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!

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 1 comment

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.)

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 2 comments

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.

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ comment

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.

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 2 comments

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.

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 2 comments

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.

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ comment

✥ comment

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

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ comment

Back in 2008, while I was still finding my voice with a modest little blog chronicling my cooking experiments and knitting projects, I spent countless hours as a devoted reader of other people’s online worlds. Those were the golden days of blogging, when each site felt like discovering someone’s secret diary left open on a cafe table. Though I mainly haunted the corners where home cooks shared their Rancho Gordo bean techniques and no-knead bread recipes, or where I envied the knitters trotting off to Rhinebeck, other blogging spheres existed in parallel – fashion blogs like Sea of Shoes, where a visionary teenage fashion enthusiast transformed vintage finds into fantastic narratives that felt more like glamourous fairy tales than outfit posts.

In early 2024, long after my own writing had evolved from those cozy domestic dispatches into explorations of art and the artfully macabre, I stumbled upon Jane Dashley’s paintings on Instagram. At first, I didn’t realize it was the same Jane as that marvelous fashion blogger! But the jolt of recognition in terms of the artwork was immediate and electric – here was a perfect embodiment of my very favorite vibe, what scholar and mystic Pam Grossman describes as “demented joy” – that quality of being “exuberant without being insufferably cheery, twisted but not cruel, bright but with undercurrents of gravity and shadow.”

It’s a concept that deeply resonates with my own aesthetic sensibilities – that space where childlike wonder collides with adult anxieties to create something electric and strange. In her work, I found this manifest in canvases teeming with impish devils attending formal balls and moonlit bacchanals that spark that same jubilant sense of ecstatic absurdity that I’m always seeking in art. It exists in that delirious twilight where sweetness sours slightly sinister, where lobsters attend midnight revels, bears take tea with unlikely companions, and the devil’s always in the details. Each painting feels like a folkloric postcard from the enchanted midnight woodlands of a surrealist snow globe brimming with the best and weirdest nursery rhymes. In short, it makes me want to dance a madcap jig and scream with delight!

I recently had the chance to speak with Jane about her journey from fashion blogger to painter and co-founder of the fragrance venture Fragraphilia. We delved into the fever-dream world of her canvases, where good and evil play dress-up and switch roles with gleeful abandon, where protective spirits keep watch while offering cake and ice cream sundaes, and devilry and revelry find their faces in furry friends.

Through Sea of Shoes, during the golden age of fashion blogging, you cultivated an extraordinary aesthetic vision – your sophisticated, avant-garde style choices and artful curation created something that transcended traditional fashion documentation. Now, you’re channeling that same transformative sensibility and expressing this distinctive vision into paintings that enchant and beguile. Could you talk about this evolution? How has your eye for the extraordinary – whether in vintage couture or painted dreamscapes – continued to develop and surprise you across these different mediums?

That is so kind of you to say! Thank you so much. I think what drew me to blogging back in the day was a really free-form outlet of expression. I used to do blog posts taping stuff together from magazines and drawing on notebook paper. I could write about anything I wanted and I really did. Besides fashion, I wrote about music and movies and toys I collected, and even my favorite types of fish.  As blogging progressed into more of a “job” and the magic of the original blogging days started to dull, I just wasn’t having a lot of fun anymore. But I was also becoming an adult, and I think I just accepted that my job was less fun because that’s what growing up meant. So I kept on for a while, but growing more disenchanted with the passing of time.

Luckily, the pandemic gave me the push to turn the art I was already making into a full-time thing. It’s been the most amazing shift, I never knew I could have this much fun. Ironically, as a working artist and frazzled mother of a toddler, I have very few opportunities to dress up these days. I still definitely see the crossover between my sense of fashion and what I bring up when I am creating a painting. It all comes from the same place, and it’s interesting to see how that plays out over the years.

There’s something delightfully feverish about your work, its whimsical creatures and anthropomorphic animals in vibrant dreamscapes of bacchanals and bonfire nights – you describe it as ‘happiness bordering on delirium.’ How do you achieve this particular emotional frequency in your pieces, and what state of mind are you typically in while creating?

