Illustration @ MindSay

There is an old house.  The house belongs to a dying family.  Many houses out live their families.  The house doesn't want to be alone.  A strange young man (the last surviving member of an aristocratic French family) comes to inherit or abandon the house, he's not yet sure he wants it.  The man comes to the house with a girl.  The girl loves him and he doesn't know what to do about it because he can't love her back.  She calls herself his best friend.  He doesn't know what that's supposed to mean.  But no matter.  The house loves them both and won't let them leave. 

 

No matter where They go now, They are Home.

 

Lots of things go into houses.  A story is like a house.  Some houses have many stories.  And some stories never leave me alone, no matter how lazy I am at writing or no matter how many other things I end up drawing, I always come back to "the house in my head" and never leave.  As I've been going through all my artwork in storage, looking for pieces and characters to revive, I'm drawn to the following two illustrations.

 

Spring 1991:  I photocopied antique photographs of Old Milwaukee houses and collaged them with scribbly drawings.  It was an image originally done for a forgotten class assignment.  Whenever I see an old house, I automatically start thinking about the stories of the people who must've lived there -- I don't think this way whenever I see new houses because new places feel empty, generic, or unfinished to me.  They don't make houses like they used to, you know.  And so many, SO many are gone.  But what if an ancient house (not just an antique one) still exists somewhere tucked out in the woods on top of an equally ancient place (not just some old Indian burial ground).  I'm not just talking about a haunted house, either.  In fact, at the time I did the following collage, I wasn't exactly sure what was happening...  I let the images speak to me.  My hand in drawing scribbles on them was a way for me to "feel" out what was going on.  I was attempting to draw out, not draw in, what I was seeing...

 

I never quite forget anything I've written or drawn.  I say "never quite" because there are times when I do forget, but not all the way.  There's always something in the paper to remind me of where I've been that hints at where I am going.  I've got stories in the back of my mind all the time.  What I love most is to create characters.  Usually characters are created before I even actually finish a story.  Sometimes it's the places I create that come before the characters.  I'll get inspired by someplace I've visited or dreamt about and the story just starts to "people" itself.  I think this is why I spend so much time alone...  I need solitude to let these little worlds in me develop.

As I go through my old work, I begin to really see what genre I belong to.  I really believe my place in fiction is "horror fantasy" or Occult Horror -- what is the difference?  Does it really matter?  What I want to do is create something I wish was being produced by someone else, but isn't.  I would like to see more gothic horror, a return to the old world class and style, I want to see more monsters in capes, I want a bit of film noir back in scary movies...

 

This is Alexandre and Dorathea.

Winter 1992:  These were the very first drawings, in paint, that I've ever done of them.  I used to do a lot of painting on fabric.  I'd tye dye the canvas first, then select inks to paint with, then paint over the ink with big dollops of arcylic color.  With this painted character sketch, I also chose to use flakes of actual silver (sort of like gold flake, but silver, get it?) and crush them into the wet fabric to creat this sort of glitter-saturated look.  Click on the above image to see it full size.  The following two images are close ups of each character.  This should show you the amount of detail I really put in each face.

Alexandre is no longer a brunette, but every drawing I've done of him reveals to me that he has a long European nose, a flash of pale eyes hidden under shadow, and in every picture he stares out as if really looking deeply into those who see him.  In reality he just looks through other people, never really seeing them.  The white inked "rays" of light coming out of his right eye indicate that he has some kind of hidden insight into things but he doesn't always know how to "tap" into this consciously.  He's a moody bastard, too.  His lover, an older, more sophsicated man with a wife and children, has broken up with him to return to his family.  This makes Alexandre take a step back.  Will he ever have true love or will he just be a boy toy forever?  Not that he's a slut.  He's got a lot of heart, but he's so full of the "dark side" right now, he may just refuse to save himself from it.

 

Summer 2008:  This is how Alexandre has evolved over a 17 year period.  I'm now closer to knowing who he is now.  He's pale, almost an albino, his lips are passionate and full... but he's still not quite "there" yet.

 

Then there's Dorathea.  Alexandre's spontaneous, spunky, affectionate and very fashion-conscious straight girlfriend.  He knows she's totally in love with him and there's nothing he can do about it.  She may self destruct all over him, or she may find a kind of strange happiness in darkness like he has... 

