If you were a child of a certain age in the 80s, you were undoubtedly aware of the rockstar sensation that is Jem, whether you were enthralled by the Saturday morning television show or enraptured by the shiny, poseable dolls. You probably never consciously had this thought while mesmerized by the boxes at Toys-R-Us, but it must have registered somewhere in your little brain that the box artwork possessed a crazy level of craftsmanship and attention. The illustrations felt too good, too real, too carefully observed for their humble cardboard home. Did it ever occur to me to wonder about the artist behind these marvels, the actual human person who created them? I can’t say it did, until I heard someone mention Sharon Knettell‘s name in a Hasbro package art documentary that Yvan was watching on YouTube the other night.

Knettell, it turns out, was a fine artist who brought a borderline obsessive level of dedication to what could have been throwaway commercial illustration. While other companies were slapping generic pretty faces on their doll boxes, Hasbro had somehow convinced Knettell to create what can only be described as tiny masterpieces of commercial portraiture.

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Have you ever had that feeling that someone is watching you from just beyond the tree line? That prickling sensation on the back of your neck while wandering a misty forest path? Perhaps it was Ed Binkley, sketchbook in hand, documenting your encounter with his meticulously detailed woodland denizens before you even realized they were there.

Binkley’s art feels less created and more… discovered, as if he’s somehow gained access to a hidden archive of supernatural field notes. His faeries, shamans, and assorted cryptid curiosities peer from the pages with such specificity that one suspects he must keep have recruited them as sources and informants, feeding him scraps of imagination and starlight so that he may best capture their likenesses in exquisite detail. There’s a sense of authenticity to these beings—they seem to exist with complete lives beyond the boundaries of the page, carrying personalities, histories, and perhaps even opinions about which mushrooms make the best rooftops.

“Corvid Priestess” peers from the pages of my book, The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal with a gaze that suggests ancient knowledge and ritual importance. Her avian elements aren’t fancy accessories selected on a whim—they’re integral to her identity as a being who bridges worlds. The remarkable fusion of human and bird creates something wholly original, a priestess whose connection to corvid energy manifests through both spirit and form. One imagines her presiding over moonlit ceremonies, communicating in languages both human and avian, serving as translator between realms.

Binkley’s worlds exist next door to our own, like that neighbor’s house you’re pretty sure hosts something freaky every full moon but can never quite catch in the act. In “Soul Whisperer,” a veiled figure guides spirits to their next existence with all the calm efficiency of a supernatural TSA agent. Their veil—adorned with beads and tiny bones—makes music “like tiny wind chimes, inaudible to the rest of us,” which is just as well because the last thing you want when crossing to the afterlife is a jangly soundtrack announcing your arrival.

The textures in Binkley’s work invite closer inspection and are so tactile you’ll find yourself absently trying to pet your computer screen. Every feather, strand of moss-like beard, and antler-etched rune is rendered with precision that transforms flat images into seemingly tangible beings. His technique marries digital sketching with traditional colored pencil in a harmonious artistic union that preserves the warmth of handcrafted art while embracing technological possibilities. The result feels both ancient and immediate—beings documented in their natural habitat rather than merely imagined.

“Scout” embodies youthful vigilance and has all the hallmarks of that kid in the neighborhood who somehow always knows everybody’s business before they do. This watchful entity seems caught mid-reconnaissance, probably reporting back to some elder woodland power about the shitty humans who keep leaving energy bar wrappers in the sacred grove. The slight head tilt practically broadcasts, “I saw what you did last summer solstice.”

Binkley’s figures inhabit a rich tapestry of folklore and fantasy literature, from high-fantasy to horror to dreamscapes. These beings explore varied emotional territories while maintaining the distinctive thread that connects all his creations—a sense that these beings belong to coherent, complex societies with their own rules, rituals, and relationships.

In “Mantis,” we meet another hybrid being, one who has embraced the full mantis lifestyle. Its elongated limbs and complex garments suggest a society with fashion magazines, designer labels, and possibly a “What Not to Wear (When Decapitating And Eating Your Mate”) reality show. The figure has perfected that quintessential mantis vibe, that stillness unique to mantids—an unnerving quality of absolute presence that makes you wonder if you’re being sized up as prey or simply observed with alien curiosity.

“Chrysalis” showcases our fascination with transformation, and who among us hasn’t experienced an awkward transitional phase where we’re neither fully one thing nor another? (Minus the literal exoskeleton and carapace detritus, presumably.)

The figure exists in that universal state of becoming that feels simultaneously exciting and mortifying, the human equivalent of butterfly soup, that vulnerable yet wildly potential state where you’ve committed to shedding your old self but haven’t quite figured out what your wings look like. Like three chapters into writing a book with no clear ending in sight, and you haven’t fully worked out exactly what it is you’re writing about yet or how any of it relates to anything else at all, and actually, I don’t even know if that example relates to this artwork in the slightest, but that’s where I am at mentally right now!

