Unquiet
Things

In the weird, woodland magics of of Brett Manning’s art, one will find a labyrinth of moss-covered pathways and mushroom-dotted clearings, where one might imagine hearing the whispers of faeries and the footsteps of forest spirits.

Whimsy dances hand in hand with shadows and decay, creating a thicket of contrasts that defies simple categorization. While her creations exude a playful charm, there’s an underlying hint of shadow that adds depth and complexity to her work. Think Beatrix Potter goes to the Goblin Market, told via the forested strangeness of a gloomy Twin Peaksian folklore, tinged with the cryptic mystery and intrigue of the X-Files; channel that through an impish imagination, a flair for visual storytelling, and an eye for the uncanny, and you begin to grasp the enigmatic allure of Manning’s realms.

Basically what I am trying to say here is that Brett Manning’s artworks embrace the wild and the wondrous, they are the artistic equalivalent of the unhinged urge to disappear from society and rewild as a feral forest goblin, and embody the idea of a gnome riding on the back of a possom, rolling up to you in a little car made of autumnal forest detritus and saying, “get in losers, we’re gonna admire moss and mushrooms in the forest.”

The three images above, let me explain them. The first is “Faerie Music,” which Brett kindly permitted me to include the the pages of The Art of Fantasy: A Treasury of All That Is Unreal.

Here is the caption I wrote for it and which you will find included in the book:

“Fiddling, strumming and tootling through the twilight while lounging about on cosy toadstools, the faerie folk musicians by contemporary artist Brett Manning are a captivating blend of dainty and earthy, and seem envisioned from both ancient books of forest folklore and your favourite well-thumbed local woodland cryptid guide. A maker who wears many hats (probably woven by gnomes with spider silk and beetle wings), Manning’s whimsical, magic creations take the form of illustrations as well as cavorting and capering all over the clothing that she designs.”

The second image is a photo of Brett’s artwork in the Korean language edition of The Art of Fantasy, and the third photo is from where I ran the Korean caption through a translator, and it gave me back an English version. I don’t think this is actually how it reads in Korean, but …I also kind of hope so?

“Modern painter Brett Manning sat on a cosy poisonous mushroom, in the twilight, played the violin, ripped the harp, drew fairy flute musicians, capturing the elegant earthy nature. In this paining, we can think of both ancient folk tales and our favourite guides to unidentified creatures in our woods and our neighborhood. Manning’s quirky and magical creation, which mainly uses a hat (like a fairy in the ground woven with spider’s webs and beetle wings), is not only embodied in illustrations, but also plays cheerfully in the clothes she designs.”

I love the idea of Brett sitting on a mushroom, playing a violin and ripping a harp, and using a hat to create! Honestly, that may have been better than what I wrote.

Through her art, Manning invites us to peek into hidden nooks and corners where we can almost hear the lilting melodies played on instruments of nature, a secret serenade echoing through the twilight woods, performed by faeries, cryptids, spirits, and other strange entities that exist on the fringes and in the peripheries.  So next time you find yourself wandering through a sun-dappled sylvan setting, keep an ear out. Perhaps you’ll catch a glimpse of Manning’s whimsical creations, their music weaving a spell of wonder and enchantment, their whispers urging you to get lost in the woods and never to be seen again.

As you contemplate trading modern trappings for the untamed beauty of fanciful forest realms, and perhaps even become one with moss and bugs, indulge in daydreams of the things between and unseen.

Below, a gallery awaits, showcasing my favorites among Manning’s works, inviting you to embark on your own journey through her weird woodland worlds.

Find Brett Manning: Etsy // Instagram // Book: One Foot In The Green

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The creations borne of Anna Mond’s marvelously strange brain noodles are gleefully grotesque, wickedly cheeky, ghoulishly precious brouhahas with a through line of the weirdest humor steeped in simultaneous cups of cracked darkness and silliness. A chorus line of goggle-eyed electric blue skeletons pirouette madly; a fuzzy mushroom-homunculi-thing drunkenly rides on the back of a bewildered spider; a celestial diablerie of witchy critters deliriously possess the midnight sky.

All manner of creatures and beings and God knows what else cavort and caper in garish, gooey blurbling blobs of color drooled across the canvas in a vibrant rascality of shenanigans. I stare at these paintings rapturously, my bones all vibrating in a mad, magic jig and they make me want to do something crazy!

…and I don’t think I am the only one! The comment section of the artist’s Instagram account are frenzied fever dream free-for-all digital art raves where everyone’s losing their minds in the best way possible.

Fans are obsessed with the imaginative artist’s work and are moved to express their wild interpretations and emotions. They compliment the canvases, caption them with an imaginary script or song lyrics or meme du jour, analyze the content, the inspiration, the technique; they ramble at length with the fables and fictions the work evokes in them; they share last night’s unrelated dream, and recipes, and various theories and conspiracies!

From what I can tell, Anna Mond is a somewhat enigmatic individual. The artist’s website doesn’t offer much in the way of information, and although the handful of interviews do illuminate various inspirations in the form of artists: Atsuko Tanaka, Clementine Hunter, Zinaida Serebryakova, Sister Plautilla Nelli and music: Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Elvis and a love of fairy tales and horror, I haven’t found much more insight into the mind of this artist.

One thing I did learn was that Anna Mond refers to the work as “Fantasticalizm”–and really, how peculiar and playful and perfect is that? Fantasticalizm! I don’t need to know anything more, really!

Just let me fill my eyeballs with these visions of wild, wondrous, weirdness forever, please.

Find Anna Mond: website // Instagram

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Heart Beet (raw, wet beets, pulsating blood musk, and raw wild ginger) I was a little scared to try this one because I’ve read that the same component that gives petrichor, that old rain-whisperer, that wet, mineralic tang, is also present in beets. Geosmin. This irregular sesquiterpenoid explains why I do not care for the scent of petrichor and cannot stomach beets. Except for pickled beets, which I love, but I’m a bit of a pickle fiend; you could probably pickle up an old boot, and I’d love that, too. But in Heart Beet there is only the swiftest, most fleeting whiff of dirt and stony dampness and then the immediacy of what I think of as shampoo ginger. We have a profusion of ginger-but-not-quite-ginger growing wild in our backyard, and when you dig it up, it looks just like ginger, and it has that same fiery-floral tang of fresh ginger too, but there’s something that smells a little soapy about it, as well, which gave us pause and made us think maybe we shouldn’t be eating it! We looked it up, and we are pretty sure it’s “shampoo ginger,” which could be eaten (but it’s bitter) but is more often used in toiletries and cosmetics. And then, at the back of that zesty-floral-freshness is a murky musk, slightly sweet, subtly earthy hum that is so weirdly, unexpectable wearable.  This scent is as if you dug up a magenta-blooded, lumpy, heart-shaped taproot and deemed it a quirky imaginary friend and shared all your juicy secrets with it…and then that dang beet tried to give you some sassy advice.

