Tag Archives: fantasy

Books, Music and Film

Escape the Mundane: Supernatural Reading List

leonora-carrington

As we’re on day ??? of quarantine and a big day out consists of going to the grocery store, there has never been a better time to let a book take you on a journey to fantastical realms. I have subsequently been streaming a lot of scary movies lately ;). Why I love taking a break from Netflix and enjoying a good book is because it allows me to engage the creative part of my brain even while relaxing to imagine what is being described in my own way. If reading just doesn’t work for you, remember there are always audiobooks too! Below are some of my all time favorite supernatural stories to get you started.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Speaking of Netflix, I was excited to learn this book had been made into a series earlier this year, and will definitely be checking it out soon. A young girl with no inclinations of settling down (definitely a pretty strong feminist before feminism was a thing) has a chance to save herself and her struggling father who was cheated in business from crippling poverty when a strange proposition is made … That she marry a wealthy family’s dead son to placate his restless spirit after he dies of questionable circumstances. She is pulled into a series of surreal adventures in the parallel world of the afterlife that are rich with history and Chinese lore. The vivid descriptions of ghost cities and the spirits she meets along the way are absolutely fascinating. This is one of my favorite books that I’ve read within the last year.

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

This is another interesting story that though fantastical is rooted in real history and spiritual beliefs. It is based on the real life person Teresa Urrea, who was the great aunt of the author and allegedly got sick and passed away temporarily, then came back to life, after which she obtained the power to heal. Urrea spent 20 years writing this novel and researching the life of this Teresa, who was and is revered as the “Saint of Cabora” but was never recognized by the church, who instead referred to her as “the most dangerous woman in Mexico”. Taking place in the late 19th century during the beginnings of Mexico’s civil war, there is a lot of history woven throughout the supernatural facets that add to the realism and make you question what actually happened back then …

Eleanor by Jason Gurley

This novel meditates on a lot of heavy themes: familial dysfunction, mental health, guilt, loss, grief … All through the connection between female family members, and parallel worlds and time travel. This is one of the most unique books I’ve ever read and really defies a specific genre. When I found this novel at a used book sale, the teaser synopsis didn’t really tell me much about what the story was actually going to be about. I ended up giving it a try due to being sucked into the cover art, a gorgeous, bleeding watercolor and ink illustration of crying eyes on a stark white background. I guess sometimes you can judge a book by its cover ;).

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This is another book that really defies description and you just have to check it out for yourself. It is an experience. I will be honest, you will probably either love it or hate it. The pages sometimes look like this …

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There are stories on top of stories in a way, but the main story focuses on a family living in an ever shifting house that seems to be impossibly larger on the inside, the text often shifting visually with us as we read. Love it or hate it, it definitely will leave you feeling odd and maybe questioning reality a bit.

The Book Of Strange New Things by Michael Faber

This book is quite literally about an outer space missionary. A man of faith is called by a mysterious corporation to minister to an alien race looking for answers. As he is celebrated and thrives among them, he finds things are crumbling at home as his wife and he communicate back and forth. Natural and governmental disasters abound on earth, and his sense of responsibility is understandably torn. Both an odd sci-fi tale and a drama, I found this novel itself to be quite strange, but also incredibly moving and thought provoking. The focus really isn’t so much on purely religious faith, but the idea of how we determine the hierarchy between our passions and the people who depend on us.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

First off, this novel was penned by a well known artist that was a part of the surrealist movement, even more remarkable that she was a woman in a time when people still thought women couldn’t possibly be good painters. Insert eye-roll here. Her work shown above was used as the cover for this story. The main character of this tale is a hilarious nonagenarian with a good bit of attitude who is about to be sent to an institution for the elderly. She is understandably displeased, but all is not as it seems … Her new home has apartments shaped like cupcakes and igloos, and some lively leaders. It’s like Alice In Wonderland but in a nursing home, and is one wild ride with some interesting occult spiritualism thrown in at the end.

