Sveta Dorosheva‘s fantastical art could be to a brilliant dream collaboration among noted artists, for whom the goal is a visionary book of enchanted tales. Imagine an artistic hybrid comprised of the intricately-lined illustrations of Harry Clarke or Aubrey Beardsley, the luxurious art deco magnificence of Romain de Tirtoff (Erté) fashion plates, and the beautiful-on-the-verge-of-grotesque visages drawn by the enigmatic Alastair .
But! In this imaginary scenario, the artists realize there is something… some je ne sais quois… missing from their efforts. They entice illustrator Sveta Dorosheva to join their endeavors: she flits in, and with a mischievous smile and a gleam of amusement in her eye, announces “yes, yes, this is all very beautiful… but let’s make it FUN!” Although comparisons to the above-mentioned artists may be obvious upon first glance, the sense of enchantment, whimsy, and joyful wit present in Dorosheva’s work ensures that one not only appreciates they are gazing upon something technically pleasing or beautifully rendered; one also genuinely delights –and even emotionally invests– in the engaging imagery as well.
Though born in Ukraine, Sveta Dorosheva currently resides in Israel with her husband and two sons. She has worked as as an interpreter, copywriter, designer (be certain to peek at her Incredible Hats or Fashionista portfolios!), art director and creative director in advertising, and is currently pursuing her lifelong dream of academic training in art. Dorosheva recently spoke with us about her lifelong love of fairy tales, and her inspired, imaginative new project, The Nenuphar Book, which will be published in Russia this autumn. See below for her illuminating ruminations and a gallery selection of her extraordinary illustrations.
Your work is clearly heavily influenced by fairy tales, fables, folklore, mythology – what are some of your favorites in this vein? Certainly you have some beloved stories from your childhood and I would love to hear about that… but I imagine in researches for illustrations and so forth you have developed a fondness for some more obscure or interesting new tales along the way?
Sveta Dorosheva: You are right. I AM heavily influenced by fairy tales and mythology. Even in adulthood I am most fascinated with things magical, mysterious and fantastic: medieval emblemata and bestiaries, weird and kooky sciences, antique circus, eccentric personalities, odd books and creatures, etc.
When a child I had very weak health and spent a lot of time in bed covered with mustard leaves or cupping-glasses. Dad read me a lot of fairy tales. As an immediate result, I was the best storyteller in the yard and kinder garden. Nannies loved me. They would put me in front of other kids to retell scary fairy tales (I loved them scary, the didactic tales I would just forget – they were ‘nuisance wisdom’) and attend to their own business for a couple of hours.
Those were mostly Russian fairy tales, but later in life I read all there were to read (before the Internet was available where I come from) and even my thesis research was dedicated to world fairy tales and mythology (I studied languages and world literature).
I feel lost when trying to pick specific tales as my favorites (you know, thesis and all that knowledge…), I wish I knew less of and about them, so that the choice wouldn’t be so distressing. But actually fairy tales of all nations have both a magical, wonderful and a scary, uncanny side. Sometimes monstrous – well, before civilized societies started to adapt them for children (which I personally regret). Before television and such, fairy tales were an entertainment for both kids and adults. They are just captivating stories about things eternal, with plots polished to perfection by centuries and centuries or story-telling. Most successful modern Hollywood blockbusters like “fifth element” and such have the structure of a classic fairy tale, only valorous knight is substituted with no less valorous bruce willis, evil dragon – with evil mr. shadow, beautiful princess with beautiful leeloo, etc…
I guess Russian fairy tales are the strongest influence from childhood, but I don’t mean that in the ‘sarafan&kokoshnik’ sense:) I mean they were full of wonderful and scary things, events and creatures, and that influenced my picture of the world for life. I remember that when a kid I took all of it for granted – evil stepmothers that wanted to eat their stepsons’ hearts and brains because he who eats them, would become king and spit golden coins…talking wolves and fire birds, immortal skeletons, frogs and birds throwing their skins and feathers off and turning into beautiful ladies, dead water that puts the pieces of a hero chopped by treacherous brothers together, and live water that then makes this frankenstein body come to life, witches with poison pins that turn people to stones… none of them were ‘terrible’ or ‘wonderful’ – they were just part of a fascinating plot. I guess childish perception is different from adult – it does not divide things into monstrous and beautiful. It just absorbs it all without labels, taking it all for granted.
