Fairies @ MindSay 
fantasy
She seems out of place. So Fairy Godmother #57 has changed to a Lemon Lime Fairy Godmother pictured at the beginning of this batch...
Looking back at Return of the Fairy Godmothers, Attack of the Fairy Godmothers, and the original six Fairy Godmothers I created three years ago, I'm starting to put together a formula for how this series of 6X4 painted cards can be used as a new divination tool. I must admit it was something of a gimmick, something fun to whip up when I was bored, but after some time has passed, I really am believing that this project could be even more marketable than first imagined. I might take out the more famous, recognizable faces (such as John Waters and Divine) because I would have to get permission to use them for a card deck and just create other original designs, saving John and Divine for later "bonus" cards if these images ever get published. I'm still figuring out where the Fairy Godmothers are leading me. I still have a lot of writing and experimenting to do with them. I want to create more, perhaps a heirarchy of Fairy Godmother Queens patterned after the court cards of the Tarot deck. All in all, I will continue to squeeze them out of my imagination and place them here for you to preview. Enjoy them!
Now I've got to get back to work on stuff I'm actually being paid for. Plus there is a shit load of household chores I've been putting off... Yet sometimes doing chores forces out the creativity in me. I swear boredom is one of my best motivations. The more bored I get, the more I want something spectacular to do! Besides lack of a social life, this is what I do: people my world with fabulous creatures that I hope, in one way or another, help bring joy to others out there who aren't feeling inspired or loved. Let them make you feel less lonely, too. Okay, back to the real world. Thanks for letting me share my visions with you.
Over the last couple years, I have been slowly working on a series of "Fairy Godmother" portraits that I would like to make into a divination card game. Over this last week, I painted 21 more. Each face is getting more and more elaborate, and each has a theme, personality, and meaning. How did I get the idea? Well, I'm a Tarot reader and I am tired of the New Age silly, sugar-coated angel and fairy card decks out there. I want to see something more modern, tongue-in-cheek, gay and pop culture oriented. I think that the real "fairies" in this world are creatures of the night who love to dress in flamboyant clothing, wear make-up, and generally their "look" goes way past that of what is considered a "drag queen." My original concept is that each card is drawn at random and each Fairy Godmother on the card will bring you a certain kind of luck -- basically, they are the Fairy Godmothers who are out there to guide you in this modern world.
I have yet to name each Fairy Godmother. Some of you might recognize, some are completely original. Astute viewers will see John Waters in this series (not every Fairy Godmother dresses up in women's clothes). For the full size painting, check it out here and see how I view John as a Fairy Godmother -- complete with a lovely pink heart on his wide forehead and rosey cheeks. Looking into his eyes, I see sparkles of laughter and there are a lot of laugh lines in his face. You just know he's full of mischief! If you are a John Waters fan like I am, be sure to catch him in the CourtTV series "Til Death Do Us Part" as the Groom Reaper!
It was totally unintentional, but the first Fairy Godmother pictured below looks an awful lot like Rosario Dawson as Sin City dominatrix character Gail. I don't know how that happened. It's not Gail, I assure you, and nor is that Fairy Godmother Rosario. However, like both those ladies, she's a spit fire in silver and lace.
And here are the first 18 Fairy Godmothers I painted.
See the progression?
May the luck and blessings of the Fairy Godmothers be with you!
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.
I'm happy to report that I have created more Fairy Godmothers! Yes. You heard me. The crazy characters I first blogged about a year and a half or so ago have multiplied! And they aren't going away anytime soon. Eventually these lil' fairies will become an affirmational card deck for the queer in all of us. Each character will have its own name and special powers. Guess which ones have what:
See? I have been very productive lately. I have more art to post, but give me some time. There's a lot I want to write about, too. Oh, and here are the original six Fairy Godmothers (for those of you who don't want to click on the link above). Haven't they gotten even better? I think I want to do up to a hundred. Make the deck a collectable. Yeah. But first gotta find a publisher... anyone suggest one for me?
Why this one took so damn long to finish: I didn't like the way I positioned the fairy folk. The poses seemed too stationary. The original drawing was done back in August of 2002 and I did a quick color rough of the idea. It was supposed to correspond with a project I was working on in collaboration with writer Andrew Jacob, but this picture of the "Little People" just didn't go into the direction the stories and style of writing Andrew had in mind. While organizing my portfolio, cataloging what pieces I want to use and what I want to store, I unearthed this watercolor rough sketch and those little faces wouldn't let me go this time. It's one of those things that needed a refresh. No longer under the pressure of my previous collaborator, I was finally able to make this piece completely my own. It went through many layers, and then, quite by accident, I dropped a bit of water on it, making the colors run into each other, giving the painting a whole new life. Now the fairy characters seem more real and passionate. They aren't the "cute" fairies you'd encounter in the wilderness, no, these guys are peeking out at you and talking about you behind your back. The "bubbles" of mist are like a steady stream of frost or the snow-like blossoms of spring -- the scene could take place at any time of year, really -- and the scene could be taking place in your own backyard just as much as it could be in some far off forest.
I let you decide what is going on in their minds. They like being imagined about as much as they love to gossip.
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