The Golem and The Jinni By Helene Wecker

This book is based in Middle Eastern and Jewish mythology and features two mythical creatures that form an unlikely bond. A golem, made of clay and brought to life through occult magic, is created to be the devoted and unquestioning wife of a lonely (and let’s face it, lazy) man who ends up dying on the oversea voyage they take together to their new life. Golems traditionally have a master whom they are bound to forever obey, and without she is quite adrift. A fire-born Jinni, created and encased in a flask in Syria and released in the middle of New York city, crosses her path and these now unbound entities form a strong bond as they try to navigate together a life in which they do not belong. Similar to many of these other stories, history and myth are pivotal which makes this book all the more interesting.

The King In Yellow and Other Horror Stories by Robert W. Chambers

This book of short stories stuck with me long after finishing. They aren’t really scary in the traditional sense, just very odd leaving the reader with both a sense of subtle discontent but also fantastical inspiration. Though less well known perhaps, I actually enjoy this author far more than H.P. Lovecraft.

Are there any supernatural books you love? Please please please leave a comment! I am in desperate need of new suggestions. Happy adventuring (in your mind)!

 

 

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New Work

New Series and The Symbolism of Color

I’ve always been interested in the social significance of color, both in cultural symbolism and in the psychology of how color can affect our emotions. Showing solidarity for a specific cause through a group of people all wearing the same color on a certain day or for the attendance of a specific event has become a common practice. My partner has a viscerally negative reaction to the color yellow, and will be caused agitation if surrounded by a bright yellow environment (so basically he just loves the bright yellow flower print wallpaper that was complimentary with the bathroom in our home upon move-in). I have received shocked reactions even from people in my own young-adult age bracket at the mention that if I ever get married at some point, I probably wouldn’t choose a white wedding dress. These are just a couple of examples of the strong reactions people have to color as a form of communication, tradition, and emotional influence in both our exterior environment and more personally in how we choose to adorn ourselves and present our bodies to the world.

Of course, I will be working on other separate projects in between but my main focus going forward will be on a new series exploring the symbolism of different colors worldwide, taking the significance of specific colors from regions all over the world and integrating these often opposing meanings into a single story about that color. I will be focusing on 5 main colors, the 3 primaries of red, yellow, and blue and then black and white. The first color I have represented is white.

Depending where you are, white can symbolize new beginnings and a clean slate, or endings and mourning making it very much a bookend sort of color. It symbolizes traits that are considered more docile like purity, innocence and virtue, but also more courageous sentiments like protection and sacrifice. White is also a color that across cultures is often associated with femininity.

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For “The End Is Also The Beginning” I used a mixed media approach, choosing the mediums that would lend themselves best to the look I wanted to achieve for different parts of the piece. I used watercolor for the ice figures, snow, clouds, and water. I used prismacolor pencil (including metallic silver accents) for the figure, rabbit, and areas of fine detail like the blossom trees and patterns in the sky. I used scrap fabric for the pattern on the dress (actually left over from the hemmed curtains hanging in my art room. This is why you never toss scraps!), and flat-back acrylic pearls and beads for the decoration on the neckline of her gown, and her earrings.

I have a couple of juried shows coming up, and this will be one of the pieces getting sent off, so wish me luck!

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Books, Music and Film

Young Adult Lit That Has An Impact

I love to read and the genres I enjoy cover a wide gamut. Still, I am often guilty of scoffing at YA lit as nothing but fluff, and even as a youngster upgraded to the adult section of the library growing up as soon as my parents would let me, though there was a heated discussion about gratuitous vampire sex when I started checking out all the Anne Rice books I could get my hands on, and my mom happened to flip through one while I was at school – oops! Despite this, when I really stop and think about it there are so many YA books I read and reread multiple times, and that I still remember to this day. These books had an impact, and though geared towards a younger audience still offer quality characters and rich story lines, and are worth reading today. Granted, my list is going to be revolving around the time period of when I was a young adult, so there may be brilliant new YA lit that I have never heard of. However, I believe these have stood the test of time and would still be enjoyable and thought provoking today. I let go of most of these when I stupidly did a book purge before going away to college, and I regret it to this day!