Pistachio Ambrosia (a whipped green dream, pale and pillowy with multicolored mini marshmallows, densely studded with bits of pineapple, mandarin, and shredded coconut) Well, you thought this was a Tupperware party – Jello molds, covered casserole dishes, PTA gossip. But you knew different the moment you saw those seafoam green formica counters had been converted to a burlesque runway. All your friends do shots of ground pistachio paste lightened with pineapple juice’s fizzing neon effervescence, folded into the creamiest, velvety custard…laced with acid. You don’t want to seem like a square, so down it goes! The last thing you remember is your hostess’s outrageous shimmy and the mesmerizing billowing twirl of her whipped cream pasties. You awake on your front lawn, the technicolor escapades of the night before swimming before your eyes, the taste of an astronaut ice cream tiki drinks on your tongue.

Rhubarb Custard Muffins (tender chunks of tart rhubarb stalks spangled with oven-browned sugar crystals, nestled in a crown of golden cake generously marbled with jet-streams of warm custard) Last year, I bought a quartet of Strawberry Shortcake-themed candles. My excuse for this foolishness, not that anyone is asking me to justify myself, is that I’d had a bad day, which turned into a series of bad days, culminating in a whole-ass bad month. I was excited to illuminate these little beacons of nostalgia, but sadly, each was more disappointing than the last. If I’d had Rhubarb Custard Muffins and unscented wax (and, I suppose, any amount of ambition or motivation to speak of), I could have recreated exactly what I, as an adult now, was seeking in those candles with this scent’s vibrant bracing blush of rhubarb enlivened further by the jeweled, juicy tang of strawberry, and tempered–only slightly so– by a creamy vanilla drizzle of custard and scant dusting of oaty streusel. This is a scent brimming with cheeky, exuberant optimism that rips its tart heart right out of its chest and offers it to you immediately upon meeting you, no questions asked. This is what that drab stable of Strawberry Shortcake candles should have been!

Green Maraschino (peppermint-laced preserved cherries soaking in thick lime syrup, dashed with a sliver of yuzu) Have you ever wondered what the juice of a green traffic light smelled like? A vibrant emerald energy, an invigorating jolt of minty-metallic kisses and 1000% saturation sugar syrup highs, punctuated by the fleeting tang of the citrusy unknown; it’s the electrifying hum before the exhilarating rush.

White Chocolate and Taro Cream A dusty, earthy white chocolate that initially smells, texturally, like the nostalgic magics of those light, crispy, waffle-stamped wafer cookies.  A starchy vanilla-almond floral creme sandwiches them together, and suddenly it becomes something too pretty to eat. This smells both familiar and dreamlike in the way that pictures from half-remembered childhood storybooks still feel like familiar friends, so keep that in mind when I tell you that this scent smells like the art of Amy Earles.

White Chocolate, Orange Blossom, Sugar Crystals, & Champagne Talk about the unexpected! I was expecting a soft white chocolate and orange blossom water scent, but this one is unexpectedly nutty- toasty-malty with a bit of oaky-leathery-coffee and plummy-orchid-florals! But if you wait a bit…that’s when things get really good. On the dry-down, this becomes a velvety soft cocoa butter, warm brown sugar musk, and it’s just the perfect balance of intriguing/familiar and comforting/captivating, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, close-to-the-skin scent.

Roses, Pearls, and Sapphires (lavender rose petals, coconut husk, cerulean blue musk, agave, and blueberry resin) I smelled this one, and I thought so many things all at once! Firstly, this scent and its kin are inspired by one of my favorite fairy tales, “Toads and Diamonds,” by Charles Perrault. It impressed certain things upon me so vividly that to this day, I am not sure if I am nice to people because that’s in my nature, because it’s the right way to act, OR is it because who knows when you might meet a secret fairy and be gifted with pie-hole baubles because you were kind to them! I mean, you never know! So am I being nice to people so that it will result in material gain? That’s not great, right? Conversely, this made me think about how all of my life, even up until now, because I’ve never learned my lesson and I don’t know any other way to be, I give away everything I have. As a child, I’d give my classmates my pretty markers, my plastic jewelry, and my favorite Barbie dresses–all with the hopes of someone being nice to me. I do it still. I love my material things, but I will shove them in your face and shout, “Take them!” if I think there’s a chance it will make you like me. Just last week, someone I barely know DMed me and asked me for money to help pay their rent. I don’t have money to throw around, but I thought, “But what if not helping them makes them not like me!” Then I Venmoed them $200. I thought getting older meant caring less about stuff like this, but somehow it’s even worse now. You might think, hey, Sarah’s written three books; she must be making some kind of money! WRONG! Do you even know how many books I have just outright given away? I haven’t made money, friends. I have lost money. It all makes me feel very foolish, like a big joke if I am being honest, and also very small. And feeling small gets me thinking about little-Sarah and all the things she loved best but never really shared how or why, because she thought giving her things away was the silver bullet to making connections with people. As opposed to giving of myself, sharing things about me and who I am.  So, I will share with you now. Dolls with blue hair, the Mermistas and Frostas, the Ajas and the Stormers, the Blueberry Muffins and Lily Fairs and Sailor Mercuries. These were my favorites. I thought they were like me. Shy, sweet, maybe a little sad, definitely a little spacy. But your spacy friends are your dreamer friends! When you’re being mean to us, you’re being mean to this perfume, which smells of all of the gentle blue haired dolls that we channelled all of our love into, and then gave it all away.