“Listener” depicts a being tuned to incomprehensible eldritch frequencies. The meditative pose suggests active reception of cosmic broadcasts—picking up everything from tree gossip to star conversations to the subtextual grumblings of tectonic plates. Would such sensitivity be a gift or a curse? Would the constant chatter of atoms and echoes of ancient sounds drive one to madness? Or would it connect one to the universe in deliriously strange and wonderful ways?

I’ve developed a particular affection for Binkley’s goblins—those delightful domestic prankers who, I’m convinced, live in my own home. What else explains the earring that vanished from my bathroom counter, only to materialize six months later inside the House of Psychotic Women tote bag I hadn’t used since last winter? Or the specific creak my hallway floorboard makes at 3:17 AM with metronomic consistency?

Just last week, I set my coffee mug down while checking email, only to find it had migrated to the top of my bookshelf when I turned back around. The mug, notably, had a Terry Pratchett quote about magic on it—clearly my resident goblin has a flair for the ironic. Binkley’s illustrations give these mischief-makers faces and forms, validating my suspicions that I share my living space with creatures whose entertainment comes at the expense of my sanity and organizational systems.

That’s okay, goblins; I love your crazy ways!

In our world of increasingly mass-produced, algorithm-approved visual pablum, Ed Binkley’s intricately artful fantasies feel like stumbling upon a secret garden where the plants talk back and have opinions, the bugs have human faces and agendas, and there are secret societies teeming beneath your feet, just below the range of hearing, and beyond the range of sight… but surrounding us constantly.

His creatures and beings communicate the stance of those who have traveled far, possibly through dangerous terrain, to seek admission to mysteries beyond our perception. The gravitas in their bearing suggests responsibilities beyond mortal comprehension—perhaps they maintain boundaries between dimensions or ensure that certain ancient entities remain slumbering.  And yet their fusion of hybrid features with expressive humanity suggests perceptions which, though must differ wildly from our own, lurks a consciousness with recognizable emotions and thoughts that experience the universal mixture of awe and terror, hope and uncertainty, the willingness to be transformed by what comes next, that comes from merely being alive, from existing.

Each Binkley piece carries that uncanny feeling of recognition – not because you’ve met these specific beings before but because some ancient part of your brain has always known they’re out there, watching, waiting, and occasionally borrowing your good stork-handled stitch-snipping scissors without asking. His art whispers: the world is weirder, wilder, and more wonderful than they (you know, THEY) would ever have you believe.

Who are you going to believe? Them? Or Ed Binkley? I believe you, Ed.

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Every May, social media fills with mermaid art as artists participate in MerMay – the month-long challenge to draw mermaids daily. I wonder if everyone’s still doing that? It’s cute, it’s popular, and it got me thinking about the mermaids and water spirits featured in my book The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook of All That is Unreal. Because honestly, my own mermaid obsession runs embarrassingly deep.

Did you watch Darryl Hannah in Splash at a young age and dream for the next decade of diving into the ocean and magically becoming a mermaid with a sparkly orange tail? I spent hours in the pool trying to perfect the dolphin kick, convinced that with enough practice, my legs might just fuse together. When that inevitable disappointment set in, I moved operations to the bathtub with the SeaWees toys from the early 1980s—those pastel-haired creatures with their tiny combs and mirrors. I’ve been obsessed with mermaids ever since. I could have included a whole chapter on them in my book, hell, I could have written an entire volume dedicated to nothing but these aquatic enchantresses.

What is it about mermaids that makes us lose our collective minds? They’re the ultimate shapeshifters, navigating between worlds with the kind of effortless grace most of us can only dream of achieving on dry land. They embody transformation, freedom, and that eternal mystery of what’s really going on beneath the surface—which is probably far cooler than the shitshow unfolding up here on this godforsaken dirt hole.

Here are some of the fishy folk (mermaids and “mermaid-adjacent”) that were included in my book…

In this captivating image of quiet vulnerability, a mermaid combs her lustrous abundance of hair as she rests on a sprawl of seaweed-strewn rocks in an isolated cove, the shimmering strength of her tail curled beneath her. An abalone shell scattered with pearls and the tears of dead sailors beside her, she wistfully gazes into the distance, unheeding of our eyes intruding upon her moment of reflection. Or do our eyes deceive us? Is this moment of enigmatic melancholia something else entirely? Perhaps a calculated move on the siren’s part when, perceiving our gaze, she notes our hunger for magic and miracles, and in feigning unawareness of our presence, it is all the easier to lure us to our watery doom? John William Waterhouse’s (1849–1917) fascination with the darker aspects of the mermaid’s mythology as both a tragic figure and enchantress drives this work, and with it, he invites us to dive into the mystery and discover her intentions for ourselves.

French painter and illustrator Gaston Bussière (1862–1928/29) studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Lyon and both worked with and was greatly influenced by his contemporaries, Gustave Moreau and also the Czech painter Alphonse Mucha. His works were visual poems of Symbolist inspiration, glowing and full of vivid embellishments and often evoked the heroes and heroines of the epic mythology. He also painted many depictions of nymphs, nereids and fairies scantily dressed and showing a typical Art Nouveau ideal of beauty, such as this frolicking trio.

