even further back: June 3rd and January 14, 2007 and October 29, 2006.

Charles Vess' A Midsummers Night Dream Sculptural Fountain

Charles Vess has recently offered a fascinating account of the long process involved in creating his sculptural fountain, "A Midsummers Night Dream," with fellow artist David Spence. The post follows the construction of the fountain from the first sketches through the small-scale models in Sculpty to the final full-sized sculpt in clay, which was then cast in bronze. The central figure of Titania rises nearly 16 ft high in the center of the fountain, surrounded by Puck, fairies, foxes, and hares. The boulders that ring the fountain have been cast from actual full-sized boulders. (That's no small job either! I mean, how do you select just the right looking boulder?) The project is just a few months away from completion and I can't wait to see it finished! The fountain was commissioned by the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia.

Brian Jungen: Nike Shoes turn Mythical

I am fascinated by Canadian sculptor Brian Jungen's remarkable work, using Nike sneakers and human hair to create these stunning mythic masks (very reminiscent of Pacific Northwest Indian art). The black, white, and red Air Jordons share the same bold palette as many Native American artifacts. Jungen is particularly intriqued by the way meaning is layered when a familiar object is repositioned to evoke something entirely different.

Of this exhibit, Prototypes of New Understanding, Jungen says: "It was interesting to see how by simply manipulating the Air Jordan shoes you could evoke specific cultural traditions whilst simultaneously amplifying the process of cultural corruption and assimilation. The Nike mask sculptures seemed to articulate a paradoxical relationship between a consumerist artefact and an 'authentic' native artifact."

You can see more of his work (including a fabulous Whale skeleton made entirely out of white plastic chairs) at the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, and do stop by the Cyber Muse page of the National Gallery of Canada to view short interview clips with Jungen discussing his art and inspirations.

Dreams for Women

Here's a lovely video from Antigone Magazine, a Canadian journal whose mission is to inspire young women to engage politically and civically. The video is part of their Dreams for Women project, which they invite you to participate in. Here's the description:

"Antigone Magazine is launching a Feminist Postcard art project and fundraiser, but instead of asking what your secrets are [as per PostSecret], we want to know what your Dreams for Women are. What are your own dreams for yourself, your friends, your sisters, your daughters? Paint, draw, write, sketch or decoupage your dreams on a postcard and send it to us."

For more information (and to see copies of the postcards they've received so far) go here.

(via Feministing)

Odd and the Frost Giants

Thursday 6 March 2008 is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland. Children in those countries can exchange a book token for one of nine free books, including the latest offering by Neil Gaiman, Odd and the Frost Giants. Odd lives in Norway in the days before there were full-time Vikings. He has an infuriating smile, a valiant heart, and an ability to keep to himself that drives the other residents of his very small village mad with frustration. And then one day Odd walks into an adventure, one so marvelous that he knows "I can never tell anyone about this because they won't believe it. Because even I wouldn't believe it." But Odd faces this adventure with the same grace that he lives the rest of his life with, and finds himself on a journey, with three transfigured gods, to reclaim the city of Asgard from the Frost Giants.

Not quite as harrowing in tone as some of Gaiman's other works for younger readers, Odd and the Frost Giants is a loving reworking of Norse myth. (If you're like me, and good retellings make you want to know more about the source material, you might be interested in The Dictionary of Northern Mythology or The Norse Myths, which I first read as a child, and which made me deeply suspicious of that Loki fellow.) It is also a fairy tale, in the G. K. Chesterton sense: a story that tells us not only that dragons exist, but that they can be beaten. The Frost Giants are among the least of Odd's dragons. The cadences of the story make it perfectly suited to reading aloud, and Mark Buckingham's illustrations are delightful. Odd and the Frost Giants is currently available in the UK and Éire, and while Grafton Street is lovely in the spring, ordering from Amazon.uk is probably easier.

Happy World Book Day, everyone. What's your favorite book of the year so far...?

The Plum Woman

 

Jane Miller has a lovely post on Louise Glück's poetry over on the Persephone Speaks blog. Inspired by the name of the blog, Miller examines the two Persephone poems in Glück's stunning new collection Averno. (Miller is no slouch at poetry herself. I particularly recommend her collection A Palace of Pearls, and the hard-hitting Wherever You Lay Your Head.)

Are ya'll familiar with the Persephone Speaks blog, from Kore Press? It's a terrific source for short, topical essays on women, literature, and the writing process.

The art above is "Persephone and Demeter" by Susan Seddon Boulet.

The Monday Video

Thanks everyone for your patience while waiting for this blog and JoMA to get back on schedule. I'm still not entirely over my illness, and thus not back to full-time work yet, but I'll start posting again as I'm able to. (If you're waiting for correspondence from me, please be patient a while longer. There's a lot to catch up on, and I'm still under doctor's orders to strictly limit my work time.)

Our Monday Video (above): Natasha Khan's quirky all-women band Bat for Lashes (based in Brighton, England) peforming their eerie song "Horse and I" at the Mercury Awards.

If you like the music made by Khan and her cohorts as much as I do, then be sure to check out their weirdly wonderful videos for "What's a Girl to Do" -- which makes me laugh every time I see it -- and for "Prescilla." Want more? Here's the band performing "Trophy" at Maxwells NJ, and a short interview with Khan at Flasher.com (followed by another gorgeous performance). Enjoy.