I have a hysterical need to be making as much work as possible at all times. I just counted, and I made 82 finished paintings last year, which does feel like a lot for a year that involved a move and taking care of a toddler. I think my obsession with the work I’m creating, as well as a wolfish desire to make as much of it as I possibly can, contribute to the feverish frequency you’re picking up on! I work on many paintings at once. My notebooks are filled with multiple penciled-in squares that contain very hastily rendered painting ideas, almost like a swatch book of upholstery fabric.

Usually, I have some piece of media going on in the background while I work, be it a movie or an album or an audiobook and I like to listen to them in loops. I listened to the Thandie Newton narration of Jane Eyre four times in the last year. I’ve been playing Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee over and over. I like getting into a really obsessive and repetitive energy, and I think it’s a form of gratitude to wring everything you can from other art that influences you.

Your work seems to draw from timeless storytelling traditions – from folklore and fairy tales to the profound magic of Studio Ghibli films, even reimagining classical narratives like Swan Lake – where ordinary moments can suddenly open into something extraordinary, where boundaries between mundane and magical dissolve. How do these narrative traditions influence the way you think about enchantment and possibility in your own work?

I think I have a very typical girl obsession with fairy tales, especially coming from a household of sisters. You grow up hearing them, and they enchant you while also instructing you on what you should want and usually about how you must suffer to get it. And then you actually come of age, and you grow hair, and you start bleeding, and you’re gripped with pain, and you’re kind of repulsed but compelled toward boys and men. It’s so awful and hilarious. But you still love those goddamn fairy tales! Luckily there’s Angela Carter. I guess many of the origins of fairytales are just women trying to make sense of the horrible things that have happened to them. I think this is healthy and wonderful, and playing into these narratives makes me feel connected to the lineage of humanity.

Your paintings seem to exist in an interconnected dream world populated by recurring characters – cats and lobsters, bunnies and teddy bears, protective magical creatures alongside mischievous ones like your signature devil in their ballgown. Could you tell us about how this personal mythology evolved and what these figures represent in your creative universe?

I grew up surrounded by animals, my mom was a big dog rescue person so we always had 5-10 dogs in the house at once. We had a bull mastiff wander into our garage one random day, and ever since then, my mom has been part of bull mastiff rescue groups. They are such magnificent dogs. I loved to draw their beautiful strong limbs and toenails, I got interested in animal shapes this way. I also had a black cat as an imaginary friend/inner guiding voice until I was way too old to admit, which probably explains a lot of my work. My earliest memories are dreams I had of large freshwater fish, such as the Amazonian river fish, the Arapaima. I have a LOT of weird animal hang-ups that would take me a long time to detail, and I would say they are all the impetus for almost all of my work.

Days before I gave birth to my son, I wasn’t sleeping well and I stayed up painting this masked tiger figure that just came to my imagination. I felt like this tiger captured the spirit of my son and it felt like a kind of a creative spirit labor that took place before any kind of actual birth labor. I always knew that tiger would represent my son to me. And what’s weird is that the toy my son became most attached to early on is a toy tiger! He has a stuffed toy tiger that does absolutely everything with us, and he gravitated to it all on his own. I spend all day every day talking to this toy tiger with my son. It wigs me out sometimes!

In your work, there’s often a fascinating interplay between light and shadow – literal and metaphorical. Your celebrations have an edge of wildness, your brightest pieces pulse with an almost supernatural energy. You’ve spoken about darkness as a space where we “tune in, maybe better than we have ever tuned in before.” How do you think about the role of darkness in your work – not just as an aesthetic choice, but as a way of seeing or understanding?

People always talk about the darkness in my work, and sometimes, I have a really hard time seeing it because I have so much fun making it.  Then I get honest with myself and I have to admit that I’ve painted like, carcasses and bunnies being mauled in pretty recent memory. Right now, I am painting naked horny fairy women chasing hairy beasts. To me, it’s so second nature to bring in aspects of fear and death because that’s life.  I think, as children, we have a natural compulsion towards darkness because we’re trying to make sense of all the fears we can’t understand yet. Children integrate darkness into their play and imaginary worlds so that they can learn to cope with it later on. Maybe I’m still doing that.

I’m shamelessly nosy about artists’ creative spaces! Could you invite us into your studio – what does your workspace look like, what are your must-have tools and materials, and do you have any particular rituals or routines when you’re creating?