Edvard Munch’s (1863–1944) mermaid looks like she is desperately looking for an excuse not to show up for that thing she promised to attend, a month ago, when she was maybe feeling deceptively energetic and probably all hopped up on those tricksy endorphins after a vigorous ocean swim. Now she’s having regrets because she’s a midnight introvert and probably just wants to stay in her grotto, chill out and look at her collection of gadgets and gizmos aplenty. She definitely does not want to be where the people are. Or maybe she’s a manifestation of Munch’s preoccupation with loneliness and anxiety – in the form of a fish-woman painted by the artist as part of a commission from a Norwegian industrialist for a large-scale decorative work during an extended stay in Paris in 1896–97. Fantasy is only limited by our imaginations, and anxious people’s (and anxious mermaids’) imaginations no doubt work overtime!

Renowned Peruvian–American painter Boris Vallejo is universally considered to be one of the masters of modern fantasy illustration. His instantly recognizable, lavishly hyper-realistic-to- the-point-of-surreality paintings have appeared on the covers of numerous science fiction and fantasy fiction novels, trading cards and posters, with subjects encompassing heroes from myth and legend, fearsome prehistoric creatures and the cosmic serenity of ocean life. From epic sword-and-sorcery battles to the strange flora, fauna, and denizens of extraterrestrial landscapes, Vallejo has painted boldly fantastical visions of almost every major fantasy figure that we know and love . . . and showed us some stunning fantasies we’d never even dreamed up!

Celebrated French artist Paul Émile Chabas (1869–1937) was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and a painter of nudes, portraits, and seascapes. They loved him in Europe; he first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1890, and received a number of awards and accolades over the next several decades. Sentiments elsewhere, however, were not as flattering, and reproductions of his most (in)famous painting, depicting a lakeside scene of an unclad young woman protecting her bare skin against a cool breeze in the autumn morning sun, caused controversy and scandal in the United States. A similar painting in a literal sense – a watery scene, its subject au naturel – Chabas’ darkly luminous glimpse of a naiad idling in a crystalline cove leans more into the fantastic, but the expression on her face is pure, jaded realism. ‘Calm down,’ she seems to say, ‘it’s just a bit of skin.’

Theodor Severin Kittelsen (1857– 1914) was a Norwegian artist, one of the most popular in Norway. Famous for his illustrations of fairy tales and legends, and eerie Nordic folklore, Kittelsen’s dreamlike canvases, rendered in muted tones depicting mountaintop troll magic down to sea ghosts deep in the bogs, reveal his melancholic longing for his countryside. During a stay in Munich, the artist is noted to have opined, ‘What appeals to me are the mysterious, romantic, and magnificent aspects of our scenery . . . it is becoming clearer and clearer to me what I have to do, and I have had more ideas – but I must, I must get home, otherwise it won’t work.’

Peerless illustrator of Russian folklore, Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942) was a graphic artist and stage/costume designer who was largely influenced by Art Nouveau and whose work is commonly associated with Russian fairy tales – to the extent that we could say his work very much defines our perceptions today of what Russian folklore art looks like. Seen here is Bilibin’s depiction of a waterdwelling demonic creature found in the mythology and lore of Eastern Europe – the Vodyanoi. A bloated, cranky frog-faced old water spirit, who, when angered, breaks dams, washes down water mills and drowns people and animals – the surest way to rile the Vodyanoi is to upset the natural balance of his watery habitat. Although according to legend, he can be appeased with a knob of butter. That seems fairly relatable.

Space constraints and the permissions and whatnot meant leaving behind some treasures. Here are a handful I wish I could have included!

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What causes a piece of art to catch your eye? It will come as a surprise to no one that mine gravitates toward certain irresistible elements—jewelry that catches light in impossible ways, flowers rendered with botanical precision yet somehow more alive than their real counterparts, clothing that drapes with such exquisite attention to fabric’s weight and flow that you can almost hear the rustle of silk against skin. Perhaps most compelling to me is that particular quality of melancholy that hovers at the edges of beauty, reminding us of its inherent fragility.

And yet lately, I find myself drawn to Ernest Biéler’s paintings (1863-1948) for reasons that seem almost contrary to my usual tastes and which I am struggling to articulate. I suspect I will get there by the end of this writing. His approach reminds me of a perfectly balanced conversation—detailed enough to be fascinating but never so technical that it loses its soul. His canvases strike a balance I really appreciate right now: meticulous in execution yet warmly accessible in spirit, offering a quieter beauty that speaks in a lower register (less ostentation? I guess?) than my typical aesthetic/artsy fixations.

Born in Switzerland and trained in Paris, Biéler’s artistic journey took him from early Impressionist influences to the elegantly stylized approach he’s best known for. After discovering the Swiss mountain village of Savièse during a summer holiday, he found both his spiritual home and his most enduring subject matter.

My favorite of his works might be “The Leaf Gatherer”—a perfect embodiment of what I mean by a “balanced conversation” in art. The scene depicts a woman outdoors in autumn, gathering fallen leaves into a large white sheet. Dressed in a black top and striped sage green skirt with a blue checked apron over it (and sporting a jauntily vibrant neck kerchief), she bends to her task among rust-colored leaves.

