I've fallen under the spell of the strange and enchanting sculptures created by Pat Lillich, which can be viewed on her evocative website: In the Shadows: Outsiders and Others. Here you'll find satyrs, centaurs, gargoyles, and assorted other creatures winged, hoofed, and horned, stepping from the mythic borderlands where human and animal shapes merge and transform.
The artist describes herself as a computer geek whose uncle started her on reading speculative fiction at an early age. "I began with Doc Savage, Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and the Andre Norton books, then continued on through P.C. Hodgell's 'Jamie' novels, Charles de Lint's tales of urban fae street folk, the Borderland series, Patricia McKillip's magical novels and many more -- each one of these stories adding to the pictures in my head. I picked up clay when a series of family tragedies and challenges hit, and I needed some way to work through them."
Lillich started out by doing sculpts of her family and friends -- and continues to do so to this day, using their faces and forms as a starting point from which her magical imagery emerges. "Sculpting a piece can be a kind of meditation -- where the person I am sculpting, or an issue I am thinking about, influences the way the sculpt evolves. For example, one piece evolved as a nude woman with antlers -- the lack of clothing indicating her vulnerability, the antlers being a physical manifestation of her schizophrenia, her pain and her difference. For me, this is a more interesting representation of who she is than if I'd created a photo realistic portrait.
"Mostly I'm interested in fringe people, outsiders and others, those who have reason to stay back away from the mainstream, watching, never joining in, but always wishing they could...."
Lillich offers this apt quote from C.G. Jung on her website: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
Hi Terri! Pat is one of my wonderful friends who will be showing her work at Magnum Opus this Febuary in NYC! Isn't her work fabulous?! I just love her and her amazing creatures.
~Chandra~
Posted by: chandracerchionepeltier | January 20, 2007 at 08:16 AM
It's an impressive list of artists involved in Magnum Opus. We're really looking forward to doing a feature on the show in early Feb., closer to the opening date.
Posted by: Terri Windling | January 20, 2007 at 10:48 AM
Thank you, Terri, everyone really appreciates your assistance in promoting this event! I am as excited to see the work of Pat Lillich, Forest Rogers, and the others, as I am to participate in it!
Posted by: chandracerchionepeltier | January 21, 2007 at 09:08 PM
beautiful, beautiful work.
Posted by: mimi k | January 22, 2007 at 06:18 AM
That is some seriously cool stuff right there.
Posted by: UrsulaV | January 22, 2007 at 06:59 AM