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson

For a period of time when I was a kid, around 5th grade, my mom and I would choose books to read aloud together before bed, a handful of pages each night in my parents big fluffy bed that somehow always seemed so much more luxurious than my own, maybe because it was bigger and had more pillows :P. This was one of the books we read together along with one about a little girl with a best friend who has childhood leukemia – Apparently, we both had a penchant for sad stories, and don’t you just have the deepest sleep after doing a bit of crying before you lie down for the night? It’s a great energy burner. All jokes aside though, this is by no means an easy read but it is important, and for that reason has stood the test of time and is still being discussed to this day, over 20 years later. It centers around a young girl starting her freshman year of high school, who is ostracized for calling the cops on a party she attended over the summer, when in fact she was assaulted there but never told anyone. The novel follows her freshman year, and her personal journey as she learns to acknowledge what happened to her, call it by its name, and speak up. Sadly, this is still 100% relevant today if not more so though it was written long before this was a national conversation. Worth the read no matter your age.

sabriel_book_coverThe Abhorsen Trilogy, Garth Nix

Garth Nix was the Sci-Fi and Fantasy author for tweens in the late 90s/early 2000s. This series was always my favorite and I think the most powerful. The Abhorsen trilogy takes place in an imaginary universe based on early 20th century England. It centers around a family of Necromancers, and has an array of strong and complex female protagonists (as well as some interesting male characters!), and of course their equally fascinating daemon companions. What was always cool about this series was the exploration of necromancy as just another type of magic whereas normally it is portrayed as the “evil” or villainous vein. I’ve been hard pressed to find any other fantasy series young adult or otherwise that matched the elegant style of writing and creative and entrancing plot. The books also have gorgeous cover art, which is what made me check the little box when they appeared as a choice in the Scholastic book order 😉 (No Amazon! How’s that for nostalgia?).  I have actually not read them yet, but there is a prequel titled Clariel that came out in 2014, and apparently another new installment, Goldenhand, that came out in 2016 – so imagine my surprise to see that this series is still going after all this time!

I am Morgan le Fay, Nancy Springer

This is another book that humanizes the type of fantasy character that is often seen as “bad”. I’m a sucker for stories that are retold from a different perspective, and became deeply interested in Arthurian legend ever since watching this amazing made for TV movie in 1998, with the goddess that is Helena Bonham Carter playing miss le Fay herself. Though her actions prove abysmal, this story causes the reader to still feel some empathy for her as her ill fated lot in life, familiar to those aware of the classic tale, unfolds from her point of view and through her eyes. Living with the knowledge of her dark fate which she eventually gives in to and later even embraces, we are forced to contemplate, do we have control over destiny? Is fate really just a self fulfilling prophecy? Must our past control our future? Doe we change prophecy as we take our life into our own hands? It also fills in the blanks of her childhood, showing us how she learned magic, a part which is not usually included. Merlin is, in contrast to his usual whimsical self, portrayed as more evil and manipulative. At the end of the day, everyone is flawed, none are blameless, and that is what makes this such a compelling story.

scan0042Feed, M.T. Anderson

Dystopian futures – always a popular concept! This novel portrays a near-future in which the feednet,  an advanced form of the Internet, is directly connected to the brains of the majority of American citizens by means of an implanted device called a feed. The feed allows people to mentally access websites; experience shareable VR from entertainment programs, to music, to others’ memories; “continually interact with intrusive corporations in a personal preference-based way”; and communicate telepathically on closed channels with others who also have feeds, basically direct messaging but it’s in your head. Of course, by this point the environment is destroyed. There are artificial, trademarked Clouds™, you can custom design your own children before pregnancy, the entire national school system (called School™) is now owned and run by the people who run and own The Feed – it’s a total creepshow mess. Some start to question and try to resist The Feed … adventure and calamity ensues.  It’s interesting how wild all of this sounded when I read this in high school (That’s me, before prom, getting picked up and being like ‘Wait, imma read one more page …’), and how almost 13 years later I’m thinking in the back of my head, “I don’t know that could be feasible …”. Only time will tell …