Her neatly braided hair, the carefully placed rake on the ground, the discarded black hat nearby—every element feels precisely observed yet utterly natural. Behind her, houses with blue rooftops and trees in varying autumnal hues complete the scene with the same careful-casual balance. Nothing feels forced despite the clear technical mastery—like someone telling a complex story without constantly checking their notes.

This quality extends through all his work. Take Femme en bleu. Against a background of indigo flowers, each petal and leaf rendered with loving precision, stands a woman in a flowing dark blue dress with a fascinating geometric-patterned bodice. The pattern is exquisite but doesn’t feel fussy, while the flowing fabric below reminds me so much of modern lagenlook fashion—that distinctive style with its layered, architectural quality,  those loose-fitting, asymmetrical pieces that somehow manage to appear both relaxed and carefully structured, as if someone took your favorite linen pants and gave them secret philosophical meaning. Her calm expression is neither aloof nor overly inviting—she’s just there, existing in her blue dress, clearly not giving a fart about our opinions either way.

In Les Tournesols, sunflowers and hydrangeas create what looks at first like a perfectly straightforward garden scene—almost greeting card material in its serene composition. But there’s something about its perfection that creates a strange anxiety, like those Magic Eye pictures that were ubiquitous in every American mall in the 90s. You find yourself almost crossing your eyes, unfocusing your vision, half-expecting something else to emerge from the too-perfect arrangement of blooms. The colors are vivid but somehow contained, as if nature has been asked to behave itself for the portrait session.

Though his Swiss pastoral scenes brought him fame, Biéler’s Les Bacchantes reveals his fascination with mythological themes. Here, Dionysus’s followers spiral across the canvas in saffron and flame-colored dresses, creating a whirlwind of movement that somehow never descends into chaos. Even these women in religious frenzy keep to their marks—it’s divine madness with excellent choreography. I find something oddly satisfying about this: ecstasy that doesn’t spill over the edges. (Anyone else obsessed with the idea of the Bacchantes after reading The Secret History?)

L’eau mysterieuse shows women in richly patterned dresses gathered around a circular pond that looks too dark to reflect anything clearly. Are they doing goth laundry or communing with freaky water spirits? The scene doesn’t tell us, and I love that ambiguity. Their clothes—reds, yellows, and purples that practically vibrate against each other—look spectacular against the stone surroundings. The pond itself feels like a black hole at the center of the composition, pulling everything toward it. That low stone wall around it isn’t keeping anyone out; it’s practically daring you to step closer.

Not all of Biéler’s subjects exude dreamy mysticism. The three young women in his 1920 painting of village girls project an entirely different energy—a trio that looks ready to fuck you up, steal your lunch money, and then go milk a cow without breaking stride. Standing hand in hand on a dirt path, their traditional black jackets and differently colored skirts (purple, blue, and white) can’t disguise the intimidating solidarity of their formation. Their expressionless faces reveal nothing, but the way they stand together says everything. I’d cross the street if I saw them coming.

Les Sources presents yet another female collective, with seven women in flowing, translucent green robes gathered around what appears to be a sacred spring. The two central standing figures could be priestesses, while those kneeling at the water’s edge seem lost in whatever they’re seeing in the reflective surface. The fabric looks so light it might float away if anyone moved too suddenly, as if it’s been woven from the mystical pond itself—gossamer silk spun from mystical depths, still carrying the memory of ripples and reflections.

Les Feuilles mortes captures an autumn ritual amidst a carpet of golden leaves. A woman in a billowing orange dress raises her arms skyward like branches reaching for light, while earth-toned figures spiral around her in a hypnotic dance. The fallen leaves beneath them seem to tremble with their own secret movements, completing this autumnal dream sequence—beautiful, precise, but slightly uncanny.

You know how sometimes you want ball gowns and castles and a dragon’s hoard of jewels—maximalism dialed up to eleven with the knob broken off? And other times you just want some real simple-life cottagecore shit? I have a lot of stuff. I LOVE my beautiful things. But sometimes I dream of running away into the wilderness and leaving the burden of all that stuff behind. I think Biéler’s art scratches that itch for me.

I just today read these lines from Mary Oliver’s poem, and they resonated profoundly:

Perhaps that’s what draws me to Biéler’s work right now—these visions of women gathering leaves, tending ponds, dancing in forests. Women who appear weightless with their lack of possessions, yet somehow more present because of it. Not that I’m about to set fire to my collections (let’s not get carried away), but there’s something about these paintings that speaks to that part of me that occasionally yearns to know what it might feel like to fly. (But I might get held fast by the gravity of my lagenlook layers.)