I remember my three-year-old son seeing a dead bird in the street once in December. He insisted that we go and see its metamorphoses every day. I felt rather ill at ease, but he was INTERESTED, because he did not KNOW it was ‘disgusting’… To him bird-turning-to-a-skeleton or frog-turning-to-a-prince is the same type of natural metamorphosis that makes the world tick and such an interesting place to observe, there’s no good or bad, there’s just infinite variety and wonder. And that’s the thing about fairy tales. They booster imagination through metaphor when one is still open-minded, with no moral or social blinkers on (very useful, very reasonable blinkers, but still limiting).
Your book to be published this fall- ‘The Nenuphar Book’ – is described as “… a book about people and human world, as seen through the eyes of fairy-tale creatures. They don’t generally believe in people, but some have traveled to our world and have collected evidence and observations about people in this book.” Can you tell us more about this upcoming work and the observations contained within?
The Nenuphar book is a compilation of drawings, letters, stories, diaries and other stuff about people, written and drawn by fairies, elves, gnomes and other fairy personalities. Generally, fairy creatures do not believe in people – they just scare their small ones by humans (‘If you don’t eat well, a MAN will come and grab you!”) But some of them have traveled to the human world in various mysterious ways and this book is supposed to 1) prove to other gnomes, fairies, elves, giants, witches etc that people do exist; and 2) collect observations and impressions about human nature and world.
In short, the Nenuphar Book is about people and human world as seen through the eyes of fairy tale creatures. Their observations may be perplexing, funny and sometimes absurd, but they all present a surprised look at the things that we, people, take for granted. Draft excerpts can be seen here – https://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Nenuphar-Book/970281
Imagine looking at our world through the eyes of an alien from outer space – it’s the same thing. How do you explain money? love? language? work? dance? music? cities? people’s everyday behavior? poetry? clothes? anatomy? books? Imagine someone who does not know anything about this world. How do you explain people talking to small boxes at their ears and then seriously stating they have talked to someone they know and informed them of something? They are talking to spirits! How do you explain a box on the wall in every home, that shows little animated copies of people fighting, crying, laughing, singing, throwing cakes and bombs around… and most importantly – how do you explain the people watching those little devils all the time and even making them do what they want by pressing a small rectangular amulet in their hand? Why do people say things like “my heart is singing” when they seriously think their heart is made of flesh and blood and some strange tubes of something? Well, people are strange.
Or, where do people come from? It is quite shocking, but it turns out that big people come from small people. In other words, all people were once 20 time smaller and completely different both in appearance, manner, character and world outlook! People are shape-shifters, that is obvious. That is why they have ‘passports’ – it’s a special little book with pictures of various creatures that a man has turned into, so that he can remember that that smooth elf-like long-haired and wide-eyed creature and this big bold grumpy ogre are the same person… Okay, big people come from small people through a series of metamorphoses. But where do small people come from? Evidently they cannot come from sex, as people themselves state, because this is plain stupid. In the first place, none of the fairy creatures have seen this sex (well, it could be that people are hiding, but then they extol sex as the highest pleasure and crown of love, so why hide something so remarkable? no sense whatsoever, must be a lie.). And in the second, well this is really absurd – let’s say, two people are bumping each other with their stomachs and moaning, shouting and otherwise going crazy because of that, okay… When exactly does a small person appear during this performance? Does he just jump from under the bed or something?
To fairy creatures people are great magicians – they make gnome metals fly in the sky and move on the ground with a magical potion called ‘fuel’. They create personal suns on the ceilings of their homes and make them shine with a tap on the wall in a special place. They call it electricity, but no one can really explain how this ‘electricity’ works without consulting a magic grimoire “Physics, Grade 7”.
But it’s not all funny. Some pieces of the book are poetic and serious, depends on the author (each chapter is written by a different creature). For example, there is a chapter about poets in the ‘Language’ section of the book. Fact is, the world is written in many languages: hidden and obvious messages are everywhere – encoded on flower petals, fish scales and feather patterns, in cloud forms in the sky, on wings of beetles and dragonflies, in the heart of a cut strawberry, everywhere… Fairies communicate in the language of flowers, perfume and dance; gnomes – in the language of stones and gems, etc. People use the language of words and mostly neglect all other languages the world is written in. And this gets them into a lot of trouble, because despite all those myriads words people have invented, they still fail to understand each other very often. But there are exclusions. For example, people have interpreters from other languages, who translate the beauty of the world into words: poets.