Roses, Pearls and Emeralds (rose sap, gleaming ivy, orris root, sweet oakmoss, pine needle, lime rind, and juniper) In Tiffany Morris’ novella Green Fuse Burning, the author writes, “Spring was an assault that arrived at the door with flowers in hand…” and Roses, Pearls, and Emeralds is the olfactory equivalent of that neon green revelation. The lime, juniper, and pine comingle to create something surprisingly unarboreal, more oceanic, but also unnervingly electric. Massive bioluminescent algal blooms cause ocean dead zones, and ultraviolet radiation runs amok in wild grottoes and caverns. The rose, oh wily troublesome rose! (Me and rose have history!) is the unexpected, benevolent note-wrangler in this composition, reigning in the maritime radioactivity and lending a soft floral haze that settles and soothes and coaxes it back to land. A little cottage garden that sometimes dreams of kaiju.

The Serpent in the Carnations (Snake Oil-soaked carnation petals, spiked with a dash of clove and allspice.) Often times I get an idea in my head that one scent from these collections is DEFINITELY going to be my favorite, but I am often wrong because I’ll get surprised by something else along the way. I think this time, my prediction was correct. I had a feeling I would love this slithery scent, and I do–it smells exactly like being mesmerized by an art nouveau femme fatale sorceress, just like the gal in Karl Alexander Wilke’s artwork we see here on the label art.  The eerie mortuary spice of carnations alongside Snake Oil’s thick, heavily sugared incense makes for the most wicked avant-garde bohemian ghoulishness; I want to bathe in it, poison admirers with it, all the things.

Our Lady Of Pain (Sumatran patchouli, blood musk, white lavender, opium tar, and black orchid) Aloof and alluring, a cool, bitter metallic shiver, like poison painting the tip of a small curved blade; musk and throbbing darkness, like psychic muscles cramped around the remembrance of a wound. The scent of duels lost, blood on the ground, moonlight elegies–all impressively tragic stuff, outrageous melodramas played out on the stage of one’s own mind…as is the wont of those of us who are really good at hurting our own feelings. Our Lady Of Pain is the most beautiful, most diabolical of Mean Girls…but as they say, the calls are coming from inside the house. 

There Yet Shall Be Sorrows (white sandalwood, black cypress, wormwood, creeping willow, and rue) A damp, earthy green and cold minerality like a shroud of moss scraped from a frost-flowered gravestone. A soft, dusty herbal whisper, like crushed leaves scattered in wild, wet weather.  A path of long silence and deepening shadow.

The Shrine Where Sin Is A Prayer (deep purple Syrah, calamus, myrrh smoke, hyssop, opoponax, bitter clove, burgundy pitch, opium poppy, and violet leaf) Thinking about this perfume is akin to thinking about stars, or color; as in, the light we’re now seeing is from a star already dead, or how the color of an apricot is what we perceive it to be because some wavelengths of the spectrum are being absorbed and some are bouncing off and what we actually see in the end is all of the colors that it is not. Speaking of apricots– this is how I know that no matter how many perfumes I smell or reviews I write, I am still no closer to knowing anything at all. Despite not being listed in the notes, apricot is what I smell here. A thickly jelled apricot marmalade into which the slow poison of sweet herbs are suspended and inky drippings of wine swirl like smoke. Imagine dipping a quill into this sticky jam jar; envision penning your deepest buried needs and secret yearnings. Consider that each word preserved in these conserves comes at a cost; know that when you’ve emptied the pot, the bill comes due. Though much like million-year-old starlight and all the colors we cannot see, these are abstract repercussions, problems for future-us to solve. Let’s gather our marmalade wishes while we may, then. The pot is full for now.

Sister Death (pale gilded lilies and roses in the labdanum shadow of a yew tree, a sprig of forget-me-not, the dwindling memory of a genteel cologne, and the honeyed breathlessness of a kiss) A sharp inhale of florals with something, a sweet pang of memory, a tender, fruiting slip of dream, floating just underneath the surface, just beyond your grasp that you can’t touch no matter how you reach for it; the reflection in the pool that no matter how deep you swim, you can never close the distance.

Poets Hearts Break So (bourbon vanilla fougere, violet leaf, iris root, Italian bergamot, porcelain accord, and a trickle of red musk)Sun-leached bitter citrus, vanilla dust motes trembling in fractured light – lace curtains, cobwebbed and frayed. A single wilted violet bears witness to the fleeting nature of affection; a shattered porcelain angel weeps tears of melancholic orris-tinged grief; the air is thick with a euphoric effluvium of malefic ecstasy, the intense overripe sweetness of red musk and ravaged souls, beauty tinged with madness, a poet’s overwrought breakup sonnet forever immortalized in a single, gleefully melodramatic, flamboyantly maddening scent.

Delightful Gargantuan Vagina (red mango pulp, sugared orange blossom, mimosa, pink musk, and sweet incense)  There was a poem I once read that introduced to me how I now consider the mango. This occurred during the years of what I now like to think of as “another life,” and I don’t think of those years often or the person I shared them with because it was not a good time. At any rate, it was this person who shared the piece of writing with me quite early on in our relationship in that love-bombing kind of way where someone showers you with excessive, special attention as part of their arsenal of manipulative tactics. Starved for feeling special, I ate it up. This was circa 2000 or so when Flash websites were all the rage, and it was not an easy thing to copy and paste or print out or whatever, and so I don’t recall the whole thing, and I’ve never been able to find it again. I only remember the first line: “The flesh of a mango…reminds me of rot…” I never forgot that. I also came to the conclusion that mango’s musky, sweet, slightly sour pulp smells very much like kissing the mouth of the person who has just moments ago been intimately tasting you. I told my sisters about this realization a few years ago, and I was shocked at how upset they were hearing this… and, to this day, neither of them has ever forgiven me for it!  I find this absolutely wild because none of us are prudes, we talk about all kinds of stuff, so I honestly didn’t think I was saying anything beyond the pale! And being an obnoxious older sister, instead of apologizing, I have since doubled down on my opinion. I am rambling at this point because I think I am struggling to say anything coherent, let alone clever or poetic about this scent, so I’ll just leave it here: mango, with its unsubtle dissonance between desire and decay and overt suggestions of eros and thanatos…is actually quite subdued in this scent. What I smell instead is the zesty, juicy piquancy of a perfectly sectioned mandarin orange, and the complex, fragrant secrets of orange blossoms in April, and a fizzy, powdery vinegar shrub of mimosa honey. It’s quite lovely, and definitely more palatable than my mango analogy, I guess!