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As Taurus season unfolds its sensual, earthy embrace, I am once again drawn to the pale, hazy feminine worlds of Marie Laurencin, an artist whose work “Les Amazones” I featured in my 2023 book, The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook of All That is Unreal (p. 224 if you’re seeking it in your copy at home!) Though Laurencin herself was born under Scorpio’s intense gaze (on Halloween, no less), there’s something undeniably Taurean about her artistic sensibilities that speaks to my bull-headed heart – that stubborn insistence on surrounding oneself with pillowy softness while simultaneously maintaining firm boundaries about what (and who) gets excluded from your carefully curated paradise.

Born in 1883 in Paris, Laurencin became a central figure in the artistic avant-garde of early 1900s Paris, moving in circles dominated by Picasso and the Cubists. Yet she would later declare that “Cubism has poisoned three years of my life, preventing me from doing any work… As long as I was influenced by the great men who surrounded me I could do nothing.” A statement delivered, one imagines, with the perfect blend of Parisian ennui and withering side-eye.

Living in exile in Spain during the First World War, far from the clubby Parisian scene, Laurencin began to find her own voice. By the time she returned to her native city in 1921, she had traded sharp noses and geometric planes for a distinctly feminine, fantastical aesthetic. Her palette pared back to pinks, light grays, and blues—macaron tints that taste of rosewater and dry champagne. Her prose poem “Le calmant,” published in 1917, speaks to her melancholic state during this exile: “More than bored/Sad/More than sad/Unhappy… More than exiled/Dead/More than dead/Forgotten.” The artistic equivalent of that dog surrounded by flames: “This is fine,” it announces, fur already smoldering.

“Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier,” Laurencin once remarked, a sentiment that captures her devotion to beauty—a quintessentially Taurean value. Like the bull’s stubborn appreciation for sensual pleasures, Laurencin refused to compromise her vision, creating an alternate reality governed by feminine principles.

Laurencin’s signature style features a diaphanous, gauzy transparency where everything seems to float. Feminine figures with wide-set eyes and hollow gazes drift through creamy pastel landscapes. Her painted worlds sound like strings played with too-gentle fingers, taste like macaron shells that shatter at first bite then melt into something unexpectedly complex—sweetness laced with bitter almond, a confection that offers pleasantries while quietly damning you to hell for a minor transgression that they have never forgotten (le whoopsie, that’s my Taurus showing).

By banishing men from her canvases, Laurencin performed a kind of elegant exorcism, replacing them with something infinitely more interesting (and really, isn’t anything more interesting than a man?). When adapting traditional scenes of courtship and romantic intrigue, she simply excised all male figures, leaving only women and animals in her gossamer tableaux. Male collectors and critics could view her work as delightfully feminine, while her friends from Natalie Clifford Barney’s salons recognized the coded Sapphic paradise she was weaving, a secret garden where women could commune and flourish without explanation or apology.

This duality feels particularly resonant during Taurus season, when we oscillate between the practical concerns of the material world and our deeper yearnings for beauty. Laurencin understood this tension. Her commercially savvy approach (200 promotional posters papering Paris’s wealthy neighborhoods for her 1921 solo show!) funded her creation of private worlds—intimate enclaves, silken sanctuaries where the male gaze had no purchase.

As I sit with her dreamy imagery now, I imagine them as perfumes—complex scents with hidden depths. Perhaps something that opens with cool green narcissus and pale violet, before revealing a heart of ghostly iris and crushed peony petals preserved between the pages of love letters. The base notes would be surprisingly earthy: ambergris washed ashore after a storm, splintered antique wooden picture frames, and a thread of musk that wraps around your wrist like a stray lover’s hair.

I return to the petal-soft splendor of Laurencin’s feminine realms when I need reminding that beauty isn’t frivolous, but subversive, that creating your own reality is sometimes the only reasonable response to an unreasonable world. In this Taurus season, let us be like Laurencin: stubborn in our devotion to beauty, and wickedly clever in how we share it with those who confuse brutalism with truth, those who mistake “great men” for necessary influences, those who demand dead fish, beer glasses, and onions.

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Late last year, while immersed in research for a project that’s still taking shape in the shadows (more on that when the stars align), I stumbled across Federico Beltrán Masses and found myself instantly bewitched. The fashion elements alone could occupy me for hours. Ancient queens adorned in gilded coronets rise like celestial beings against ink-dark skies, their jewelry defying both time and gravity and possibly some secret third thing. Embellished with jasper, lapis, and beaten gold, their costumes blur the line between royal finery and ceremonial armor. Elsewhere, aristocratic women of the Raj recline on cushions of impossible luxury, their saris rippling with metallic threads that seem to pulse with their own inner electricity, catching lamplight and transforming it into something molten and alive. Figures in European evening dress display crucifixes that hover above alabaster skin like sacred moths drawn to flame, their religious symbolism transforming into something far more ambiguous and enticing.

All these inhabitants move through a universe where glamour operates as both elemental force and ancient sorcery—bending reality around its wearer until even the shadows bow in reverence, transforming everything it touches into shimmering opulence, gilt-edged splendor, and decadent magnificence that drips with honeyed light and velvet darkness in equal measure.