Or, say, people in love are another exclusion – they are very bad in the language of words. To them words are bewitched. They talk in awkward silences, incidental touches, turned away glances – they talk with their mouth shut with beckoning secrets.
What an absolutely fascinating concept! How did you dream this idea up and what sort of ideals and philosophies were you hoping to leave the reader with? This certainly seems an engaging and charming way to tackle the complexities of us human creatures, with all of our amazing qualities as well as our not-always-very lovely behaviors and actions.
I was hoping to entertain them in the first place. A different angle is always amusing. If lucky, I want to leave them with the feeling of ‘what a surprising world we are living in, it’s full of wonder’. Isn’t it?
As for how I came up with the idea… Initially I worked on a completely different book – a book of fairies. It was intended as an activity book for kids – one fairy per day all year round. Today ‘the dandelion fairy’, tomorrow ‘fairy of freckles’, etc. And it was turning out quite lovely, but I was beginning to run out of ideas for fairies and activities and the project slowed down. Some time passed and I decided to pick up with it. I leafed back through my scrapbook with quick ideas and drawings and found a year-old line saying “maybe this fairy should keep a journal of her observations about people’s world”. And it suddenly struck me as a completely independent and very promising idea. I couldn’t believe I wrote it down a year ago and never noticed it’s huge… So, to my regret, I upset my publisher and quit that activity fairy book and wrote a new one in a couple weeks.
It went smooth and fast and overflowing with more and more ideas for everyday things, that would look surprising to a ‘newcomer’. Well, writing was smooth. Illustrating it took three years. It’s HEAVILY illustrated. I still can ‘t leave it alone. I hope the book finally gets published this fall and we part as friends:)
A long, long time ago, I had a livejournal account. As a matter of fact, I had several. I was always moving around, and purging and deleting and recreating myself. Mostly because I was living with a despot, an utter bastard of a human being who could not bear the fact that I had connections beyond the tenuous and yet tyrannical connection that he had with me. I had few friends beyond those I developed online, and I would be damned if he ruined that.
Thusly, a new livejournal name every three months or so (and again, my apologies to those who had a hard time keeping up with me.) Before all that, though, in the early days of LJ, I became somewhat friends with a certain LJ user. You know what I mean by “somewhat friends”; you thought they were really cool, so you friended them, and then eventually they friended you back and every once in a while you’d comment on each other’s posts but you never exchanged email addresses or AIM account info, so you probably weren’t really good friends, right?
This person, we will call her A.–and I am refraining from using real names or even online usernames or monikers, the reasons for which I will explain shortly*– was an artistic sort, and i loved seeing the creations she chose to share, and the evolution of her work. I enjoyed reading about the new techniques that she employed, and the snippets of whimsical, surreal poetry and prose that would sometimes accompany a new piece. I rejoiced with her when her work was commissioned as cover art for a work of speculative fiction/fantasy. I looked forward to every time something she posted in my feed…until one day, after noting a prolonged absence on her part, I realized her journal had been purged and her site had been taken down.
I grieved in a quiet sort of, hopefully non-creepy way. I barely knew a thing about this person, and we certainly weren’t true friends, but I found myself strangely bereft not knowing where she was or what was going on with her. Every few years I half-heartedly peek around the internet to see what turns up; one year, through a blog I thought belonged to her partner at the time, I briefly saw her appear under a new username. I found that same username listed in a popular fragrance forum which I lurk about frequently. I reached out to the user and never received a response. A few years after that, while searching for her older user name, I saw that she commented frequently on a certain blog over a decade ago. It appeared that the blogger and she were on friendly terms and seemed to be personally acquainted, and what excited me is that the blog had been consistently updated and was current. I found the blogger on twitter and contacted him. He wrote back to me! He knew who I was looking for, and thought she was well and said that he would pass my information on.
I never heard back.
I should learn a lesson from this, I imagine. Some people don’t want to be found. Perhaps some people don’t want to be found by me. Or, at least they don’t want to be found by revenants from their past, good, bad, or otherwise. And so I stopped searching, and poking, and peering and prying. My intentions were good, but I don’t wish to hurt anyone. I don’t wish to be a reminder of a life someone has tried to leave behind…I mean, I think I understand that almost better than anyone. And so I am not linking to anything I have found, or referring to this person by any of the names I know them by–that’s not fair, and who knows, it might even be dangerous for them. I don’t know their circumstances, do I?