Encounter With A Female Ghost (cypress, immortelle, and white amber enveloping red spider lily petals, dragon’s blood resin, and black plum) A single, spectral bloom tucked amidst the cypress trees; rainwater which has caught the reflection of the moon; the shimmering peal of a cracked bell at the 13th hour–

The Shimmering Mirror (pine pitch brocade, amber incense smoke, Mysore sandalwood, myrrh, red benzoin, inky patchouli, and an oakmoss fougere) The red benzoin and amber incense smoke combine to make a strangely sultry balsamic floral scent that brings to mind some sort of supplication to a saint of dangerous sensuality, a prayer along the lines of, “Poppy crowned queen of night, patroness of thieves and robbers, friend, and light to all that burns.” I wish I could remember where I read that! Which has nothing to do with this next reference, but you know all those romantasy books that are all the rage right now? Like “A Court of this thing and those things?” This is a perfume that smells like the heady promises of those lavishly fantastical, come-hither book covers.

Chestnut Vulva (sweet chestnut, vanilla cashmere, toasted cardamom, and caramel) is an unexpected autumnal fantasy of comforting warmth and intriguing depth. Velvety chestnut puree, smooth and sweet, with a subtle hint of milky creaminess; a touch of unsweetened cocoa powder adds unexpected depth, grounding the sweetness with a hint of earthiness, like fallen leaves crunching underfoot, while geese fly low on the horizon. Cardamom’s delicate floral spice is whipped into a toasted meringue, a luxurious garnish in a thermos full of this enchantingly warming fall beverage in the dying light of an October afternoon when the spring sun showers seem a long way off.

The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab 2024 Lupercalia collection is currently live and available for purchase. As this is a limited edition series, sample sizes imps are not available.

Need more Lupercalia scents? Have a peep at my Lupers reviews from 2023 and 2022 and 2021 and 2020. Looks like I skipped a few years but we’ve also got 2017 and 2016 reviews as well!

…PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? I’m about a year behind with adding new stuff to the document, but as it stands, there are over 60 PAGES of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)

If you enjoy these fragrant musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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There’s a world veiled in static on the periphery of our vision, where dreams and nightmares bleed into one another. Glimpsed in flickering candlelight and whispered shadows of tangled vines in fairytales, we sense it creeping, seeping into our reality.

We’ve entered the unrestful realms of British artist Stephen Mackey, where his paintings serve as portals to lands of darksome lullabies, unsettling dreamscapes of perpetual twilight evanescence. With each brushstroke, Mackey weaves secret tales of the precious and the sinister, the twisted romance of unquiet beauty.

Beneath the whimsical surface of Mackey’s paintings lies a darkness that lurks, unseen but palpable. Ethereal maidens appear to frolic with fantastical creatures, beauties dream soundly in enchanted canopied beds, and primp before shimmering mirrors. Yet, closer inspection reveals scenes fraught with lurking tension – the subtle dance between predator and prey, the maze of perils and pathways dark and bewitched.

Are these glimpses into a world existing just beyond our perception, where fairytales take a darker turn? Or are they manifestations of Mackey’s own subconscious, a shadowy reflection of the human psyche?

Mackey himself comments wryly about his cryptic creative persona, ‘No information = mystique . . . You can have any facts you want, but you’re sworn to secrecy.’ Keep your secrets then, Mr. Mackey! We’ll develop some haunted and outlandish theories of our own!

Self-taught and inspired by the great French, Dutch, and Italian masters of the Renaissance, there’s a definite echo of Romanticism in his works, a touch of Fuseli’s nightmarish visions and Blake’s mystical explorations. Yet, a distinctly modern disquiet prowls beneath the surface. Peer deeply, and you’ll find unsettling details: the death-curses of butterflies in spring, a somnambulist’s fear of the dark, a crescent moon glowing eerily in a noontime sky. These subtle elements disrupt the tranquility, hinting at a world teetering on the edge of something unknown.

In these scenes of capricious glooms, somber palettes, velvety textures, and hushed intimacy, one also senses that the sleeper may awaken at any moment, and these menacing monsters and melancholic mysteries? Perhaps we’ve shattered the illusion, and they were never there at all.

Stephen Mackey’s The Sandman can be seen in the pages of The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic and Macabre. You can find more of Stephen Mackey’s art over on his Instagram.

If you enjoy these art-related writings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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I have been meaning for several months (maybe almost a year now? Le whoopsie!) to continue my “spotlight” series on the incredible contemporary artists that have allowed me to include their gorgeous creations in my books.

Today celebrates a return to that practice and delivering on that promise to myself with a further look the languid dreams and unsettling poetry of Jason Mowry’s artworks. Jason’s splendid watercolor and gouache canvas, “The Sphinx, the Substance and the Dreamer,” can be seen in The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal.

Expressed in the languid dream of a somber, sumptuous palette and resplendent with atmosphere and emotion, the work of Jason Mowry trembles in a thrillingly familiar way, caught between the border of formal and fantastic. We may not know who these subjects are or what they’re up to, but from the monstrous figures to the human characters that look just like us, there is something in their story that we recognize nonetheless.

These strange, sentimental visions combine myth and legend, personal narrative and symbolic imagery in a visual language that speaks a timeless spell. Mowry’s artistic alchemy bypasses the modern viewer’s analytical safeguards and sings to something ancient and ancestral in the blood. It’s a captivating push-pull quiver between violence and stillness, simplicity and opulence, the familiar and the fantastical.

Jason Mowry’s artistic vision draws from a rich tapestry of influences from the Golden Age of fairy tale illustration and its giants like Rackham and Dulac to the dark beauty and natural poetry of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, simmering with primal truths that speak to our fears and desires.

We can feel the shape of this interplay between the fantastical worlds and unsettling narratives in the light and shadows of Mowry’s paintings, and though we may not grasp the entire plot, the emotional undercurrents resonate deeply.

Raised between the hushed halls of art museums and the vibrant chaos of comic book shops, Mowry’s artistic heritage is a fascinating paradox, embuing the figures he coaxes onto the canvas a captivating duality. They flirt with a formality that reveals classical training, yet their surreal, elongated forms and expressive poses hint at a wildness and wonder born from years spent devouring comic panels.

This tension fuels Mowry’s storytelling. Each piece feels like a glimpse into a larger narrative, a dream told by a dreamer still in the midst of a dream; fraught and frozen, a moment of drama and crisis preserved in amber for one hundred years;  each an oracular murmur of impending psychic annihilation–or a trilling song of complete rebirth.

We are left to wonder, are these figures facing oblivion, or a magnificent metamorphosis? And in connecting to that deep wellspring of grace and thrumming vulnerability within ourselves, what, then, are we capable of?