Born in Cuba in 1885 but claiming Spain as his artistic homeland, Beltrán created a world of such concentrated beauty that one might feel compelled to bottle it. What would it smell like? Perhaps a fragrance of moonlight-soaked jasmine and narcotic tuberose mingling with smoldering incense, a whisper of leather from Spanish riding boots, and the faintest hint of champagne and powder from a Venetian carnival. The base notes would be sandalwood and something darker—a touch of that velvet night sky he painted so often, somehow made olfactory.

His women exist in eternal twilight, their red lips whispering clandestine poetry if you leaned in close enough—perhaps the coordinates of a garden where sculptures come alive after midnight, or the true names of stars known only to those who’ve seen them from both sides. Their captivating gaze holds brutal, uncompromising secrets—histories of libertine pleasures and calculated cruelties that would appall, arouse, and inflame polite society in equal measure if spoken aloud. Looking into these eyes feels like I’ve wandered into one of Hammer Horror’s unseen footage reels—the ones rumored to contain scenes too mesmerizing for public release, where the vampire queens and countesses gather in their private salons after the cameras stop rolling, discussing philosophies of eternal beauty while their reflections slowly fade from antique mirrors.

Hollywood fell hard for this vision of nocturnal glamour. Rudolph Valentino became both friend and subject, inviting the artist to California where Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, and Joan Crawford joined his constellation of admirers. Of course they did—Beltrán’s paintings feel like film stills from the most glamorous movies never made, where the lighting is always perfect and everyone exists in that precise moment when a cocktail glass shatters in slow motion but the liquid inside remains suspended in midair, capturing the chandelier light in ten thousand prisms while conversation continues around it, uninterrupted by physics or possibility.

The technical brilliance in his work awakens my childhood obsession with treasure chests and jewelry boxes—those glittering, tangled heaps of jewels that promised infinite riches. I’ve spent embarrassing amounts of time examining the precise way he captures gold thread in fabric, the luminous quality of pearls against skin, the perfect gleam of an earring catching candlelight. No wonder he scandalized London in 1929 when his “Salomé” was temporarily removed from exhibition—these paintings spark a hunger that goes beyond mere appreciation, as if beauty this intense might actually be something forbidden.

World War II’s darkening shadow over Europe ultimately obscured Beltrán’s brilliance, leaving him stranded in Paris without his gallery connections as his opulent visions suddenly seemed out of step with grim reality. Though he may not fit neatly into my current project, I’ve carefully filed him away in that mental cabinet where I keep all beautiful things that demand revisiting.  Each image I’ve discovered feels like peering through an enchanted looking glass into a world where champagne never goes flat and jewels never lose their luster, one where night is eternal, beauty is currency, and everyone’s lives are gilded with impossible glamour.

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Long before I lost my heart to ladies in billowing nightgowns fleeing from ominous manors, I fell head over heels for a teenaged titian-haired sleuth with a penchant for stumbling upon—and solving—mysteries full of hidden jewels and midnight whispers. Nancy Drew, with her blue roadster and ever-present flashlight, was my first literary love. And it was Rudy Nappi’s captivating cover illustrations that first beckoned me into her world of hidden clues and intrepid adventures.

I can still remember tucking those yellow-spined books into my bookbag after library day (the most anticipated school day, obviously!), counting the moments until I could unfold their mysteries on the bus ride home. Nappi began illustrating Nancy Drew in 1953, bringing a distinctive magic to the series. His Nancy always seems caught in that perfect moment of suspense—peering around corners, examining cryptic objects, or caught in mid-investigation.

Looking at Nappi’s work now, I love how he captured Nancy. She’s smart and composed, her face alert and searching, but never scared. Even when she’s facing shadowy strangers or weird phenomena, she has a confident calmness that fascinated me as a kid who was afraid of everything from motorcycles and helicopters and other loud noises to Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk to Dr. Kneehaus, who I suspected was always itching to jab me with a needle. But Nancy never ran from noises in the attic or anywhere else—she walks straight toward them, flashlight in hand.

I always loved his color choices—those deep blues, rich greens, and warm glowing windows against dark backgrounds. His moonlit scenes where Nancy’s investigating abandoned places, her figure bright against the darkness, pulled me right into the story before I’d read a single word. The Lilac Inn cover was always my favorite. I had a particular fondness for anything adorned with flowers, a preference that hasn’t changed much over the decades.

And the covers with jewels or gems held a special enchantment for me. The Clue in the Jewel Box? The Spider Sapphire Mystery? I was instantly captivated. My childhood attraction to glittering treasures clearly foreshadowed my adult appreciation for all things that shimmer and sparkle.

Nappi had a theatrical flair to his compositions. Nancy often stands in doorways, on staircases, or at garden gates—right at that exciting moment between safety and mystery. Her practical skirts and sensible shoes (I desperately wanted those penny loafers) kept things grounded, even when the stories ventured into the wonderfully far-fetched. Nappi really knew how to use light and shadow, drawing your eye exactly where he wanted—usually to Nancy or the clue she’s finding. His buildings, whether crumbling mansions or abandoned lighthouses, feel both specific and somehow timeless.