Last year, we bought a home with windows and a pretty big garage added to it. It’s been my studio, and every day, I could kiss the ground because I’m so grateful to have so much space to work. I work best when I have a lot going on at once. My studio is crammed with many works in progress and lots of notes taped to the wall. I have two tables in the middle, one where I do small work or admin stuff and one where I can pack paintings or for a friend to come to work alongside me in my studio. I do my large work against the walls. I work almost every night, and I play music and always keep a stash of pimento cheese in my freezer to keep my motivation up!

Can you tell us about a particular piece that marked a significant evolution or breakthrough in your artistic journey?

Christmasland is a painting I did in 2022, and upon its completion, I was very pleased with the level of weirdness it achieved. The stare of the cat’s eyes holds something that feels like a part of myself. I felt maybe it was too weird for other people to like, but when I shared it on Twitter, it got a huge response, and I gained a whole new audience. I’m still very grateful for this experience, it gives me hope to this day when I try something that feels too awkward or wonky and I feel the temptation to abandon it. I remember Christmasland!

Let’s talk about your artistic lineage – what were the formative experiences or artworks that shaped your creative vision when you were starting out? Who are the artists, past or present, that you feel in conversation with?

I come from a very creative family; my mom, my aunt, and my grandma are all artists in some way. Early on in my life, and I couldn’t say when, I had a concept of what folk and outsider art was. My grandma was really into buying and selling antiques back in the day and she was always showing me art or movies when I stayed at her house. She liked John Waters movies and outsider art a lot. She was definitely not a normal grandma. I remember being 6 or 7 years old and being taken on a school field trip to the Dallas Art Museum and thinking to myself that while I appreciated the skill of these very stiff and formal American landscape paintings we were being taken to see, it just didn’t excite me like the paintings in the folk art books I would look at. Art books were a big thing in my life early on, I was lucky to have parents that nurtured what they saw that I loved. So, I was interested in this tension between what I was being told “good art” was and the art that actually excited me. Outsider art, folk art, whatever you want to call it…all of the stuff I liked when I was a teenager is still the best stuff to me. I have books on Nellie Mae Rowe and Joseph Yoakum that I bought when I was 16 years old that I look at all the time. I also remember being very gripped by the painting “Sitting on a Bench with Border” by Rose Wylie and I probably saw it around the time it was done, 2007. I printed it out on my computer and just stared at it constantly. Rose’s work was a huge shift for me when I first saw it, and she is still one of my biggest inspirations.

You and your husband Jeff, created Fragraphilia – a personal journal, review site, and podcast celebrating the artistry of niche perfumery. Could you share a bit about your history with scent and how this sensory world has evolved alongside your visual art? How do you find these different forms of artistic expression – the visible world of your paintings and the invisible landscapes of fragrance – informing and enriching each other?

I really never thought I was a perfume person until we got a Serge Lutens counter here in Dallas. I grew up in the era of Victoria’s Secret body sprays, which turned me off of perfume for the most part. Then, when I smelled Serge Lutens for the first time, my world shifted. I had never thought perfume could be so expressive. I want to say my first Serge bottle was Daim Blond, but for years, I wore Fille en Anguilles as my one and only perfume. My husband was a niche fragrance guy before we met, which I guess was pretty unusual back in those days.

Having a frag-head husband is really fun, especially since our tastes are nearly the same. Lately both work and childrearing take up a lot of the time that my husband and I used to have just for each other, so scent is a special thing that keeps us connected throughout the day. We always keep each other abreast of what scents we’re wearing throughout the day and talk about the wearing experience. The studio is a very lonely place, especially on dark, long nights, and my fragrance is often the only company I keep in there. It can absolutely set the tone for a painting session. I have just blind-bought Reve d’Ossian on your recommendation and I absolutely intend to use it as a creative guide in a new series of work. I never blind buy, I am so excited to be taken on this journey. Thank you for the inspiration!’

I’m unabashedly nosy about all the little things that bring joy and delight to creative people’s lives! Would you share some current favorites – this could be anything at all, from your perfect morning beverage to a holy grail skincare product to the coziest painting socks to whatever show you’re binge-watching right now. What small pleasures are making your days a bit more magical?