The Alice Series, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I only read the books in this coming of age series from when our Alice protagonist was in junior high, and had no idea at the time that this huge series of books started with Alice in elementary school and went on to adulthood, where she lands a job in the fitting role as a middle school guidance counselor. What was interesting about this series, and her main character, was that she was not really interesting at all. I in no way mean that as an insult, she was just a perfectly average young girl that everyone could relate to, especially those that maybe hadn’t found their niche yet. I remember this series being pretty inoffensive, so I was shocked to hear later that they had been banned from a couple of school libraries! Alice was an average, realistic picture of the adolescent girl and as such she had an innocent curiosity about things like kissing, condoms, sex and babies. In the books, she didn’t have a mom to talk to about this kind of stuff, connecting with other kids who may be in this same situation. Apparently there was also a mention of homosexuality in one of the later high school aged books. Guess what guys, gay people exist and not learning about them doesn’t make them go away – Next! Can you tell I really don’t like censorship? The writer of this fantastic article and interview with Phyllis Reynolds Naylor sums up the appeal of the Alice books best when she says, “Katniss Everdeen’s bow and arrow are all well and good, but sometimes you just want a heroine whose current problem is heartbreak and a tragic haircut”.

Born Confused, Tanuja Desai Hidier

I was drawn to this book partially because I’ve always found it interesting to read books from the perspective of people that were very different from me, and also partially because I had a fast best friend I met in my 7th grade speech class whose family was from India. This was the first time I’d heard of the idea of cultural appropriation (though that term wasn’t used at the time), way before it would become a major discussion point. The book portrays the double standard of how when the main character of Indian descent, Dimple, wears her traditional garments and jewelry she is seen as backwards or conservative, odd, and out of touch, but when a blonde white girl (her best friend) borrows her clothes and wears them out she is trendy, cool, exotic, and bohemian. This novel is a coming of age tale explored through the lens of not just a generational gap between daughter and parents but a cultural one, and also a cultural gap between the main character and the rest of her peers. It explores both the feelings of uniqueness and identity and also loneliness and isolation in being an American citizen that is visibly from somewhere else. I found it funny, insightful, and moving.

aba-1-037Abarat, Clive Barker

I sadly never finished the series as I soon leveled up out of YA fiction, but this is another book that grabbed me with the cover art, if not just the name attached to it as a horror fan. I ALWAYS judge books by their cover, and what is amazing about these novels is that prints of Barker’s actual surreal, colorful paintings on canvas depicting the various characters and scenarios in the book are peppered throughout, some in the margins and some in beautiful full page inserts. Our main character Candy Quackenbush lives in Chickentown, Minnesota (hilarious!), and is just about as fed up as she can be with her dull school and boring life when she finds a point of entry to the fantastical archipelago of Abarat, filled with strange creatures both wonderful and sinister. It’s basically a weirder Alice In Wonderland, with a lot more adventuring on the part of our protagonist. I mean, it’s Clive Barker – it’s going to be a wild ride.

What were some of your favorite young adult books growing up?

 

 

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New Work

Doll Repaints – My Addictive New Hobby!

I first heard of the art of doll repainting when I came upon an article about Tree Change Dolls. An Australian mother, doll lover, and recycling enthusiast had begun repainting discarded dolls found at secondhand shops and giving them a new life. Word got out, and her hobby took off in a bigger way than she ever expected. She primarily works with Bratz dolls, giving them her signature make-unders to make the dolls bare a closer resemblance to the kids that likely play with them.

