Art&Ghosts Blog

A Wolvish Revolution

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Back to nature....

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The Sympathy of Wolves

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My sympathy (not pity, I should prefer to liken it to an affinity) for the 'wilderness' and all integral to it can be a painful experience at times. Nature itself creates and destroys; all that is beautiful, all that is wild has, at the same time, a definite aspect of terror. We are all aware of this, if not consciously. But it is the senseless, even willful destruction of this precious, terrifying wilderness by human hands that causes me a great deal of discomfort (is this because of our supposed 'awareness', our responsibility to know better?). And these concerns are becoming more and more apparent to me through my work. I consider the fate of wolves, tigers, trees....the fate of the earth beneath my feet, the air that I breathe, the inhabitants of endangered forests - and I feel impotent.

Sometimes I think that my images, some of them, the more obviously connected-to-the-wilderness pictures are a sort of feeble attempt at a quiet, dignified natural revolution. My own revolution; a savagely emotional affair. My girls and their curiously unpopulated landscapes are something of a testament to this. They are at one with the rhythms of the earth. And so are the occasional creatures that accompany them. They are the visual manifestations of my adoration and respect for all that we have lost, but they are also a symbol of beauty and hope - powerful and resolute, they are beyond the machinations of man(kind).

And it is this very beyondness that connects them so perfectly to the realm of fairytales, folktales, and myth. We all go hand in hand.

Pepper and Sky

Pepper, a horse I used to know. But I cannot remember him.

Once upon a time there was amnesia....and large sections of my life are still missing. Sometimes they come back, with an almost supernatural force (both the good and the not so good) creating a curious combination of sensations. Wonder, trepidation, amusement, disbelief. Amnesia is the strangest of things. I am not so sure that I should call it an 'affliction', for I am sure that it is a protective mechanism (in some cases). But for the most part, it is the most extraordinary thing, at its worst the most isolate thing, the most curious, terrifying, surreal thing that I have ever had the (mis)fortune to endure.

It's a pretty mixed bag.

Memories, some, return at intervals. Haphazard intervals at that. When they return they are like the delicate music of starlight on water or like an earthquake that shatters the heart. And it follows me around, the amnesia; it renews itself every six or eight years, so that many fragments of my 'present past' are also invariably whisked off into the great unknown.... whether lying dormant for a time, or lost for eternity, I am still too young to know.

Oddly, amnesia does not hinder my quality of life. There was a time when it did, when I sought too many answers, when falling down rabbit holes had become my stock in trade.....but thankfully, I am an adaptable little minx, and I have grown comfortably happy with my lot.

As for the details, the cause of my amnesia, this is rather personal, as I hope you will appreciate, but I will go so far as to say that it began in early childhood. The result of one god almighty shock. The above image depicts a journey. A journey forward - which (quite ironically) will often lead us backwards in time. But don't get me started on 'time', because I don't quite believe in it, in much the same way that some people don't believe in ghosts.

Seremonia #1

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A musical affair. One of many.

Part Little Red Riding Hood, part something else entirely. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it is of a similar ilk to the Sympathy of Wolves.

Before i go and eat, I would like to share my love for this delightfully dark yet beautiful book - The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. I am sure that many of you will have already read the book (I am always late, unfashionably so), but still......a fascinating read, for me, on so many levels; his rendering of certain emotional peculiarities and his perfectly dark yet heartwarming take on the traditional fairytale greatly appeals to me.

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Enjoy!

And take care.

The Orchard Twins and more....

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As a child I had an imaginary twin sister. In fact, she remained with me well into adulthood, popping up when I least expected her to, grinning at me in that superior way which often characterises older siblings (she was older than me by a couple of centuries, but that didn't stop her from being my twin), as if to say "Hello again, you moose! Bet you didn't expect to seem me again so soon". She would settle herself against an appropriately placed fence, wall or tree stump, crossing one leg over the other, oh-so-casually, quite as if she had been there all along, invisibly contemplating my bumbling inferiority with an ill-disguised relish. She didn't have a name that I can recall. She was simply my 'other.

My imaginary twin reigned supreme above all of my 'additional' imaginary companions - which included two twin boys, a beautiful, immortal, Jewish boy named Jake, and a very curious, talking cat - and she knew it. She had a tendency to be smug; an infuriating know-it-all, an exasperating little-miss-fancy-pants, perfectly wise and quite merciless with it. That said, she did have her finer points. She was remarkably loyal, forgiving, amusing and wild. I looked up to her, cherishing her advice at the same time resenting her weirdly haphazard presence. Where she came from is anyone's guess. Childhood itself, perhaps, a self-created mentor with an infinite store of confidence and courage. Or perhaps she truly did exist, and still does, crouching amongst the densly populated wilderness of an already over-stimulated imagination (my own), biding her time, patiently predicting my next hilarious blunder or misguided judgement, which will inevitably herald her entirely unprepared-for re-appearance, and then.... voila! (she has a tendency to appear sitting cross-legged on the tops of wardrobes or slouched inside of an empty bathtub)

The last time she appeared she was disguised as a portly, mustachioed, Belgian dectective (sat atop a fine mahogany wardrobe, in fact). Not entirely reminiscent of the legendary Hercule Poirot, but similar, quite similar.