This year, I gave myself the gift of a History Hit subscription, and I can’t stop telling everyone how great it is. It’s educational but it is also an escape to a different time. I really like the show Gone Medieval and Not Just the Tudors. They also do these great documentaries you can watch on their app where they take you on tours of castles and stuff like that. I keep them playing while I work. I also love audiobook performances. One I loved last year was Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian as read by John Pirhalla. It’s western folk horror, and I loved what the audiobook performance added to the story. I listened to it a few times in a row. Lately, I’ve done a lot of Edith Wharton audiobooks, too.

Your work often feels like it exists in its own dreamy universe, but I’d love to know what inspires you in the real world – do you have favorite places you visit for inspiration, certain times of day when ideas come to you, or particular environments that spark your creativity?

My happy place is definitely Half Price Books. We are lucky to have the flagship location here in Dallas. It’s very calming, and I like the dig. The art book selection is not as good as it used to be, sadly. Before the pandemic, I used to find the most insane rare books in their art collection, no matter how frequently I went. I think that they started culling some of the good ones and selling them online in recent years. I still really like going there when I need inspiration. I started collecting children’s books as a teenager, and I love that I have an excuse to buy even more now that I’m a mom. You can find great old ones that are out of print at Half Price! I hear whispers they may open a tiki bar inside of the flagship. That would basically be heaven on earth for me.

You’ve built these remarkable creative worlds – through fashion, through painting, through fragrance – each one distinct but somehow connected by your distinctive vision. What have you learned about following your creative instincts across these different territories? What would you share with others who feel drawn to explore multiple forms of artistic expression?

I can see now that having played in so many fields of creativity, all of it matters. Every little sketch or every little note you wrote to yourself or every song or movie you’ve fallen in love with. And because of that, it’s so important to honor those fragile beginnings. It doesn’t matter how far into your artistic journey you are, whenever you are creating anything, there will be parts that just feel horrible. Often, the beginning or the near-completion point of a project brings on abject misery and despair. Don’t throw away your work! You have to be kind to yourself and honor the first spark of inspiration you felt and see it through or save it for some other time. I often come back to years-old ideas or inspirations. It’s so important to save everything and to treat the artifacts of your creative labors with tender love and care. It takes work to cultivate, most artists have fragile egos and are their own worst critics. Even if the time isn’t right for an idea at the moment, it will come back around, so save all of your notebooks and sketches.

Find Jane Dashley: Website // Instagram

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 2 comments

I am currently ensorcelled by Petah Coyne’s darkly romantic sculptures, where wax, silk flowers, and taxidermy birds transform into ethereal, baroque-like forms. Her pieces conjure the atmosphere of those moments in gothic paperbacks where the heroine discovers the truth isn’t in the attic after all, but blooming madly in plain sight in the conservatory. Massive chandeliers of black flowers drip with wax, their surfaces catching light in unexpected ways, like something dredged up from the depths but somehow still gleaming.

While the scale of her work is awe-inspiring – these aren’t delicate tabletop pieces but enormous installations that gather the shadows around them like dark pools, and seem to seep into every corner of their spaces. Delicate pearl pins catch stray beams of light, velvet moves like ink suspended in water, and wax accumulates in layers that feel ancient yet freshly formed. These pieces exist in a realm between preservation and decay, between memory and loss. Like Miss Havisham’s wedding cake, if it evolved into something nightmarish, they speak to mortality and remembrance through both their imposing presence and their intimate details.

Her use of materials is particularly spellbinding – especially the way she works with velvet, creating rich, undulating landscapes that cascade through space. The fabric collects twilight in its folds, transforming familiar luxury into something more complex and otherworldly. The way she builds up layers feels like discovering an enchanted chest where all the scraps and jewels and rich gowns from fairy tale queens have been deconstructed, scattered, and reassembled to tell new stories.

Here are the remnants of familiar tales – silk flowers trapped in crystalline wax, strands of pearls woven through branches, ribbons stiffened into strange new forms – all transformed into a private language written in texture and shadow. In these environments, collective memory mingles with personal mythology, where each element carries a story of mortality, memory, desire, and loss – private griefs and universal longings captured in frozen moments of perpetual bloom.

If you enjoy posts like these 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?

✥ 1 comment