Dorathea's hair is always changing.  When worn long, it's a mass of curls and confusion.  Usually she cuts it short or irons it completely straight.  In this painting, she is a cloud of shadow.  Her eyes are deep set, lips in a constant pout, and she paints her face gothic white.  This sometimes gives her the appearance of a clown.  Her skin is actually much more almond tan, revealing her Middle Eastern ethnicity.  She's not that confident, but puts on an air of authority. 

Dorathea is emerging nicely as well.  I don't know her as well as Alexandre, but she's getting "there" and I just keep re-drawing her until she looks completely right.

 

I'm happy to introduce you to my characters.  I'll update you as the story develops more.

Over the weekend, I had a very detailed dream that was so vivid, it felt like I was watching myself star in a surrealist film from the early 1900's. I got up immediately to record it in my sketchbook. The faces of the characters, including myself as an Edwardian mistress, are as fresh in my memory as if they were all real. So this dream comes completely illustrated. Feel free to click onto the images for a full view of them.

 

The first drawing is of my "dream self" -- here is a transcript of what I wrote next to the drawing: "When I saw myself, I realized I was in another time and I was a different woman, yet my eyes were the same. I was stiff and sore -- my waist cinched into the Gibson Girl "S" shape -- as I saw myself, I began to forget who I really am NOW."

 

Everything took place at a crossroads near a railroad.  I could hear the steam and whistle of the rail cars from nearby.  It was early evening, I was literally stuffed into my dress, I had to take careful steps to not lose my balance as I walked up to a crooked-looking little building near the Wisconsin River.  It was a brothel!  I saw a line of other women entering the building, all of them chatting excitedly to one another.  I saw my friend, Miya, there but she did not look entirely "real" -- she was dressed up like a doll and her eyes were larger than life. She was incredibly petite, less than five feet tall, with a wasp waist and bubbly blonde head of hair that seemed more like a cloud of feathers than real hair. She was clearly the most attractive, and the strangest looking of all the girls gathered in front of the brothel.  This is how they appeared, all lined up and waiting for something to happen, as if they all stepped out of a fashion plate from 1908.

As I drew how Miya's 1900-era alter-ego looked liked, I wrote a little something on her collar -- it's like my handwriting forms a sort of lace pattern similiar to the one that covered her collar.  Here's what I wrote: "Miya looked like a doll with large eyes and bee-stung lips like Mae West or Clara Bow impersonating a child in 19th century dress.  When we met Mrs. Hawthorn and the girls, I knew we were in for an adventure!"  But what kind of adventure?  Were we truly "working girls?"  As I lost myself inside the body of my 1900's self, I began to feel light headed and slightly dizzy, especially as we walked up the stairs to the building.  Inside the place was cramped and tiny.  We almost had to crawl up the stairs and it seemed to take us forever to get to the little room at the top of the stairs where we were scheduled to meet the mysterious Mrs. Hawthorn.  

 

Mrs. Hawthorn was a statuesque figure with a long nose. She wore a wine and gray striped dress dated from a previous decade (1890's) and she seemed to be a woman of means. This is what I wrote about her as I drew her: "Mrs. Hawthorn was all business and nonsense." It was as if she were mad.  She told us that our duties were to take care of the plants in the house. But from the angle I viewed her at, it seemed that the building was all one long, narrow staircase up to one tiny room, as if we were at the top of a tower, and there were no plants to be seen. "You'll be working around me, not with me," she said, "Remember your plants, do not confuse them with planets!" As we stood there beside her, the two windows in the tiny room started to light up from sunlight.  As the room brightened, Mrs. Hawthorn lowered her voice into a grim growl of warning, "And watch out for the Top Hat Man.  He likes to steal flowers."

As soon as she warned us about this man, we began to hear someone singing.  It was a man's voice coming from the street below and beyond the confines of the tight little room we were in.  There was the immediate sense of danger and panic.  The voice was getting closer and closer.  Miya began to cry.  Her tears fell in streaks of black.  I tried to mop up her tears, but this only smeared up her made-up face.  "It's the Belladonna," Miya cried, "I think I put too much into my eyes.  I might be to blame for him.  He can reach me because of my eyes!"  This was why her eyes were so large -- the juice of this plant had dilated her eyes to a freakish extent, a cosmetic use that was popular from ancient times.  

