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| Cryptid Lineup |
Welcome
back friends! Please pardon the cobwebs and dust, life has been
rather busy since your last visit. So let us start off this visit
with a bit of a peek into some of the things I've been up to which
also include poking at a genre of art that I never thought I would:
Horror and Dark Fantasy.
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| Jar of Eyeballs |
For
the longest time, I have avoided creating any dark work. Mostly
because I wasn't known to create such work and when I dabbled briefly
in it during my college years, I had received a lot of concerned
commentary of 'are you okay' from friends and instructors. So, to
stop such questioning, I never touched it again. Yes I would do the
occasional human or animal skull but I never saw it as anything
horror related, rather a representation of life, death and rebirth.
Fast forward to 2023-2024, I put the question out there to my current
group of friends and customers if I should dip my toes back in and
see what I could come up with. Instead of no or a cautious yes, I was
blown away with this collective of absolute supportive loons
encouraging me to go forth and test the waters. Tentatively I started
off with some basic cryptids and a jar of eyeballs. I know, how tame
and predictable. But as someone who had never gone farther then a
pencil sketch that was quickly crushed and tossed in the recycle bin
in this genre, it was a large step. It was the equivalent of opening
the door and cautiously poking my head in.
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| Dark Yule Collection |
As
I felt around a bit, I realized there was another way I could get a
feel for the dark and possibly spooky which was folklore and beings
that seemed to only come out during the winter months. Not quite sure
if they would even be considered holiday cryptids or not but I wanted
to have a small collection of images that had the feel of being in a
story book telling the tales of various old world holiday beings. At
this point I was leaning heavily into my habit of researching
cultural folklore and beliefs, finding a surprising amount of
European tales that were dark and horror related. There were some
tales where the beings were benevolent and kind but there was many
more that were very much cautionary stories. I also found a large
amount of the beings just being old women with an agenda but that is
an observation for a different day. Keeping each design a simple
black, white, and sepia brown for that old story book feel, I made
each design able to stand on their own but work together as a
collection.
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| Church Grim |
Keeping
with my random research dives into old, rarely talked about folklore,
I realized that this was my best way to really experiment with this
genre that I never allowed myself to tap into thanks to fear and self
doubt. This is when I decided to start sinking into the pool water.
What was the result? My interpretations of the Church Grim and
Cu-sith. Both are part of the 'black dog' category of fables,
surprisingly; protectors of their respective domains and thought to
be harbingers of death to those who dare to cross them. The Church Grim was from a very old practice
used
to be the spirit of the first man buried in a new graveyard to
forever be tasked to act as a guard for the church. So that a soul
wasn't left out of heaven, they switched to it being a black dog
buried in the graveyard or as a sacrifice to hold the foundation
stone. Tasked to ward off evil, to see a black dog was thought to be
an ill omen. In some stories, a priest could tell if the soul of the
dead would go to heaven or hell depending on how the dog reacted.
Then we have the Cu-sith. Originally from Irish, Scottish and Welsh
folklore, he's usually found roaming the moors and highlands.
Described being the size of a small cow and having shaggy green fur
(probably from moss and muck), he is usually silent save for the rare
times he barks 3 times. The bark is said to be heard for miles even
as far as the sea and if those who heard hadn't found safety by bark
three, they would die of fright.
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| Cu-sith |
By
this time, I was finding that I was surprisingly good with creating
horror/dark fantasy elements and was becoming less afraid of working
in a genre that I had been avoiding touching for so long. It is a
very different experience between appreciating the work that others
who are more versed and known to work in it compared to actually
doing something in it. What also helped was receiving encouragement
and helpful tips from friends I had made within a horror community
that I had wandered into earlier in the process. Many of the artists
within helped me realize that I didn't have to do what everyone else
did such as gore and the like, and just do something that I was
comfortable with. As I continued to explore, I ended up creating
little designs with the thought of 'what would someone have as
macabre Victorian tassels of decoration. What came out of this
strange thought process was a shrunken head, a tassel of lady
fingers, and a rope of tongues. I never finalized the rope of tongues
but I realized that each could be considered a play on words. The
shrunken head could be for 'a small mind'. The tassel of lady fingers
could be in reference of lady finger cookies or even being 'handsy'.
Then there is the rope of tongues which was obviously being 'tongue
tied'. I was not meaning to have such morbid jokes in this project
but I honestly couldn't stop giggling the entire time I was working
on them.
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| Victorian Tassels |
Though
not really horror related, I did eventually revisit the start of this
entire journey with another cryptid piece. It was meant more as a
cute amusing concept but spiraled into a commentary piece, showing an
exchange of story telling from older folklore to newer generations. I
wanted something whimsical but at the same time showing that the only
reason why some old dark cautionary tales are still alive is through
verbal story telling and many stories are dieing out thanks to things
not being written down or discussed. Like I said, not horror related
in the visual sense but more of a suggestion of horror in reference
to the possibility these beings fading from the collective mind. The piece, called 'Campfire Stories' shows a young woman in traveling clothes sitting by a camfire with Baba Yaga and Mothman listening to a story from Wendigo. Sitting nearby is a Black Eyed Child looking out at the viewer instead of listening to the Wendigo talk.
Now I know what you're probably asking: Will I continue
dabbling in the horror/dark fantasy genre? I would say tentatively
yes. My confidence isn't quite there but it is slowly growing. I know
I would never do works akin to artists like Gerald Brom or H.R. Giger
nor would I want to even attempt to. However, I am enjoying this
little bit of exploration and have been discovering that I am
learning skills and techniques that I can use with my current bodyof work. What will I come up with in the future in this area? Not a
clue but I'm sure it's going to be an exciting learning experience at
any rate. What I have been discovering during this entire journey is that it's been surprisingly theraputic. With how the world has beein the last few years and just life in general, doing these darker pieces has been a bit of an outlet for the pent up feelings that have been building up. Normally I would try to do peaceful or joyful pieces, mostly as a reminder to those look at my work that there is still good in the world but I never really had an outlet for myself. Now, thanks to this little journey into unknown lands, I have a small outlet for random thoughts and ideas that have been boxed up and put away in my mind. So I look forward to sharing more the next time I poke at this in the near future.  |
| 'Campfire Stories' |