By the time Bratz dolls came out I was already in 7th grade and getting out of playing with fashion dolls, though I did still covet the collectible, for-display Barbies with elaborate costumes and often retro styling. Still, I always thought Bratz dolls’ over-the-top iridescent makeup and decidedly not vanilla clothing was a lot of fun. These girls were definitely not going to a yacht club or garden party. Dolls for girls do tend to either look like either teens/young adults or babies, with a curious lack of dolls that resemble the age girls that play with fashion dolls usually are, so I can definitely still get behind what this mom is doing. Also, watch the video – she is just having a blast, hoping to make people happy along the way, and her enthusiasm for her craft is contagious :).

I very recently was commissioned by a regular ebay customer and art doll collector to draw an ACEO illustration of one of her Monster High Doll repaints she purchased from another artist. Monster High Dolls by Mattel are another line that came after my childhood, but that I always wished I had been young enough to play with. Their colorful, surreal appearance coupled with the fact that they use a wide variety of facial sculpts (i.e. not just offering the same basic mold in different skin tones and eye colors) attracted me right away. The more I looked up other repaints on ebay and etsy, the more I was convinced I absolutely had to try this myself. I bought a lot of 4 previously loved dolls, and stayed up until after midnight working on the bulk of my first doll, originally a MH Operetta model, completely lost to time.

I used nail polish remover to clear off all the factory paint, and gave her hair a good brushing and a new ponytail. I used a translucent metallic copper paint first to add shading and give her the look of a fantastical creature made of a merging of metal and skin.  I dry brushed more heavily over the side of her body covered in the embossed swirls to emphasize this unique design feature, using a clear matte medium along the edges of the wet paint to blend. I mixed a peachy acrylic with matte medium to add blush to her cheeks, and then used acrylic on her eyes and lips, covering both with a gloss medium to give them a moist, realistic appearance. I used a detail brush to paint her teeny tiny fingernails and toenails. I too love recycling, and used a variety of lace, ribbon, and cotton fabric scraps to craft her gown. The velvety strawberries and leaves are from a lot of vintage millinery florals I’ve acquired, some from ebay, some from antique sales. And thus, The Princess of Strawberries was born!

My style definitely leans more towards the fantasy couture, and this doll is a display-only unlike the creations of the fun mom above. Maybe for one of my others I will make a more every-day version for play, who knows!

My princess is for sale, and you can see her in more detail here.

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New Work

New Progress On My Current Series!

august-she-is-an-earthshaker-blgr

Hello all! I recently finished another addition to my 12 part series I’ve been working on since late 2015. For new readers, here’s my blurb briefly explaining the series (If you are already in the know, feel free to skip ahead 😉 ): I am creating 12 mixed media, surreal, conceptual portraits in which the meaning is influenced by the use of pattern and color. They will depict women of all ages, races, and time periods, and each will communicate a different theme. I aim for the pieces to speak to women’s collective experiences beyond their differences. Each of the 12 will represent a month of the year. We tend to think of time and events in terms of our own personal history or the history of the nation in which we reside. But of course, there are women everywhere living out their day to day life all over the world, with hopes, dreams, fears , relationships. Our situations and struggles are very different, but were we in some alternate reality all given a chance to meet, I suspect we would find some surprising similarities, maybe more than we ever expected. The title of each piece starts with the month it represents, followed by “She Is _______”.

This piece is titled July: She Is An Earthshaker. I love mermaids, and really got into aquatic art after following the required theme for the Tall Ships curated exhibition at Studio 23 last summer. This was a fun piece to create, and perhaps my favorite in the series thus far. As a child I don’t know how many times I watched The Little Mermaid, and was absolutely transfixed by King Tritan’s trident (Which of course I later learned came from the myth of Poseidon). I became inspired to make a powerful Lady Poseidon if you will. Earthshaker is another way Poseidon has been referenced, but the name can also apply to those of us in the real world, ordinary people who create waves to change what needs to be changed. She wears a pretty seashell and floral crown, and her facial expression is not one of anger or even one that would imply intense power. Her strength is a quiet strength. If in her head, she can see herself like this, the waves and lightening crashing behind her as she stands firm, perhaps she can believe that she can do anything even if others may doubt her.