 

I told Miya not to worry, that somehow we'll manage to get out of this dilemma. Mrs. Hawthorn advised us to stay inside the confines of the room, but it was so crowded in there with us and the other women, that it was going to be impossible for us to stay away from the door. As we heard the man's voice drift up louder and louder from the stairs beyond, it seemed we were doomed.  He was coming for us.  Yet for a dangerous man, his voice was exceedingly charming and comforting, like a blanket for sore ears.  Other voices started to pipe up for our attention, a chorus of other men's voices, perfectly singing in tune and adding more charm to the lead singer's voice.  I was curious, yet frightened to see what this man had to look like.  As we tried to steady our ground and keep away from the edge of the door, Miya's baby doll dress edged out over the threshold and a tiny pink hand grabbed at her.  As she brushed it away, a tiny man with a bright green top hat and long white hair appeared.  He was barely five inches tall and seemed not to be that big of a threat physically, but that was just it: he was a magical creature, like a Leprechaun of Irish legend, but he had nothing to do with shoes, he was a singer and he started to remind me of someone I had once loved... that was the danger.  I found myself falling for his charming voice...  Infact, all the women in the room were beginning to swoon!

 

This was how his song went:

"Oh, Dear Ladies,

my love is a

spring flower's petals

 on the wind!

If you hook me onto your hem,

 I will trail behind you

 inside your SHADOWS,

 windows,

swallows...

 fixures

 and

spindles!

 Do not faint, Dear Ladies,

when my perfume turns to milk,

 for I will love you into SILK

 and martyr you

with my PISTOL

before you WILT!"

Directly behind the little Top Hat Man was a rather large hamster boy playing a broken-looking guitar. All around the hamster were four other little men dressed in green with beady eyes, "...And so we've been gathered for your cheer...!" They sang so loudly for such little creatures. And they kept changing in and out of flower form. Sometimes their heads were petals, at other times their legs were stalks, their arms leaves, their necks twisting and turning like vines, and then their bodies relaxed back into humanoid form, all of them dressed in 19th century suits.  For me to draw them in all their plant forms would take me too long to achieve.  So you'll have to just imagine how trippy it was to see this sort of thing going on.

 

As the women in the room all began to be beguiled by this chorus of little men, I knew I had to do something to end the spell.  Mrs. Hawthorn whispered to me, gritting her teeth against the charming song, "You'll have to grab HIM inbetween the floorboards and door knob.  Show him some ankle or neck to confuse him."  I wasn't sure what she meant, so I haphazardly stepped half way out of the room while still standing inside the room.  I was in between spaces.  This was how I managed to get the Top Hat Man to jump into my hand.  I pulled him into the room and he turned into a big messy glob of mistletoe seed.  I turned to Miya for help.  I knew she knew about these things better than I.  "Anyone know a cure for Mistletoe?" I asked her.  She ripped apart the hem of her dress to wrap the Mistletoe seed into a sack.  "It's Lavender!"  She answered.  Meanwhile the seed squirmed and screeched inside the makeshift sack formed from Miya's dress fabric.  The fabric was a sheer white, so I could see what was going on inside.  I noticed that the mistletoe seed was forming into a full size human head of the Top Hat Man.  We only had a few moments to squash him.  "I don't have any Lavender on me!"  I moaned with self pity, "I only have some at home."     "You have to move him to the window sill!" Mrs. Hawthorn demanded, "He can only be destroyed in the between spaces."  So even without Lavender, I knew I could defeat him.  

Miya held open the window long enough for me to slide the sack underneath the sill, then we both slammed it onto the Top Hat Man's half-mistletoe, half-human head.  We slammed the window over and over again over his head.  Amazingly, there was no blood or mess.  He kept trying to sing through the sack.  He was silenced into gradual muffles of song, but by the time we were smashing him, the spell was broken and the other little men disappeared. 

After the destruction of the Top Hat Man, everything sort of melted back into contemporary life. I found myself walking down a street lined with white houses. I was no longer my 1900's self, I was back to being normal Val.  In one of the white houses, I saw Miya's daughter, Rowan, peeking out from a couch behind a big window.  She wore a "kitty" mask that looked to be of her own creation.  Inside I heard a commotion and the front door opened to reveal a clown-like Miya dressed in old-fashioned bloomers, pointy slippers, and a T-shirt with a big tree printed on it with the roots of the tree stretching over her pregnant belly.  Her hair was all in springy cork screw curls.  I could see other people in the house looking out at me from the windows.  Miya told me that she had a lot of company over and that she really shouldn't leave home, but "Only I know the way back from the Crossroad," she said, "Jonathan, Eric, Robert, and Aaron will look after all the kittens."  I told her I wanted to see the kittens first, so she happily led me into her house into a back room that literally looked like a nursery but it was filled with cats that didn't have fur, they had knitted yarn for fur.  Their eyes were real, but their bodies were clothed with yarn in intricate designs and colors, like no other cats in real life have!  I attempted to draw the "kittens" but nothing I drew came close to capturing how these things looked like.  "Can they breathe like that?" I asked Miya.  She just giggled at me and said, "of course!  You think I wouldn't design them without lungs?"