If you enjoy these artsy-fartsy musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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It’s possible that Laurence Schwinger is one of those artists you know but don’t know that you know. At least that much was true for me.

His artistic fingerprint adorns countless book covers, beckoning readers into the captivating worlds within. If you’ve delved into the realms created by David Eddings or Andre Norton, you’ve likely encountered Schwinger’s visual magic. To a lesser extent, if you’ve read a bit of Anne Rice, Marion Zimmer Bradley (not a stellar example considering what we know now, but we’re familiar with the name, which is my point), or Alan Garner, you’re probably familiar with his art, as well.

Particularly thrilling to me: a glance at his online portfolio reveals an intriguing array of works, including a tantalizing glimpse at a cover for Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind At The Door--though I am uncertain as to whether that imagery ever found its way to the public eye by way of the publisher. But as I think you know, we’re big fans of a Madeleine L’Engle book cover around these parts!

A jolt of recognition shot through me as I discovered Laurence Schwinger’s art had been gracing my shelves all along – he was the artist behind the haunting cover of Octavia Butler’s Kindred – a story I’d cherished for years. I felt an absolute need to secure the cover art for The Art of Fantasy, then in the works. Permission from the artist – essential. And miraculously–secured! About the piece I wrote:

“From phantasmal spectres to mythic beings to epic adventures, the intriguing portfolio of Laurence Schwinger includes fantastical fodder across many genres, and his book cover roster is a masterful Who’s Who of beloved contemporary fantasy authors. Many of the artist’s visions have a multi-layered, hazy atmosphere and a gorgeously subdued color palette, and his cover art for pre-eminent twentieth-century science fiction and fantasy writer Octavia E. Butler takes that a step further. In this earth- and flesh-toned moody, evocative conjuration of the author’s most popular and enduring work, our eyes are drawn to the two figures – each drawn to the other through time – with the negative space between them cleverly forming the top half of an hourglass.”

Schwinger’s artistic odyssey transcends the boundaries of genre, forging a path that traverses the rugged landscapes of Westerns, the tender realm of romance, the cosmic expanse of sci-fi, and the eerie domain of horror. This journey demonstrates his remarkable versatility and shape-shifting ability to adapt, seamlessly integrating his visual language into diverse narratives by various authors.

The contrasting nature of his style further enhances the mystique – from the gilded intricacies that grace fantastical epics to the haunting, foggy washes that veil tales of the eerie unknown, Schwinger’s art refuses to be confined. I mean…the guy also likes to paint a beautiful, glossy pepper! So many multitudes!

Here are a few more works below that I particularly enjoy…

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I’m unsure if I shared any artful ocular extravaganzas in the form of Eyeball Fodder collections at all last year, not even a single one! Well, here’s the first one of 2024, full of moody blooms, weird, staring faces, and just a general gathering of gorgeous, unnerving vibes.

I am terribly saddened to hear that artist Dan Hillier has passed away. Dan’s was among some of the first works I fell in love with in my Tumblr era, circa 2009-2012 or so, when I was discovering and becoming enamored with all sorts of contemporary dark artists. Below are a few of my recent favorites from this brilliant creator, gone from us much, much too fucking soon.

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As a kid, I staunchly believed there were only two camps: you were either team fantasy or team sci-fi. And since Star Trek didn’t have elves and unicorns (I hadn’t yet seen the holodeck!) I wasn’t interested.  Fairies shimmered in fairytale castles, while alien princesses, if they existed at all, ruled from sterile metal fortresses. Drawn to the whimsy of talking animals and magical forests, I dismissed sci-fi’s offerings as devoid of the fantastical.

But stories have a way of defying rigid categories. And above all, I came to realize whether scribbled in glitter or etched in chrome, it was the stories that captivated my attention–and, by extension, the beautiful art that accompanied them–not especially the genre trappings through which they were envisioned. One summer afternoon, while browsing my weird uncle’s dusty comic collection, I stumbled upon a cover, unlike the werewolves and vampires that dominated most of the towering stacks (by then, I had moved on from fairy princesses to the monsters haunting crumbling, gothic crypts) Lush, cosmic swirls enveloped a lone, impossibly graceful spaceship, its sails catching the light of a thousand alien suns. It was sci-fi, yes, but rendered in a style that wouldn’t look out of place on a fairy tale tapestry. That day, the 2-camp theory dissolved. Sci-fi, I realized, could shimmer with wonder, could paint impossible visions across canvases both grand and intimate. And not very long after that, on another summer afternoon, I uncovered an ungodly amount of my dad’s back issues of Heavy Metal magazine, and –say no more, right? You know what I’m getting at. I was hooked.

Years later, this revelation lives on. I consider myself an enthusiast of fantastical art of all stripes, and I couldn’t have been more excited when I realized that the creator of one of my favorite art-related Tumblrs–Adam Rowe of 70s Sci-Fi Art— was soon to be publishing an art book. If you don’t know any Tumblrs but recognize Adam’s name from somewhere, well, it could possibly be that you heard him on the Endless Thread podcast about the Wrinkle In Time book cover art. While I babbled about the mystery of it all and sounded like a total space cadet, Adam was the one with the grounding and logical insights who was actually saying all of the smart stuff!

Brimming with dazzling dreams of fantastical futures and explorations of the vast cosmos, Adam’s book celebrating the groundbreaking sci-fi art of the 1970s would have delighted skeptical childhood me and shown me everything I now love about that golden era of science fiction art today. It’s a vibrant showcase of retrofuturistic visions, stuffed to the gills with phenomenal art–from the abstract and avant-garde to the trippy and surreal, from the murky and lurid to the vivid, vibrant, and hyperrealistic, Worlds Beyond Time is an incredibly curated gallery-in-a-book, and love letter to this breathtakingly beautiful and frequently bizarre genre. Of course, it’s easy enough to fill a book with art (HA! That’s a lie. It is not easy.), but what really elevates an already special tome is that all of this gorgeous art is seated alongside a plethora of ridiculously well-informed, engrossing essays written in Rowe’s warm, chat, irreverent voice.

And speaking of warm, engrossing chats–that’s the reason we are here today! Adam graciously answered my questions about Worlds Beyond Time,  his fascination with sci-fi art, and some of the colorful characters and favorite artistic tropes he features within the pages of the book. See below for our Q&A, and thanks from the bottom of my weird, awkward heart, Adam, for your generosity of time, energy, and spirit.