But I do hope they are well, and that they are happy, and that they continue to create. I’m afraid for her, and for many artists, I suppose, that once they disappear, their work might too. And I thought it was so beautiful, and that she had so much potential, and it nearly breaks my heart to think that one day there will be no evidence of it. That it will be as if it, and she, never existed.
If you read this one day, A.,you’re probably going to be weirded out. Our exchanges were so brief… the only one I actually even remember is our mutual complaint of over-sized SUVs in the tiny parking spaces of small apartment complexes. Why do I care so much? Why do I care at all? I think maybe you were (are?) a sensitive soul and I that you will understand, even if I can’t articulate it. Are you still creating? I hope so. Be well, where ever you are.
This is me letting go.
(But I wanted to have a record of some sort, of your fantastical works, just in case. I hope you are okay with that. )
*though I have refrained from using names, etc., I have left the watermark on the art, because I think it’s kind of rude to mess around with that stuff.
Sturdy spines enveloping stories and secrets yet untold, gilt-embellished covers, glimmering and hinting at undiscovered worlds, the rasp of papery promises as one by one the pages turn and the tale unfolds! No one, I think, has a better understanding of how to create the perfect vessel for these mysteries and adventures, than Nate McCall of McCall Company.
It’s that time of year again. “Beach Reads” lists are making the rounds, and no doubt they’ve got all the bestsellers: feel good books with inspirational titles, geopolitical tracts, pop-culture rags, and action hero stories. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I’m not here to shit on things that other people like! But there’s also nothing wrong with you, if those books just aren’t your bag. If you are anything at all like me, you’ve a melancholic disposition and you prefer your choice of reading material to reflect your morose, sometimes maudlin mindset.
It’s June. It’s inevitable. Some of your normie friends are probably going to invite you on a picnic or to a day at the beach, and hey– having friends is great. It’s difficult to make friends and maintain friendships if you’re a weirdo introvert reader who sometimes prefers pages to people; but you understand the power and importance of human connections, and you actually like spending time with these people even if they abnormally revere the sunlight and sometimes listen to Top 40.
You know they’re going to gently poke fun at your perilously overstuffed black tote bag when you show up for the party, but you also know that no one’s going to give you a hard time when you slink off behind a shadowed sand dune for some peace and quiet to dig into that book stack that’s been calling your name for the past hour while you were catching up and eating vegan hot dogs or whatever your friends are into. You might be an anti-social weirdo, but you don’t pass up free food!
What’s in my bag this year? Well, firstly, I don’t necessarily believe that newer is better, so I may have a few titles that were released more than a few years ago. Hell, maybe the authors are even dead! That’s okay. Nothing wrong with contemplating your own mortality on a sunny, cloudless, midsummer afternoon.
Secondly, while these are all either bleak or dreary, that has nothing to do with how good they are. Each of these titles, in my opinion, are thoroughly engaging, compelling reads–they’re not merely good, they’re pretty fantastic. There’s just not going to be many chuckles of mirth while you’re reading them (okay, except maybe for Megahex). You might find that you have actually forgotten to smile after you’ve finished them (maybe especially with Megahex). That’s fine, you’re fine. Our friends are like, twenty feet away and they’ve just made a pitcher of margaritas and we can drink until we forget.
But for now, let’s wallow.
The Late Works of Margaret Kroftis, a novella by Mark Gluth, is a series of vignettes, a chain of separate lives connected by death. Themes of loss and grief and daydreams and stories within stories within stories. It begins with a personal tragedy in the titular Margaret’s life and chronicles the heartache and sorrows that follow the other characters as the book progresses. Written in spare, atmospheric, dreamy prose that simultaneously breaks your heart and leaves you sighing wistfully the whole time, you will recommend The Late Works of Margaret Kroftis to every bookworm you know but then too late you realize your suggestion should have come with a trigger warning. Steel your sweet hearts–devastatingly beautiful and seeping with insidious sadness, this is a rough one for sensitive readers.
