I don’t think I can emphasize enough how thrilling it was, how absolutely ecstatic I am, to have been able to include the works of some of my favorite contemporary artists in The Art of Darkness. Creators whose visions speak to the shadowy, unfathomed corners of my heart, to my weird, wild wiggly brain noodles, to the strange mystery of my soul.
Here is another favorite spread in the book, featuring Rachael Bridge whose electric-technicolor and sunless somber palettes and portraits make me gasp in awe (HOW does she do that??) and Jana Brike’s dreamy works of vulnerable transformation and poetic exploration.
Twilight, Rachael Bridge, 2020, oil on panel.
The Void/Flowers of Life, Jana Brike, 2016, oil on canvas.
Foxes stalking the darkness, padding through a thicket of thorns. Shadowy snakes snarled in somnolent repose. A skull cupped tenderly, a candle’s flame snuffed. Rendered in ash, chalk-lead, and ink on black cotton rag, the funereal monochrome visions of artist and printmaker Dylan Garrett Smith reflect the artist’s views regarding our relationships with the natural world. Combining ecological and occult concepts with existential fears and anarchism, Smith stresses the importance of the cycle of birth, bloom, and decay and the ultimate triumph of nature in the end–whatever that ‘end’ might be.
A restful and relaxing and fragrant summer solstice to everyone in the Northern Hemisphere! I’m honoring the day by wearing all of my orange blossom scents at once.
More peeks and pages from The forthcoming The Art of Darkness (September 6th is coming quickly, preorder now!)
This is a piece titled Vögguvísa by Becky Munich, a long-time like-minded weirdo, kindred spirit, and occasional partner-in-crime. You may recall that Becky and I worked together on the beloved fan-favorite Occult Activity Books, volumes one and two!
“… On the surface these sinister, ethereal wraiths and monstrous femme fatales simultaneously menace and beguile, but in a strange and playful twist, there’s sly and creepy clever mischief to be found in the details, and it’s clear to see that this artist takes her spooky business quite seriously while winking at us playfully at the same time.”
I’ve been OBSESSED with Becky’s works ever since I first laid eyes on them and I am so pleased to have been able to include her work in The Art of Darkness. And as you can see in the second photo, the original Vögguvísa hangs on my wall, cautioning me every day to shush my pie-hole. Or choose my words wisely. Who knows! She is a very mysterious lady, after all.
I have long been familiar with the haunting romanticism of Deborah Turbeville’s fashion photography, often losing myself in their eerie atmospheres and spectral moods – elegant ghost stories and hazy hallucinations of antique decadence, beloved and perfect, all.
However, I had never seen until tonight her 1981 series Unseen Versailles. In the late 1970s, while living in Paris, Turbeville discovered the Château de Versailles. Initially refused access for a fashion shoot, she was granted permission to photograph the estate during its renovation, thanks to her admirer and friend, Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Turbeville spent a whole winter there, presenting her work in the book Unseen Versailles in 1981.
This project came at a pivotal moment in the château’s history. In 1979, the same year Versailles was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the palace closed for extensive renovations. This timing allowed Turbeville unprecedented access to a dormant Versailles, far removed from its status as one of France’s most popular tourist attractions.
Rather than showcase the polished grandeur typically associated with Versailles, Turbeville sought out its hidden facets: neglected storage rooms, ghostly private chambers shrouded in dust cloths, and halls filled with broken statuary. She scattered autumn leaves on floors to emphasize abandonment and neglect. The result is a haunting vision of this excessive place, a ghostly evocation of memory and melancholic magic in long-waiting derelict, dust-shrouded twilight chambers.
Turbeville’s lens captured not just empty rooms, but a landscape of forgotten objects – hairpins, papers, shoes, masks – all given equal narrative weight. As she wrote in her book’s preface, these items became “fleeting witnesses” to the palace’s past, so delicate that “an open window might blow them all away.” This approach aligned with Jackie Kennedy’s vision: to evoke the feeling that Versailles was inhabited by “ghosts and memories,” offering viewers a uniquely intimate and melancholic perspective on this historic space.
These images, at once evocative and unsettling, embody Turbeville’s distinct, intensely personal vision. Her photographs create a charged atmosphere of mystery and ambiguity, projecting a sense of isolation and romanticism frozen in time. By combining elements of architecture and décor, Turbeville constructs a dream world where the gilded beauty of 18th-century rooms coexists with decay and dereliction. This cinematic approach transforms Versailles into a backdrop for untold stories, inviting viewers to lose themselves in a hauntingly beautiful, timeless realm between reality and imagination.
In “Unseen Versailles,” Turbeville’s photographs show the gilded beauty of the 18th-century rooms while evoking the complex history of this magnificent palace, built by Louis XIV to consolidate the aristocracy under his roof. Her sophisticated and intellectual work often featured gardens and architecture as backdrops to cinematic evocations of untold stories, set in dream worlds of castles and gardens, often decayed and derelict, timeless and unreal.
