Grey Dream Project - Part 1

 

Apparently I have been causing a bit of a mystery among my followers for a couple of years which I find oddly entertaining in a strange way. Omitting those in my close circle who are aware of what I'm up to, I haven't said anything on social media besides certain things being 'installments of a personal project'. Welcome back my fellow adventurers so another visit to my humble corner of the world. So what have I been doing behind the scenes that it has resulted in me to keep it mostly quiet for so long? I think before I answer, I should give a bit more context.

In the Beginning

Towards the end of my time in college (circa early 2000s), I would be asked by folks if I would ever consider creating various things such as coloring books or tarot decks. Being the unsure person I was at the time, filled with self-doubt about my own skills, my response was always lightly laughing off the suggestion and pointing out that not only were my art skills not where they should be at that time but I did not have nearly any following where I could get the sales to justify such a project. The comments eventually died down but ever so often over the years, someone would ask.

First Attempt

Fast forward to 2014. My mother had suddenly passed and my anguish needed an outlet. In the past, I would channel my feelings into my work so that I could mold the anger, sadness and hurt I had brewing inside into something positive. This is when I got in contact with
a fellow creator, my dear friend and founder of UnicornWheels Stacy Garrett to try to do a collaboration project. The initial plan was to create an art book combining her photography and my traditional paintings telling the visual story of a guide traveling through dreams. We had a plan and I wrote notes for everything. Things started off well but of course the universe had other plans. Life happened. Between depression, scheduling conflicts with potential models, our combined personal obligations with our own customers, and just relearning to live, the project stalled out. After a bit of conversation, we agreed to stop and if things eventually moved into that direction again, we would give it another shot. In the meantime, anything we had created, we would have for our own personal use.

Decision Made

Through out the following years, I would still get asked if I would ever consider doing my own version of a tarot or oracle card deck. Tarot decks for me have always been very structural with little give. Oracle decks however are much more free flowing. Yes, there's a suggestion of structure and how to use them, but at the end of the day they are more flexible. The more I thought about it, the more I found myself leaning into the idea of maybe making my own oracle deck. Maybe I could do this but it would be so much work and who would even want to buy something like that? There's that self-doubt creeping in again. Let us look at the situation logically. I have friends and contacts in the Pagan and Alternative circles who would absolutely be interested. Folks who have been frequent customers over the years who would be interested. People who know someone who would be interested. But the biggest question is am I interested? Yes. Absolutely yes. By early 2021, I finally asked myself “What do you have to loose by trying?” My sanity? That was already in short supply. I am an artist, sanity was never a high requirement. After so long of doing things for other people, I saw this as an opportunity to do something for myself and if a few folks liked it enough to purchase, I would be thankful but I wasn't going to focus on it. So I put my foot down and said that this was going to happen.

Birth of a Project

So what type of Oracle deck did I decide to attempt? It took a bit of time but I realized that I could still continue on my dream inspired journey but have the cards themselves tell the visual

tale. With that thought, the start of creating the Grey Dream Oracle Deck began. At first, I created a painting that would be somewhere in the beginning of the deck's 'story' and snuck it into a collective body of work I was creating for a solo gallery showing in 2023 at Pence Gallery (Davis, CA). This was mostly to get a feel for how people out in the wild would respond to such imagery. I was already aware that dream related imagery was a hit or miss genre where it wasn't for everyone so this would give me an idea as to how people would recieve an entire body of work. Surprisingly, the feedback was overwhelming positive. With this knowledge, I went ahead and started planning and creating. Of course I needed to also work on customer commissions and handle life but there was a part of me strangely excited over the journey that I've started. 

Progress Report

Now where does this leave me currently on this little art adventure? With my current list of images on my glorious spreadsheet (that I have no idea where I would be without it), I'm approximatly at the halfway point. "What do you mean by approximatly? You have a spread sheet."  Let me explain. With my style constantly shifting and depending on if something is coming out the way I invisioned, there are a couple of the completely images that I need to return to at a later point in time to do corrections on and at least one image that I already have marked as 'need a complete redo'. After having redone two other images, I realized that if I kept redoing old work, I would never progress. So, after much deliberation, I made the decision to complete the entire list and see how things work with each other before doing any corrections. Another aspect of this project that I get to do is, once all of the images are done, write down card descriptions and meanings so that I can make sure that the finished deck can have a companion information booklet to go with it. It has certainly been an interesting learning experience so far, especially with price checking production to get an idea of initial costs, looking into what I would need for digital editing since up to this point I have been strictly traditional, and learning a couple of technicques I had never considered with my work until I tried in order to get the feel and affect I want for certain images. Are you interested in learning more about the Grey Dream Oracle Deck project? I will do my best to bring you along the journey with me so stay tuned! 

Journey in the Dark

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'