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This design is available for print on a variety of cool items in my Redbubble Shop, and art prints on matte photo paper may also be purchased from me Ebay Store.

Check out the other pieces I’ve finished so far! January February March June 

11×14 Prismacolor Pencil and Mixed Media
11×14 Prismacolor Pencil and Mixed Media
11×14 Prismacolor Pencil and Mixed Media
11×14 Prismacolor Pencil and Mixed Media

 

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New Work

New Series Re-Imagines Childhood Drawings

Now that I got all of my work finished for the upcoming Michigan all area shows I am entering, I wanted to take the opportunity to spend some time on a new project that I’d done sketches for about 2 years ago and never revisited after getting distracted by mountains of other projects. Working with kids and youth over the summer at Creative 360 while Artshop was on break,  we did lots of acrylic painting. Acrylics is a medium I’d abandoned over the last couple of years, and it made me miss it.

I had a teacher once who said you will always be who you were when you were 8. You may drift in the in-between teen years; who doesn’t go through an identity crisis at least once in high school or within early young adult age; but you will always come back to the most basic facets of personality you exhibited as child. At your core, you are who you were at eight years old and will still be at 80.

When I think about it, at 28 I do share many of the same traits with my 8 year old self. I still adore books, I still have my own distinctive and at times highly experimental fashion sense (I was wearing sun glass frames with the lenses popped out far before hipsters ever existed.), I am still always actively finding ways to meld creativity with vocation, I still am obsessed with all things design oriented (Look how pumped I am about my digital runway show I’ve put together on that snazzy Windows 95), and I still can’t sleep unless buried under 3+ layers of blankets even in summer :P.

Luckily for me, and this project, my mother is amazing and has the best of my childhood drawings from each year of my life archived in a neat, chronological little binder, so finding artwork examples was no big thing. I have chosen a drawing from each year, 2-10 (nothing for year 1, I’m not that amazing.) I will be using the same subject matter, colors, and proportions to re-imagine these childhood drawings as fine art acrylic paintings. Here is the first piece I’ve completed for age 4.

Kid drawings aren’t all the same when you really look at them, and you truly can tell a lot about someone from what they create, same as with adults. Here are some other fun projects people have done taking inspiration from kids’ drawings.

Bored Panda / Go Monster Project

Cafe Mom / Parents Turn Their Kids’ Art Into Tattoos

Huffington Post / Mom-Toddler Painting Collaborations

Busy Mockingbird / Artist Collaborates With 4-Year-Old Daughter

Doodle Your Toys / Custom Handmade Plush Toys

 

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Artists To Know

Artists To Know! Installment Two.

James Jean

James Jean is a double threat Taiwanese American artist – known equally well for both his commercial (DC Comics, ESPN, Prada, and Atlantic Records to name a few) and fine art gallery work. I know James Jean most from his arresting illustrations that grace the covers of Bill Willingham’s “Fables” graphic novel series. I am not one to ever keep up with series, but I cannot stop adding more of these books to my collection. Not only is the art obviously exquisite, but the stories are gripping, and the very reason I just cannot get into that “Once Upon A Time” TV show everyone is freaking out over – Same idea, but “Fables” is just so much better. Jean’s illustrations range from the ultra colorful to the monochromatic as featured below, but they all have a transparent, ghost-like quality to them that is just made for depicting fantasy characters, not fully “real” themselves. His website features a lot of his non-fables work, which was fascinating to see since I wasn’t as acquainted with it.