I see so many connections between these Nancy Drew covers and the gothic romance art I collected later. Many of the same artistic techniques appear in both: dramatic lighting that creates suspense, architectural elements that frame the protagonist, and compositions that guide the eye to critical details. Both genres showcase women in atmospheric settings – old mansions, shadowy gardens, moonlit landscapes. Both capture moments of tension and revelation. Nancy’s poised alertness with flashlight in hand represents one approach to mystery, while the emotional intensity of gothic heroines embodies another. Rather than opposites, they feel like different facets of the same attraction to the unknown. As my reading tastes evolved, I found myself drawn to both visual languages – the clear-eyed investigation and the emotional response to mystery, each compelling in its own way.

Nappi had an extraordinary ability to conjure an aura of mystery in every illustration. Even covers for stories I initially thought wouldn’t interest me drew me in through his visual alchemy. What captivated me wasn’t simply his skill at depicting scenes from the books, but how he manifested the very essence of mystery—that delicious sensation of secrets waiting to be uncovered, of ordinary objects and places harboring extraordinary significance. These covers sparked my lifelong love affair with mysteries and the mysterious, teaching me to see the world as a place where wonder hides in plain sight, waiting for the observant eye to discover it.

I’d spend hours with these books, mentally placing myself alongside Nancy as she solved each mystery. (Poor Bess and George—in my imagination, they frequently found themselves bumped to make room for me.) The covers themselves became doorways to adventure, promising stories that would satisfy my growing appetite for mystery and revelation.

There’s something comforting about Nancy’s world in these illustrations. The danger feels real enough to be exciting but never truly terrifying. The mysteries seem complex but always within reach of solving. Nancy herself has this perfect mix of caution and bravery that spoke to my curious but fearful younger self. These covers promised that smart thinking would always win out—and I was here for it.

Looking back, I can trace the genealogy of my aesthetic obsessions directly to these Nancy Drew covers. The seeds planted by Nappi’s illustrations eventually blossomed into my fascination with gothic romance art. The visual vocabulary he established—secrets lurking in shadowed doorways, mysterious objects holding untold stories, architecture as a character in itself—became the foundation for my later artistic attractions.

I see a clear connection between Nancy and the gothic heroines I’d later fall in love with, one that goes deeper than their surface differences. Both have a special way of noticing what others miss, even if Nancy expresses it through methodical sleuthing while gothic heroines often rely on intuition and emotional awareness. The visuals evolve beautifully between genres too – Nancy’s trusty flashlight beam sweeping across dusty attics becomes the gothic heroine’s flickering candle casting shadows on stone walls. What draws me to both is how they remind us that truly seeing the world around you – paying attention to details others ignore – reveals life’s hidden stories. As a child, I found this lesson in Nancy’s careful observations; as an adult, I discovered it again in the atmospheric worlds of gothic covers, where I realized that perhaps mystery itself isn’t just something to solve, but something to savor – a state of heightened possibility that awakens our most vivid imagination.

These books, which I first found in my elementary school library in second grade, didn’t just entertain me—they shaped how I see the world. Just look at the titles: moss-covered mansions, crumbling walls, whispering statues, tolling bells, broken lockets, twisted candles, crooked bannisters, spider sapphires, glowing eyes. This is the vocabulary that still colors my imagination—a gothic kaleidoscope I’ve never outgrown.

I see a clear connection between Nancy and the gothic heroines I’d later fall in love with, one that goes deeper than their surface differences. Both have a special way of noticing what others miss, even if Nancy expresses it through methodical sleuthing while gothic heroines often rely on intuition and emotional awareness. The visuals evolve beautifully between genres too – Nancy’s trusty flashlight beam sweeping across dusty attics becomes the gothic heroine’s flickering candle casting shadows on stone walls. What draws me to both is how they remind us that truly seeing the world around you – paying attention to details others ignore – reveals life’s hidden stories. As a child, I found this lesson in Nancy’s careful observations; as an adult, I discovered it again in gothic illustrations, where I began to appreciate what might be called the art of the unknown – that exquisite space between question and answer where possibilities shimmer like jewels in candlelight, sometimes more precious than certainty itself.

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This article was originally published at Haute Macabre.

When initially living on my own in my early 20’s, I received a mysterious package in the mail during one of the first few weeks in my small apartment. In a plain brown envelope, with no return address and no accompanying note, I found a generic paperback mystery novel. Stuck between the pages between chapters three and four was a faded Polaroid of a man with a ridiculously large, dangling penis. His eyes were Xed out, and someone had drawn a slimy booger hanging from his nose. Ew. Gross. But also: unexpected and intriguing!

For weeks I scoured my brain, asking myself over and over who was this mysterious owner of the enormous wiggly peen? Am I supposed to know him? Who defaced his image? What was the significance of the book in which it was tucked? Why had someone mailed this to me in the first place? I had so many questions! The next month my sister telephoned me and asked if I’d gotten the gift she had sent.