SE: I’m always interested in the formative stuff! Is there a definitive moment in your childhood that you can hearken back to wherein a fondness/fixation regarding sci-fi art was born? Or was it a series of snapshots, a thing here and there and so on, which drew you in? What initially engaged your interest and piqued your curiosity about the world of sci-fi art, and what continues to fascinate you about it?

AR: I’ve always enjoyed any sort of genre fiction, particularly old and out-of-style ones. I think the formulas that tend to get reused for disposable entertainment will tell you a lot about cultural anxieties or values. But my interest in sci-fi art is very specifically tied to the look of 70s and 80s art styles – they just really light up my amygdala in a way that even 50s and 60s sci-fi art rarely does. I don’t know how to explain it! That’s actually why I went so specific with my blog name when I first started my Tumblr in 2013. I had stumbled on an illustration on Reddit, and I couldn’t find an existing tumblr specific enough for me at the time, so I created my own.

There are other, similar-but-different art niches that I’ve sort of “spun off” my interest in over the years. I still love 70s sci-fi art, but I also love 80s/90s computer and tech illustration, as well as the 90s yuppie kitsch vibes from artists like Christian Riese Lassen.

In John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (not really sci-fi related but definitely full of otherworldly notions and ineffable explorations), the author meditates on the idea of “Astrophe,” the feeling of being stuck on Earth, occasionally looking up at the stars, dreaming of other worlds–but always, always being pulled back to reality, that feeling of being grounded. Is there a particular sci-fi artwork you revel in or an artist you admire whose art is so bold and striking that somewhere in your mind, it permanently yanks you right out of Earth’s orbit, perhaps quells that Astrophic yearning?

A great artist for sci-fi yearning is John Harris. There’s a bit of a removed, timeless feel to his artwork, there’s often a lot of cosmic awe. I’m repeating myself from my art book, but one of my favorite stories about him is that NASA commissioned him in 1985, and his chosen subject matter wasn’t a scene set in space or depicting a spacecraft at all. Instead, he painted the smoking, empty launchpad immediately after a launch. It’s a sharp contrast to the triumphant images you’d get from Robert McCall.

Another couple of favorites are Bruce Pennington and Angus McKie. Pennington always captures ideas and images that feel archetypal without being cliche, and McKie always has tiny delightful details that take a while to notice. I can stare at their work for a long time.

In your book, not only do you showcase the artistic brilliance of the individuals you feature, but you also unveil their unique personalities. Your chapter on cheeky visual satirist of chaotic abstraction, Richard Powers, particularly captured my heart– as I have a massive fondness for the goofballs and weirdos, for silliness and absurdity. Beyond their artistic achievements, these artists led rich and complex lives. Can you share some other examples of how their personal experiences and dispositions influenced their artistic expression?

Yeah, Richard Powers is quite a character! In a good way! Fun fact: I read a lot of art books while writing this one, and The Art of Richard Powers by Jane Frank was probably the best one for offering a candid picture of an artist, flaws and all, and fully avoiding the hagiography trap.

Leo and Diane Dillon were always exploring, which led to an art career covering so many mediums and styles that it’s hard to pin down. John Harris’s deep interest in transcendental meditation is impossible to separate from the cosmic awe of his art that I mentioned earlier. John Schoenherr had a love of naturalism that contributed to the lived-in feel of his famed Dune illustrations. And I really love Rick Sternbach’s dolphin in a spacesuit, which I slipped into page 4 of my book at the last second – he wasn’t commissioned for it; he just wanted to explore the idea as a thought experiment because of his interest in marine biology. Basically, any artist who wants to carve a legacy for themselves should let their love for other subjects flow into their art.

I really appreciate the way Worlds Beyond Time is structured, jumping back and forth between spreads featuring specific artists, themes, motifs, tropes, and gimmicks, as well as the subjects and landscapes of the stories themselves. It’s an unexpected and deliciously unpredictable format, curious and singular–much like how the best examples of sci-fi art and their stories can be. How did you come up with the configuration for the book?

I’m glad you asked! For the longest time, I didn’t think I could do an art book, but it was when I realized I could do that format that I realized how fun and interesting it would be to write. And I only realized it was an option because I read a book with a very similar structure: Grady Hendrix’s 2017 Paperbacks From Hell, about 70s/80s horror paperbacks. And I know you loved that book too, because I looked it up on your site and saw your review!

I love how fast-paced Paperbacks From Hell is, and how funny and irreverent the writing style is. It’s divided into sections, covering specific books and authors as well as fun themes and min-trends. Seeing that crystalized for me that I could do the same thing. When I first started putting together my proposal for Worlds Beyond Time, Grady was in the area as part of his book tour for We Sold Our Souls, and he was kind enough to meet with me and give me advice! He also recommended I talk to Vincent Di Fate, the artist and art historian who would go on to write my foreword.

Basically, reading Paperbacks From Hell really opened my third eye when it comes to how a nonfiction on fiction book can work. Also, as an aside, I’m trying to make the term “nonfiction on fiction” happen, as a way to describe history books that document eras and types of fictional media. So far, no one’s going for it, and I think it’s because it just sounds like you’re saying “nonfiction” twice when you say it out loud. It’s like the Little Caesar’s guy who says “piece a pizza,” but more confusing.

And of the common themes or motifs that you see recurring in the sci-fi art you included in the book what were some of your favorite to write about and think about? How did these reflect the cultural and social zeitgeist of the era in which they were created–and is there anything about it that still resonates today?

One of the most popular and striking visual tropes I covered is skeletons in spacesuits. It’s an immediately cool concept all by itself (a very memorable Scooby Doo and Doctor Who antagonist both basically boil down to this trope; that’s pretty cool). But it also has a history drawn from pulp adventure illustrations, where explorer skeletons were always popping up in deserts, caves, and islands. Adventure is a genre that a lot of early science fiction stories emerged from as far back as Jules Verne and HG Wells, so being able to see the visual connections is fascinating to me.

One of my favorite sections is the one featuring reflections in space helmets. There’s an interesting practical reason behind the concept’s popularity – it’s an economic way to get a landscape and a person into one scene, and it lets the reader project an appropriate emotion onto the figure. Plus, it also shares a bit of a history with adventure illustration, where you’d occasionally see the same trick pulled with other reflective surfaces like monocles or gun scopes.