James Jean

Madge Gill

Madge Gill is not a current artist, being born in the late 1800s and passing in 1961. Though I usually highlight artists still working today, her primitive ink drawings drew me in the moment I first saw them. One of my workplaces had a couple-month-long focus on outsider art over the fall, which prompted me to want to learn more about the genre. Outsider art is literally art created by outsiders or untaught artists, art created outside the boundaries of official culture. I watched a documentary about outsider artists on youtube one evening, and Madge was one of the artists highlighted. She had a life filled with more hardship than many have to face. After delivering a stillborn child in 1920, one more painful life event, Madge claimed she had become inhabited by a spirit guide named Myrninerest. This connection continued throughout her life, and she would often go into trance like states, withdrawing more and more into herself. Though her detailed drawings of characteristic females; most of which took her only minutes at a time; continue to captivate viewers, it seems she never found peace. Near the end of her life, even her art-making had become a burden, more an obsessive-compulsion than a therapy. The biography on her website asks, “Are these in a sense self-portraits, or rather: attempts to stabilize her own fragile being, as it were through fleeting snapshots? Another reading equates the faces with Myrninerest, envisaged as the artist’s otherworldly alter ego, immune to the traumas of actual life.” (In the documentary, I noticed the alter ego’s name was pronounced as “My inner rest”, which would seem to suggest that the alter ego created as an escape or explanation for behavior she could not control is a plausible hypothesis). Her story is a sobering realization that although art helps us in coping with difficult emotions and can be a vital form of self-expression to those whose voices are stifled, creation alone is sometimes not enough, especially in isolation.

Madge Gill

Yayoi Kusama

I first saw Yayoi Kusama’s work at The Mattress Factory on a school trip to Pittsburgh (shown in the photo below). Though I wasn’t familiar with her at the time, this installation was my absolute favorite. Same as with Madge Gill, I learned about Yayoi Kusama through my outsider art documentary binge. A clip of a similar installation to the one I saw was shown in the film, and I suddenly realized “Oh my gosh, I’ve walked around inside her work before!” Also similar to Madge Gill, Yayoi Kusama has wrestled with psychological issues throughout her life, though her story has a far happier ending. Kusama began creating art with polka dot motifs as early as 10 years old, one of her first pieces a drawing of her mother with dots emanating from her portrait (Her mother was physically and emotionally abusive). She also began suffering hallucinations at an early age, seeing these dots everywhere, flowing towards her, in her own words trying to “obliterate” her. To date, many of her works include the words and themes of “self-obliteration”. In 1973, she checked herself into Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill and still lives there to this day by choice, her studio nearby. Kusama has reached out, and come to enjoy the residents and staff and art continues to be a source of joy and purpose in her life. A creator of all trades (and master as well), she creates paintings, sculpture, installations, clothing and accessories, fashion editorials, films, and poetry and short stories all cloaked in her trademark surreal, ultra colorful, polka dot covered world.

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Martine Johanna

Martine Johanna is a Dutch artist who started out in fashion design, but left the industry desiring more freedom to devote to her own work. The fashion influence is evident in her figure’s pose, gaze, and design. What I love most is how she sometimes leaves areas of pieces less developed to draw the viewer’s eyes to where she wants them to rest. If you look through the rest of her work as well, you will also see how she uses bold, bright colors you wouldn’t think of using for skin tones like blues and yellows to render her figures’ flesh. Bringing these natural undertones to the forefront gives her work an otherworldly quality that it is impossible to look away from, and highlights her imaginative nature.

Martine Johanna

Arabella Proffer

Google+ is a great place to discover artists as far as social media goes, and that is where I found Arabella Proffer. She was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (woohoo, shout out to my home state, where I still reside) and now lives in Ohio (second shout out to where my parents are from and where most of my extended family still lives. I guess some cool art CAN come out of the midwest, huh?) – I thought that was pretty cool. Her work combines old school, aristocratic portraiture with pure 1980s punk rock and gothic culture. She also has an interest in medical history, remnants of which find their way into her work. The contrast of all these elements creates a tension that makes me want to get to know the fabulous women in her pieces, sit down and have a cup of coffee with them in their imaginary, velvet curtained living rooms – they all seem like so much fun.