Apparently, she shared, while laughing so hard she could barely breathe, she’d found the book at a used bookstore. When she plucked it from the shelf, the photo tumbled out, and in retrieving it from the floor and taking a closer look, she realized that, with a few modifications, she had the perfect anonymous house-warming gift to send me. She was right. It was weird and dumb and perfect, and to this day we giggle about it. We still don’t know who the naked man is, but we will no doubt be mocking him until we are well in our dotage.

What do Marcel Dzama‘s illustrations have in common with my ludicrous sister and the mysterious dick pic? Well, I’ll get to that.

Marcel Dzama’s works, reminiscent of small, intimate illustrations from vintage story books, are rendered in graphite, pen and ink, watercolor, and root beer wash (a solution he discovered by accident and which can make his drawings look as if they are made in blood). Equal parts macabre and mischievous, frightening and fanciful, these delicately wrought, hybrid characters in the midst of their bizarre and disturbing narratives, present a folksy appearance with an surrealist twist and are underscored by a dark, gallows humor.

Receiving his BFA from the University of Manitoba in 1997, Dzama actively creates across mediums, being a prolific drawer, as well as filmmaker, installation and sculpture artist, musician, costume designer. One might recognize his artwork from the creative output of musicians such as Beck or They Might Be Giants and his darkly whimsical works are highly sought after by Hollywood celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Jim Carey.

Do I care about any of that when my gaze falls upon his flacid, feeble aliens and pretentious tree people and the subversive violence committed by a parade of young women shooting arrows, strangling bats, and threatening their sistren with slingshots? Not particularly.

Dzama’s accolades and renown and star-studded endorsements have nothing to do with why I am drawn to strange pageantry of his work. Cartoonish, nightmarish, and utterly enigmatic, I trace the simple lines of his childish faces with my finger, lose myself in the cloudy shades of his muted color palette, and wonder endlessly about all of it.  One reviewer of Marcel Dzama: Sower of Discord, writes that Dzama’s works are a “…a fun-house hell where sinners are condemned to an eternity of enigma.”  It is this enigmatic quality to the work that compels me to continue staring, despite the unknowing. To seek out more of his wonderfully peculiar art. And of course…to share the mystery.

One might imagine finding a book of these illustrations in a cardboard box of disorganized children’s toys at your neighbor’s garage sale on a cloudy autumn day. Struck at first by the whimsy of these drawings, you will thumb through the pages, your nostalgia slowly turning to puzzlement. Something seems really off here. Just…not quite right. Kinda fucked up, actually–and you’d love a second opinion.

And you know what? It’s your turn to play anonymous benefactor and you’ve got just the sibling to send it to.

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This article was originally published at Haute Macabre.

As the tale goes, jeweler and sculptor of contemporary memento mori Julia deVille, apprenticing under a handful of the greatest and most formidable masters ever known, honed and refined her talismanic skills over the course of several centuries and quietly emerged from her draconian education in the mid-19th century as a master alchemist–with soul almost all intact!

A fanciful origin story perhaps, but one only need briefly glimpse her extraordinary work to fast believe that, as the fabled records note, Queen Victoria did indeed employ deVille as her principal goldsmith, becoming both her supporter and beloved friend. Rumors whisper that with the her majesty’s patronage, deVille was able to create “the most exceptional and heartbreaking regalia” and together, they made mourning a fashionable devotional trend.

It is said that, over the course of time, deVille continued to cultivate her skills and unceasingly reinvented her approach, but however many millennia pass, and whether the medium is jet, obsidian, precious stones, or precious creatures, each jewel has a story to tell, and, by deVille’s hand–very amulet and adornment she creates is first built upon a foundation of utmost love.

And now, dear readers, the facts as they are known to this scholar: Julia deVille’s work is informed by a fascination with the acceptance of death expressed in memento mori jewelry of the 15th to 18th centuries and Victorian Mourning jewelry. Characterized by the use of memento mori symbology from past eras, as well as the methods the Victorians used to sentimentalize death with adornment, deVille uses traditional precious and semi-precious metals and gems, and (on occasion) materials that were once living, such as jet, human hair and taxidermy.

In examining our mortality, her work incorporates motifs that “encourage viewers and wearers to identify with their own fate and challenge a prevalent culture that obsessively plans the future: forget an unknowable tomorrow and instead embrace the present.”

deVille studied at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE and has, in addition to those credentials, completed a taxidermy mentorship. Her haunting works are characterized by the elegant combination of these fields and ideas, and has been extensively exhibited in Australia as well as in the USA and Europe.

She employs taxidermy as a celebration of of life and sees it as the preservation of something fragile and beautiful; “…my work celebrates the preciousness of life and the power of each and every life,” the artist declares.

And such wondrous celebrations they are! A winsome piglet, swaddled in lace and beads sits sweetly atop a bed of feathers. A gothly mummified feline reclines in dark dignity; a luminous, diamond encrusted corvid skull shimmers and sparkles in avian afterlife. But do not fret, sensitive souls–deVille, a vegan, animal lover, and animal rights champion who ethically sources her materials, further notes on her website, “no sentient (or sapient) beings were harmed for the making of these works.”

Find Julia deVille: website // facebook // instagram

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