In the reading ofCaleb Curtiss’A Taxonomy of the Space Between Us, you will become aware of what it means to be close to someone and to also be very far away from them. Written in the aftermath of Curtiss’ sister’s death, these are poems attempting to make sense of moments and memories, loss, and lost time. Radiant elegies that present as both revelatory and contradictory in the way that grief, when distilled and examined, can both clarify and confuse–especially when stalked at the periphery by ghosts. Hug your beloved sibling after you read this and remember that your life and everything you know in this world can change in the blink of an eye, in a heart beat, and we will never have all the time we need with those we love.
True, The Tenant, a surrealistic, psychological nightmare by French writer, illustrator, and filmmaker Roland Torpor was originally published in 1964, but, with themes of alienation and pervasive loneliness while living in close quarters with other jerks in an urban environment, it seems astonishingly relevant today. The story follows Trelkovsky, a seemingly average guy, who moves into the recently vacated apartment of a female suicide. Hilarity ensues! Not really. With an atmosphere awash in suspicion and paranoia, we watch our protagonist travel an almost pre-determined path from obsession and existential crisis to sociopathic misanthropy and madness. Your shitty neighbors won’t seem nearly so bad after reading The Tenant, I assure you.
Megahexby Simon Hanselmann follows the darkly humored, depressing as hell, and sometimes pretty fucking disgusting stories of ennui-infected, perpetual stoner witch Meg and her cat familiar/lover Mogg, along with their various degenerate friends. This collection of strange beings, despite their otherworldly appearances, spend their time engaging in mostly mundane rather than magical activities, consisting mainly of dopey shit and bad decisions. Intensely relatable, frequently hilarious, and surprisingly poignant–while reading it, I at one point found myself quietly weeping, without even realizing it.
House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse is an “autobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films,” that, despite its title, doesn’t read at all as a dull, dense treatise on horror theory–and it is not exactly criticism so much as it is intensely enthusiastic film appreciation. An examination of neurotic, hysterical, and oftentimes bonkers bat-shit crazy women in genre film, interwoven with fascinating autobiographical elements that parallel her own, often troubled past, Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women is an accessible, powerful, utterly unique creation, and undoubtedly the exact opposite of a fun, light-hearted beach read.
(This article was originally posted at Dirge; the site is no longer active.)
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about in or related to the Death Industry recently.
Ugh, I am feeling so lazy lately. I picked up another a head cold on the way back from a recent whirlwind birthday trip to Portland, and I have got a serious case of the blarghs.
Instead of spending too much time writing anything, this month’s “Currently” is going to consist of all the photos of documenting the things I’ve been up to lately. Actually, that sounds like a lot of work, too. Damn. I can’t win.
New ombré hairs
Stuff I am reading! I am particularly excited by the new one from Jeff Vandermeer, Borne. So far it’s pretty amazing. Also, I hear very good things about Catherine Valente’s Deathless, which I have checked out from the library at least twice before and somehow still have not read.
Tea & cookies at Kachka (along with nearly everything else on their menu! The Herring Under A Fur Coat was delightful!)
Spending time with my lovely spooders, Maika & Sonya, and making plans for future adventures!
Currently watching: Kimmy Schmidt season three (so dumb, so good, and I don’t care what this current crop of think pieces has to say about it); Fortitude seasons one and two (SO! GOOD!); The Girl With All The Gifts (meh, but I adored Melanie); The Blackcoat’s Daughter (also kind of underwhelming, but that’s because I have been waiting for two years now to see it, and it cannot possibly have lived up to the hype in my head.)
What about you? What are you up to? Indulge my nosiness and tell me what you’re eating/drinking/smelling/watching/reading/doing lately!
A month ago I wrote of the dangers of arsenical fabrics in Victorian homes and fashions, but I neglected to detail how a contemporary quaintrelle might incorporate the look of this luxuriously poisonous pigment into one’s wardrobe. Inspired by the elegant floral motifs and arabesque patterns of William Morris’ toxic wallpaper designs, I have assembled an assortment of ensembles for which to conjure couture fatale feels.
Look 1.
Look 2.
Look 3.
Look 4.
More from the ridiculous How To Wear Series, below:
At Haute Macabre today I explore the magic of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s American Gods fragrance collaboration. There’s also a giveaway for a wondrous assortment of these scents going on right now, so be sure to leave a comment on the blog post!
Within the pages of American Gods is where you will find my all time favorite passage:
“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.”
Did the fragrance geniuses bottle the essence of these sad, sweet cookie ghosts, too? Head on over to Haute Macabre to find out!