Turbeville’s work in “Unseen Versailles” continues to captivate, offering a timeless exploration of beauty, decay, and the lingering echoes of history. Her ability to transform the familiar into something hauntingly unfamiliar invites us to see Versailles – and perhaps all spaces rich with history – through a new, more contemplative lens. In doing so, she reveals the poetic power of abandonment and the enduring allure of faded grandeur.
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?
Ok, well let me clarify: at this moment in time, in the space of this very second, the above page, with artworks by Charley Harper and Ruth Marten is my favorite page in The Art of Darkness.
It’s true, while I live to revel in the velvet shadows of a moonlit midnight and seek spirits in every lonely, crumbling corner, it’s not like I’m a gloomy Gus about it. If you can’t laugh at what lies waiting in the hungry maw of darkness, if you can’t giggle with the ghosts, or cackle into the nothing of the abyss–well, that’s hardly living, you know? If I have somehow fooled you into thinking I’m all about mystery and melancholy, monsters and morbidity, okay, well, that’s all true, I am. But it’s more than balanced with a significant sense of silliness, an appreciation of the absurd, and an adoration of ridiculousness. My favorite emotion to express is “demented glee”! I mean, I’m really just a goofy fucker, is what I am trying to say here.
So it would stand to reason that I have massive admiration for artists who can combine these sensibilities in their practice, and these works of the kooky and the macabre, often filled with sly, weird humor are some of my favorite canvases to gaze upon. Enter Ruth Marten and Charley Harper.
As an author whose forthcoming book will ooze through the darkness of the void to triumphantly appear on our corporeal plane in less than 3 months, I am told by my publisher that I need to be hyping it at least every two weeks. Fair enough. But I struggle to do that in a way that feels in line and in keeping with the spirit of the sorts of things that I already share on social media. While I do like to ramble on about my interests and passions, this is different because there are numbers and rankings and money attached to it, which sounds crass to say, but we can’t ignore it.
So in the interest of getting you all to preorder The Art of Darkness or at the very least, share it with friends and peers who may have an interest, ask your local bookshop to carry a few copies, request it from your library, etc., I am going to share it the same way I share 90% of the things here, which is to say: HERE’S SOME ART THAT I AM EXCITED ABOUT AND I THINK YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED ABOUT IT TOO!
In terms of excitement, one of the *most exciting* things about The Art of Darkness was having the opportunity to include the works of so many contemporary artists whose works I have been crowing about and collecting for myself over the years. These are artists I have shared on my Tumblr (yes, I am still over there!) I have interviewed for my own blog or the various other outlets I have been writing for since 2010, and some of whose works are hanging behind me on the wall even as I type this out! Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing these works of shadowy brilliance on my social media accounts; I am greatly indebted to each and every one of these creators and I have no doubt you are going to see some of your favorites amongst them, too.
So…let’s kick things off with Darla Teagarden! Profoundly resonant for those among us who view the world through a splinter of enchantment, Darla Teagarden’s surreal photographic narratives walk a tremulous line between fable and reality. These feverish visions are deeply imbued with fragile secrets, intense emotion, and an eerie sense of urgency – an otherworldly plucking at the senses. Teagarden builds these vividly expressive vignettes from wood, paper, and plaster for images that also include handpicked vintage props, clothing and hand-drawn backgrounds. It is this tender, liminal space, rebuilt and reimagined many times over, in which most of her darkly cinematic images are created.
Pre-order your copy of The Art of Darkness by August 31 from any retailer and be one of the first 100 readers to receive some bonus goodies! Details here.
So today I learned that there is actually a difference between artists Albert Durer Lucas (1828 – 1918) who painted mostly detailed studies of foliage and flowers, and German Renaissance painter and printmaker, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Somehow, even though I know who Dürer is, whenever I had seen the other guy’s name, I combined them into the same artist.
Albrecht Dürer did paint flowers, but they’ve got this feeling of grim, gloomy gravitas, and they’re nothing I would want to gather into a bouquet. They look like they might slap your hand and scold you! Albert Durer Lucas’ flora, however, looks like it’s housing a Richard Scarry menagerie of busy people and busy towns and seems much more inviting.
Anyway…the more you know!
Rhamphotheca
Blue butterflies and wildflowers
Cultivated Flowers
Dragonfly and heather on a mossy bank
Hedge sparrow’s nest in a crab apple tree
Primroses
Still life with flowers, eggs and a glass on a stone ledge
Just a series of impressions and lists from the last month, which seems like a blurry dream thing that never really happened, and yet here we are…
⌛ I think I finally have my desk the way that I want it. Except for that old fossil of a work phone, which, unfortunately, stays until I am no longer working my day job. Which you know, is what pays the bills, so I kinda need it for now. UGH. I do want to add a little plant propagation station and this adorable mushroom lamp. I am afraid I may be unduly influenced by mushroomparasol’s Instagram account.
