Digging further back into my past, I uncovered my earliest paintings of
Melusine. During the spring and summer of 1991, I discovered a little book of French fairy tales and thus my obsession with Melusine began. I even attempted to write a new detailed view of the Melusine myth, one that I firmly believed would appeal to a brand new audience and then everyone I knew would love me for it, but I wasn't yet mature enough to tackle such a daunting task and the story I worked so hard on for a whole summer was lost. Later I turned to roleplaying games for inspiration. I would "play" Melusine as a superhero code named "
Vipress" and not just write about her. I was in love with a group of guys I used to game with and they all treated me like a tag along girlfriend -- you know, someone else's woman whom they had to include in their reindeer games so they wouldn't piss off their friend, Tom, my boyfriend. I knew I wasn't as liked by them as I liked them. So I was the odd one out in our
GURPs Supers game. Clueless about the rules, yet beaming with creativity and the joy of taking an active part in a game that seemed reserved only for the boys, my heart would soon break when the boys would get into heated discussions over rules and thus ending the "play" to the roleplaying game.
Frustrated with roleplaying, I went back to my apartment and, still new to the art making world, I bought some cheap poster board and acrylic paint and created the first two paintings you see above. I first drew the figures in pencil, then darkened my lines with a bold sharpie marker, and painted the figures up with the paints. For working with the cheapest materials possible, my imagination and concentration yielded some great results. I remember when I hung up the finished paintings in my room, my roleplaying buddies were quick to remark that "I was showing improvement" in my work. They didn't need to be so hypercritical, or so patronizing, but at age 19, and coming from a family who put me down and never supported me for choosing art as a career, I was willing to take ANY compliment as a sign of approval.
Looking back at these paintings, I can clearly see the comic book and roleplaying game influence on my style. But the world I sought to join, that of the science-fiction/fantasy gaming community, would continue to test my patience. Late summer 1991 would see me travelling to every sci-fi convention I could get to -- I bummed rides from friends, suffered endless bus rides, and even went to my first comic book convention in Chicago carrying a substantial load of paintings taller than my hieght (I'm five feet tall). I didn't know back then that I wouldn't have to carry so much, that I should've just took photographs, but I was so enthusiastic that my heavy, awkward load didn't matter. I was determined to get a job.
Gen-con 1991 (when it was still held in my hometown, Milwaukee) I discovered a new roleplaying game company that seemed to accept me: Whitewolf. They seemed as excited as I was about my artwork. There was an exchange of phone numbers. I met their staff. We had dinner. It was cozy, friendly, and everyone I met was anxious about their Vampire: The Masquerade game. A game that would later become incredibly popular and it would seem like my style of art would be made for (see the third painting for reference) . A game I almost got hired to illustrate (they really liked my witch with the bloody offering painting above). Except I made a big mistake: the group of gamers I went to the convention with, the boys I loved so dearly and would've done anything for, were arrogant sons-of-bitches and didn't get along with the art director. Maybe they were over protective of me. Whitewolf, in its infancy as a company, wasn't offering any pay for publishing art and yet I would not be able to own my art after it was published -- basically I would've been giving it away. This gaming company would later on be very popular and once they were making money, of course they finally offered to pay illustrators for their work. No matter, I wasn't bound to get my "break" with them and seven years later I'd further sour my chances to get into the company when I got into a fight with the same art director. But that's another story.
We want to talk more about Melusine and why she's made such an impact on me.
There's a lot of me in the figure of Melusine. I began to dream about fairies, especially about Melusine. I saw her as a very real, very tangible character. The more I learned about her, the more I felt like her.
Melusine wouldn't be the only fairy queen kind of character I would dream of. The summer of 1991 was one of those times of my life where the other world seemed to surround me. I was so open to everything new, I was even going out to the woods in the middle of the night hoping to spy me some real fairies. The last image is a close up of a very large ink and pastel crayon painting of a fairy queen named Jhana (GAH-nah). I still have the dream journal I kept during that year and Jhana was my primary "spirit guide" who, through riddle and poetry told me a lot about myself. In my painting of her, I can clearly see aspects of myself, as if this was more of a vision about who I was to become in the future.
I still want to wear the headdress she's got on. Isn't it gorgeous?
Well, no matter what my misadventures in the realm of roleplaying games and science-fiction, I still have the joy these characters bring -- that was never lost and remains safely guarded, stored in my loft, waiting to be rediscovered. Today I uncover them and share them here... images from a time when I was more innocent. Just look at the last two self-portraits. I appear child-like and medieval, not yet prepared or mature to emerge into the big world.
I like myself much better now and wouldn't go back in time to relive the past, but it is nice to appreciate where I'm coming from. I'm much closer now than I ever was to getting published. Good to peek back and pat myself on the back. It's time to go back to the drawing board and concentrate on the present again. There are exciting things to come... just wait and see.
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