Unquiet
Things

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

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