⌛Speaking of Instagram, I am finding that place profoundly depressing lately. I hate complaining about likes and views and “engagement” but man oh man. I have almost 12K followers over there. 11.8K, to be exact. I have been hovering at that number for the past year, and I have had that account on Instagram for over a decade now. TikTok, on the other hand, I have about 10K followers there and I only created that account a little over a year ago. So I have gotten nearly the same amount of followers in one tenth of the time? Huh.
And as of the beginning of June, my account seems like a frigging ghost town. And I have to ask myself, is no one seeing what I am sharing, or is it that I am really boring and no one cares? I mean, I get it. You can look at stuff on these platforms but you are under no obligation to like it or comment on it or interact with it at all. So no, just because you’re my friend, or just because you generally enjoy the things I talk about, that doesn’t mean you have to “heart” everything I share. Of course not. BUT man. It’s weird. My earnest posts usually, or at least in the past, get around 100 likes, and my stupid jokes or memes usually get like 500+ (so frustrating when people pay more attention to the thing you only gave half a second’s thought to as opposed to something you spent time on or care about, but whatever.) Anyway. This week? Posts are getting like, 20-40 likes. Even a BOOK post! ALL of my friends love books! I don’t get it! I’ve heard it’s an algorithm thing, and I don’t know exactly how that works, but ugh. This is a bummer. And I am not even trying to make my living off of what I am posting there! I imagine full-time artists and writers and small business owners and people who provide services must really be feeling it. Influencers, too.
But fuck those guys. I don’t give a shit about influencers. So. I don’t know what to do about any of that other than start spending more time elsewhere. So if you are on twitter or TikTok or Facebook (yes, I am still over there) feel free to say hi!
⌛ Two things I have watched lately and really enjoyed: Severence, which apparently is nothing like Succession. But I had lumped them together because they had similar sounding coporate-speak names. And which I had no interest in until I realized that Severence is actually a sci-fi tinged psychological thriller. And it is GOOD. (Still don’t know what Succession is, but I also still have no interest.) Also, Shining Vale, a horror comedy starring Courtney Cox and which was a ridiculous delight. If I am being honest I have never given a thought to Courtney Cox (I’m sorry Courtney Cox) but man she was a hoot in this. Also I don’t even know where Warwick Castle is but because I am me I had to find this shirt that she was wearing in a certain scene from a certain episode.
⌛ We’ve gotten most of the wall art hung up in the house! Here are a few peeks…
⌛At long last, we have a proper guest room! With a proper guest bed! And now that William Morris bedding is finally getting some use! I bought it a few years ago and then we promptly went and got a bigger sized bed. Le whoopsie.
⌛I have been looking for the perfect canisters. A sort of vintage situation, enamel, with rosemaling or some sort of Scandinavian floral motif art on them. I found them on a site called Chairish and I am sure I overpaid for them, but that’s okay because they were –exactly–what I was looking for.
⌛I have made some version of this spicy “honey” garlic broccoli and tofu 2-3 times a week for the past two months. I use actually honey because I am not vegan and often swap out the tofu for soy curls, but they’re both good.
⌛ I have been obsessed with the idea of the grinder salad sandwich that’s all over TikTok but then I saw that someone skipped the sandwich part and just turned it into a salad and we have been eating some version of this every single day for lunch.
⌛ I started reading Janelle Monáe’s book, Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computerand I wasn’t far in but I was really enjoying it, but then the library took it back from me. Rude. I look forward to picking it up again.
⌛ I’ve really been excited about getting titles from NetGalley, where you have the opportunity to obtain advanced copies of books that haven’t been published yet, for review purposes. I’ve gotten some really excellent ones that I was really looking forward to and some really incredible things that I never even would have heard of! Well, at least not until after it had been published, and then people got excited about it, maybe. At any rate, MOTHERTHING hadn’t been on my radar but I got it through NetGalley and now it might be my favorite book of all time.
⌛Yvan and I have been walking in the mornings. This is such a lovely neighborhood to walk in, with lots of trees and birds and bats and even some hills (in FL!!!) and a view of the river. We’ve been waking up around 5:30 and making a circuit of two miles or so. Not a lot, but enough to wake us up and sort of give us a feeling of “well, even if we get nothing else done today, we did THAT.” But on the days we do it, we both remark throughout the day how much energy we have, what a good mood we’re in, etc. I know it doesn’t cure all ills, but man. Walking. I love it.
⌛ We’re still working on getting the old house ready for sale, so we haven’t really spent most weekends in the new space. I can’t wait until that’s off our plate. Maybe this new house will finally start feeling like home, like I really live here, when I plan to go nowhere and do nothing and finally have a proper FUCK OFF WORLD! weekend. Fingers crossed!