Finally, there’s cities in domes, which is a particularly popular concept for this era of sci-fi art. It’s easy to grasp, looks cool, is fun to paint – but it’s also fairly impractical as a functional concept. Moon bases are more likely to be underground bunkers than domes. But geodesic domes were pretty popular and futuristic in the 60s and 70s.

I wanted to do a section on floating cities as well. I wound up cutting it, partially because it shares so much with domed cities, and partially just because the best examples were from artists who are more expensive to license, like Robert McCall and Chris Foss. The idea of a big floating city feels even more fantastical and disconnected from reality than a domed city.

Artificial Intelligence comes up in your chapter about robots, and I’ll confess, today’s AI-driven image generators and language models are something that concerns me greatly, with its creation of “art” without the consent of the human creators whose works were used to train their algorithms. I strongly feel the anxiety of living in a world where the line between art created by human and machine is increasingly blurred, for example, you only have to look at imagery shared by well-meaning family and friends on Facebook, life-size cats crocheted by obscenely grinning nonagenarians or sand sculptures of beautiful woman whose hair has been rendered so finely that it gently drifts in the breeze?! Come on people! THAT’S NOT REAL! Robots, cyborgs, machines becoming sentient, beings enhanced with technology, and all the dangers that transhumanism and artificial intelligence represent…I didn’t get the sense from art and stories that the dangers we’d be facing from AI would have to do with the art itself. I know this is a crazed and rambling question, but what are your thoughts on any of it?

I agree! I think you hit it on the nose with your takeaway about how science fiction didn’t prepare you for the real-life counterpart. But then, the stuff we’re calling AI today isn’t anywhere near sentience; Ted Chiang has said “applied statistics” would be a more accurate term for all real-life innovations than “AI.” But of course, it’s a better marketing pitch to feint at creating tech from famous science fiction stories. The tech we have with ChatGPT is definitely cool, but it’s a shame that it requires copyright theft and exists mostly as a way to cut enough jobs to boost quarterly revenues another 2% or whatever. The real problem, once again, is capitalism.

I do find the topic of how science fiction interacts with Silicon Valley ambition to be constantly entertaining. So many big tech figures love science fiction. I can’t imagine Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know that the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash is a dystopia, but he does seem to think that it doesn’t matter.

It feels a bit tragic, doesn’t it, to omit some really fantastic pieces from a book on a subject dear to your heart that you’re sharing with the world? And annoyingly, you know there’s going to be people who say “I can’t believe you *forgot* x/y/z!” – as if it’s simply a matter of you “forgetting!” Tell us about art-shaped holes in your heart and in your book that you would have loved to include if you had been able.

I couldn’t afford to include as much art as I would have liked from some of the biggest names, including Frank Frazetta, John Berkey, and Chris Foss (and arguably shouldn’t have included the images I did use since it blew past my budget and came out of my own pocket). Paul Alexander and Peter Andrew Jones are two other great artists I didn’t include at all – the former wasn’t essential enough to my book to justify some rights requirements, and the latter felt he had enough art collections out already that would compensate him better.

But the biggest one that got away was this beautiful Brothers Hildebrandt wraparound cover for Earth’s Last Citadel by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. I had a great scan ready to go, and I was willing to pay more than I did for any other single piece of art, but the estate just ultimately wasn’t interested. I couldn’t bear to cut the paragraph writeup about the image in the book, however, so you can still read all about it on page 152. Funny enough, I used to hate it when an art book would discuss an image that it didn’t feature. Now, I get it.

But back to things that were in your book! I was delighted to see that horror gets a spotlight! From mentions of cryptozoology to ghosts and Creepy and Eerie magazine, the horror-nerd in me was totally geeking out. Obviously, you have a great love for sci-fi, but as a horror fan, I’m compelled to ask about your relationship with the horror genre.

I definitely appreciate horror almost as much as sci-fi! Fantasy, supernatural horror, and sci-fi all emerged from the same early-1900s primordial genre goop of “weird stories,” and they still work well when blended today. With movies, I particularly like when other genres are thrown in, like horror, comedy, and action horror. I saw Ravenous last October; it’s a great historical horror. I’m in the middle of reading the second Clown in a Cornfield novel by Adam Cesare, and I definitely recommend it.

In that vein: if you’re a horror fan looking to dip your toes into sci-fi art, is there any artist/creator, or work, visual, or otherwise (ie literature or cinema) that you’d recommend?

A cover artist for retro horror books that I’ve always loved is William Teason – take his classic 1963 cover for Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle or this artwork for Mary Roberts Reinhart’s The Case of Jenny Brice. Some big-name science fiction illustrators have done plenty of horror illustrations as well, like Michael Whelan and Bruce Pennington. Of course, Paperbacks From Hell will tell you all about other great retro horror artists that fans of Worlds Beyond Time will probably enjoy.

Also, I don’t know what the classification is, but I saw this video a few years ago when it first came out, and I still keep thinking about it. Someone needs to give that creator a blank check to make the feature-length version of whatever it is.

Since it seems we’re delving into darkness, how do you think sci-fi art has explored the darker side of human nature, such as fear, paranoia, and the unknown? How has sci-fi art intersected with the occult and paranormal, and how has this influenced our beliefs in, or even disinclination toward the supernatural?

Man, I dunno! Strictly through the lens of my art book, I’d say a lot of the darker, more challenging art was swept off of sci-fi covers around 1971 since the publishing industry was expanding and worried that creepier surrealism would scare off readers. (Another example of profit incentives hedge-trimming artistic expression!)

Science fiction has always been a venue for facing horrifying world-ending threats head-on, though. Back in the 70s, nuclear war was a big one, and today, climate change is. Fiction can help raise to the surface some otherwise unthinkable concepts, although fiction alone is never going to save us. The pen’s only mightier than the sword when it’s writing to a lot of other people with swords.

This does remind me of one of the more fun illustrations in Worlds Beyond Time: The Mutual UFO Network’s 1977-79 itinerary covers. The designer is uncredited, but the covers have a great sense of precision and clarity of concept to them, which I imagine is pretty important to an organization dedicated to an often-dismissed phenomenon like UFOs.