Arabella Proffer

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Artists To Know

Artists to Know! Installment One.

In my first installment of Artists to Know, there are actually two digital artists, still unbelievably underrepresented in this day and age. Digital artists are highly under appreciated, and wrongly viewed as art “cheaters” in the fine art world. I myself have played around with digital work, and absolutely HATED it! Take it from me, what one can do in 10 minutes with a brush seems to take 10 hours on a computer. Digital art is used to achieve a desired effect, it is by no means a shortcut. I hope you see something new today, maybe something that sparks ideas of your own.

Ray Caesar

Ray Caesar describes his art on his website as “facing something unpleasant with calm and looking beyond what you’re viewing to see the beauty within”. His work is influenced by the time he spent working as a photographer and graphic designer at a children’s hospital, many of whom were abused or suffered from serious physical deformities. After his mother’s death, he had a dream in which she appeared to him as a child. The childlike figures in his pieces aren’t really children but the manifestation of people’s souls. His work is certainly not for everyone, and I know many who find his art too  creepy or disturbing, but it goes to show that as artists, our experiences do inform what we create. He uses digital programs to create a 3D world in which he can change poses, adjust the viewpoint angle, open and close drawers … He has said there are hidden secrets that never show up in the prints such as what are in the figure’s pockets or inside closets. If you have the time, read more in depth about the process by which these digital worlds are created because it is truly amazing and eye-opening.

Ray Caesar

Catalina Estrada

This lady does everything – Besides the typical art prints, she covers greeting cards, bedroom comforters, clothing and bags, even umbrellas with her beautiful designs; prints wallpaper; has her art made into difficult 1000 piece puzzles that I would probably end up throwing across the room in frustration! She embraces the concept that art doesn’t just have to hang on a wall, and captivating designs that make people smile and feel inspired can cover every imaginable surface. She makes her work accessible, and that is awesome.

Catalina Estrada

Elena Kotliarker

From the Ukraine, Elena classifies her work as Judaic Art. The flow from one element to the next in her pieces is so spot on, the effect is calming and dynamic at the same time. I love all the tiny details within each piece, so that you keep noticing new things the longer you look at it. Also interesting is the cultural symbolism she integrates into each work. I discovered her on ebay actually, and now have a gorgeous little ACEO prints as a souvenir.

Elena Kotliarker

Camille Rose Garcia

Camille Rose Garcia is an artist you can spot immediately. I love that all her art just GOES TOGETHER to form a cohesive body of work based on her distinctive style alone. While maintaining this continuity, she continues to keep things fresh and different with widely varying genres, stories and narratives, and color schemes. Much like Ray Caesar, I feel like her work is something you get or don’t. Being the fan of almost any form of surrealism or warped storybook illustrations that I am, I am in love.

Camille Rose Garcia

Mia Araujo

Mia Araujo is interested in the complexities that make each individual unique, and the invisible universes that thrive inside us all. Manifesting inner landscapes through art, making the invisible visible, is something I am also passionate about as I touched on in my last post. It’s no surprise why I am so drawn to her work. Each piece has an entire fantasy story within it to absorb. For lovers of portraits, you’re in luck, because within each piece are embedded innumerable portraits, from the main subject(s) to the tiny faces embedded in the background and sometimes even within the subject’s hair or clothing. Can you tell I’m into detail?

Mia Araujo

I hope you’ve enjoyed exposing yourself to some artists you may not have heard of before. I did go heavy on the surrealism as that is what I tend to be drawn towards most, but even if the subject matter or style is not your bag, there is always something to learn by observing other artists’ technique. I’m constantly finding new artists and images that inspire me, so I will definitely be sharing more in the future – be on the lookout!

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