So, a homage to twin sisters, both real and imagined:

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Orchard Twins

I adore their simplicity, that bite out of the apple.

The 'Ruby' girl again, returns with brand new offerings of apples and pears. Her quiet, ghostly, enigmatic little face intrigues me. I'm quite in love with her.

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Olive Goes Forth

 

Striking out on her own. Pear girl.

I had choices. I made a version of this image with her feet embedded in the grass, coupled with a lifelike shadow, of sorts, but for some reason this just didn't cut it for me, regardless of its 'legitimacy'. 

Her hair is supposed to resemble roots. Of a fashion. No fancy brush work here!ct

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Lullabye

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I wanted to capture the visual essence of a lullabye. Perhaps I have, I'm not so sure. The midnight/twilight hues, the snowy forest and the flowers that appear to be trapped beneath ice, the stars and that unearthly glow - there is something almost reasurring about the unknown, the mysterious - as if without it we might just curl up and die of 'reality'.....the glaring violence of 'known facts', the tragic consequences of a one-dimensional existence.

You never know.

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The Portland Twins

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The Portland sisters, of yesteryear.

I have been reading Sherlock Holmes again.... I doubt that Mr. Conan Doyle had much of an interest in pears, but this should certainly have inspired the curiosity of his infamous, smarty-pants sleuth. I can picture it now, Holmes and Watson arriving at Portland Manor, carpet bags in hand, awaiting admittance (as Holmes twirls his cane, whistling to a little ditty that has been troubling him at the violin), only to be greatly astonished by the sudden appearance (instead of the customary maid or butler) of a pear headed young lady....

"Oh! Excuse me, madam, I did not know....." stammered Watson, uncommonly shaken by this curious apparition that stood so proudly before him.

"That is quite alright, sir," said the pear headed Portland sister, exhibiting a rather charming display of humility, "Won't you please step inside?"

"My good lady!" bellowed Sherlock Holmes, "A pleasure to meet you, indeed!"

"Why, Mr Sherlock Holmes!" cried the pear headed lady with undisguised joy and admiration, " I have heard so many wonderful things about you, I do so hope that you can assist us with our.....little problem."

"We shall try, my good lady, we shall try."

Aside, Watson took hold of Holmes' arm as the pear headed lady rushed through the reception parlour to notify her sister as to the arrival of the two gentlemen.

"Surely," he yelled, in a whisper, "Surely there is nothing that you or I could do to remedy such a ....situation, Holmes! Never in my born days have i been witness to such an anomaly!"

"Why, Watson!" bellowed Sherlock Holmes, in a whisper, "We have not been called upon to do any such thing. Please, calm yourself this instant. We are here to investigate a rather dispicable and mysterious crime, the theft, in fact, of several rare and exquisite oil portraits of the lady Constance Portland's jack russel terrier!"

"Jack russel terrier!" spluttered Watson, "You mean to say that we are not here to unravel the.....the....that...disfigurement?"

"I have no idea what you are alluding to, my good friend, but please do control yourself." Holmes boomed, in a whisper, then "Ah! the ladies Constance and Araminta Portland! Meet my good friend and faithful assistant, doctor Watson!"

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Through the Looking Glass, Darkly

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More from my Wonderlanders series.

A little bit sinister, I put that down to the girls faces. Not intentional, but some things are best left to chance. This is the Hall of Mirrors, of course, a sort of dimensional 'spaghetti junction'.

The Spades are difficult to pin down, sometimes they might apear to be cold hearted, calculating and humourless, but they are, nonetheless, quite remarkable, talented Wonderlanders. Levitation and superpositional hat-tricks are their stock in trade. Watch them, and they will disappear.

"....Atoms and their kin can do many impossible things before breakfast. For instance, they can be in two or more places at once, penetrate impenetrable barriers, and know about each other instantly even when on different sides of the universe. They are also totally unpredictable, doing things for no reason at all - perhaps the most shocking and unsettling of all their characteristics"

(Taken from the book Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, by Marcus Chown)

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Silver Lining

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I do not know who created the above image. I can't remember.

I tore it out of a magazine and pasted it onto the cover of a collage-novel that I created 8 years ago today. A story that has no conceivable ending. And that is the beauty of it. I guess.

Why am i posting this?

No idea. I think that I am becoming more and more sentimental with time. That's all.

Art can celebrate birthdays too, you know:)

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