Onto something a bit more frivolous: I’m a bit obsessed with Richard Hescox’s works, how the gleaming luminosity of his paintings really lends itself to the shimmering details in fripperies and fineries–jewels and gemstones, crowns and headdresses, all sorts of fancy accouterments. Bruce Pennington is another artist who shines at capturing a fashion-forward moment; I’m thinking of an image you included in your book for the cover of E. van Vogt’s The Pawns of Null-A, where Pennington “dresses a power-hungry emperor like an otherworldly Pope,” whose robes are embellished with a treasure trove of glittering symbols and beads– into which the artist had apparently secreted his own name! I’m curious if you can think of any other sci-fi artists who indulged in a sartorially-minded spirit in their book covers and other artworks?

Sci-fi fashion is pretty cool! Although often over-reliant on jumpsuits and cloaks. I have a “fashion” tag on my tumblr that I bet you’d enjoy scrolling through. I see Peter Elson’s work pops up several times; His 1978 cover to Jack Vance’s To Live Forever is pretty eye-popping! This David Schleinkofer fit actually might be considered cool today, which I can’t say about the guy on Roy Virgo’s 1980 cover art for Mannes éphémères, by Clark Darlton and KH Scheer. But the real winner is the robot drip on Isidre Monés’ cover to the 1981 German edition of Robot, by Adam Wiśniewski. Incredible energy on that cover.

One interesting fashion angle is the idea of astronauts having visual ID on their suits, either as heraldry like knights, or as a way for regular joes to express themselves, like sailors with tattoos. There’s an Ed Emshwiller cover for an issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that captures that idea. Shoutout to Winchell Chung’s site Atomic Rockets, where he discusses those topics over here. If I were to ever get a sequel art book, I’d definitely have a two-page spread on fashion in sci-fi art. I’ve just added it to my sequel brainstorming doc, right alongside other ideas like “Christ figures,” “bugs,” and “spaceships shaped like fish.”

I used to include a final question in my interview Q&As, something like, “what’s next?” But that’s a bit presumptuous and a lot of pressure, isn’t it? Isn’t it enough to enjoy what you literally just put out into the world earlier this year? So, instead of stressing you out, my question is more along the lines of what do you do to de-stress? What are you doing when not exploring and examining worlds beyond time? Adam Rowe is a complex creature and contains multitudes– what does he get into when he’s not writing about 1970’s sci-fi art?

A lot of movies and TV! I was just telling someone that I need a friend who actually appreciates mediocre mid-budget 90s movies as much as I do. I also like old crime movies – I just saw 1967’s Le Samourai for the first time yesterday and loved it. Aside from that, the most noteworthy thing I’ve done lately is uploaded the 2006 Jimmy Buffett cover of Werewolves of London to YouTube – it wasn’t available anywhere on the internet if you can believe that! Get the word out, I’m hoping to get past 47 total views.

I’m also developing a taste for other types of illustration from within the 1960s-’90s zone. The Tumblr Lookcaitlin has an amazing collection of retro-tech magazine illustrations, and I just finished the complete collection of the Antonio Prohías Spy vs. Spy comics.

For writing, I’m in the planning stage for another potential art book, but no spoilers yet. I’m also trying to keep doing articles to get the word out about Worlds Beyond Time. This year’s Hugo Award nominations open up on March 1st. Best Related Work? Maybe! Someone needs to explain to me how getting nominated works. Maybe I’ll talk to my publicist.

If you enjoy these peeks at the authors and artists I love, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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The Art of Fantasy now has a Korean-language edition! So this was actually a crowd-funded project, I guess? It looks as if all three of my books were crowd-funded by this particular Korean publisher. That’s wild!

I probably wouldn’t be so ridiculously excited to receive these foreign language editions of my books if I hadn’t had to fight so hard for the publisher to send them to me. It still feels quite novel and thrilling!
Ah, that’s silly. I’d be excited regardless.

I love this About the Author translation: “S. Elizabeth is a writer and curator who pursues decorative beauty. Her essays and interviews on esoteric art are published in [a whole bunch of stuff] …and her shaman culture blog ‘Anxious’, which covers music, fashion, horror, nostalgia, sadness, etc…”

My blog ‘ANXIOUS’. I have never felt so seen.

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In September of 2017, I posted a fancy lady vampire painting to my various social medias. opining that surely my friends had it in their hearts to pool their resources and purchase it for me to hang in my boudoir for all eternity, to the tune of a cool 14K. As it happened, no one loved me enough for that! Regardless, I never forgot her lovely, spoiled little face, and I continued the tradition of posting the painting every now and again over the ensuing years. I loved her so much that I wanted to include her in The Art of Darkness, but alas, Richard Bober, the artist, never answered even one of my approximate 90 billion emails. it was not to be.

Sometime in the year 2021, Handsome Devils Puppets and I started plotting and scheming on the idea of coaxing her off the canvas and transferring her soul into the floopy-limbed, fabulously attired vessel of a custom marionette, as a sister puppet for Sei Shōnagon and Maria Germaova.

The project began in earnest in June of 2023, a month after I had written a blog post that blew up everywhere and got a lot of attention, inquiring about the mysteriously unknown artist of an iconic book cover for a certain edition of a much-beloved book. I was privy to a lot of speculation and chatted quite frequently with the podcaster who was eventually to report on it; I’d pass along more guesses and suggestions that I was receiving from blog commenters and emails, and she’d share industry tidbits and whispers that she was amassing in her detective work. A name eventually emerged that one or two people seemed quite certain about, and though it was a bit of a wild ride getting there–it was eventually revealed that those eagle-eyed individuals were correct. Y’ALL. Richard freaking Bober –the artist responsible for my favorite gorgeous goldilocked vampire mean girl– was the artist who created THAT cover art for Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time!!

That cover was something I wanted to include in The Art of Fantasy, but I thought, “Why bother? no one knows who the artist is; who would I even ask for permission?” But isn’t it funny that both these pieces of art caught my eye for various reasons, and without even realizing they were the same artist, I was hoping to have them in the pages of separate books?

I later learned through interviews with Richard Bober’s family and nephews that he was a bit of a recluse, and I don’t think he emailed much, so chances are, I was never going to receive a response to my inquiries anyway! And sadly, he died in late 2022, so he never lived to get proper credit for that book cover. From everything I’ve heard, though, I’m not sure he would have even cared!

So in a very roundabout way, this feels like it has come round full circle. Or looped around several times and tangled confusingly because I do tell a rambling story.

Anyway, isn’t she beautiful? She’s totally gonna steal my soul tonight. Worth it.

If you enjoy these peeks at the artists I love, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee? Maybe next time I can afford the 14K painting.

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