 

After we made our good-byes to the boys and Rowan, Miya and I walked into the woods towards a railroad crossing.  I soon found myself almost back to the start of the dream.  As we approached the railroad, our dress began to change.  Miya and I found ourselves in matching ball gowns to die for! The trail of our dresses hissed with the heaviness of pearls and jewels sewn into the silk and taffeta.  Just beyond the railroad crossing was Lake Michigan.  The seagulls flying over head were larger than life.  One deep brown gull was pretending to be an eagle and it kept swooping over us trying to tear at our ball gowns.  Well, we weren't going to fall for that.  We picked up twigs from the ground and waved the bird away.  When this didn't work, Miya suggested that we kiss to scare it.  How this would fend off the bird's attack, I don't know, but we gave it a shot.  Our kiss was awkward, like the kind of kiss you'd give to an actor while on stage, and even though it was fake and done without feeling, the kiss did distract the big brown seagull enough to make it lose its balance and crash into a building.  When it "exploded" into the building, suddenly the landscape changed and we stood before a black and lavender painted Victorian tavern with a sharp pointed tower.  When we looked at this place, our heads began to swoon with love.  We had to go into that place!  But a feeling of dread overcame my immediate desire.  I wasn't sure it was that good of an idea, so I made Miya go first and I tugged on the trail of her dress, hiding my face in her puffy sleeves.

Yet somehow I managed to at least take the lead at opening the door to the tavern.  As soon as I opened the door, I was shocked to see the Top Hat Man in fully human size.  He was totally drunk and slumped over the bar.  Beside him was one of the little men who had performed as part of his chorus.  He had big fox ears and the hair at the top of his head was formed into a blonde crescent moon shape with the back of his hair dark as midnight.  He also had puffy sideburns and was dressed like a chimney sweep.  He was just as surprised to see us as we were to see him.  I slammed the door closed and Miya and I had just enough time to hide into a corner in the alleyway, both of us shaking with girlish fear -- you know the kind of fear you get when you're trying to hide from a boy you've got a crush on?  It was that kind of anxiety.  But we could not hide from this creature.

"It's alright, I know who you are and why you are here, ladies," the fox-eared man gently spoke to us, "it's no use hiding from me.  I can smell your hearts beating."  A little embarassed, Miya and I tried to relax.  I was in so much awe of this man, that I couldn't speak.  He introduced himself as Moonhoof and revealed that he has been recording what we've been going through over the last several years.  "Don't chase after the one who chased you," he advised, "it's for your own good.  I only wanted to protect you from him.  That's the one reason why we are speaking now."  He also revealed that he betrayed the Top Hat Man by "letting loose the elf-locks of Valentina's hair" but he couldn't stand to see me suffer no more. 

"Live a life without enchantment and you lose hope," he went on to say, "but to live a life with enchantment is to embrace another truth."  After he said this, I awoke.  Knowing this was a very significant message, I became determined to record the faces I had dreamt in my sketchbook.  And that is also why I posted it here.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, when Miya and I smashed the Top Hat Man's head in the window sill, we were convinced that it would end prostitution forever.  I don't know why.  Perhaps we're both dealing with feminist issues in our daily lives lately? 

 

By the way, Miya was right: Lavender cured my migraines this weekend.  Maybe that's another thing this dream was telling me.  For some reason nothing was making my headaches go away.  The only thing that worked was bathing myself in lavender.

Grimalkin.  The original "Puss-in-Boots" is taking time out to knit a few things.  It's hard to determine what exactly she is knitting in this drawing.  It could be the start of a sweater or sock or just another thing to do to pass the time.  She is flanked by her most talented and trusted cat buddies.  Today she's decided to keep to her human skin, probably because she was in the mood to knit and needed the thumbs.  She loves striped clothes, hats, glittery necklaces with doo-dads and dangles and gaudy beads.  She also, true to her legend, loves to wear big boots.  She doesn't comb her hair a lot.  Most of the time she prefers to be a cat.  She's more attractive as a cat, but no portrait of her as a cat does her feline beauty justice.  More about that some other day when I'm in the mood to tell a story or two about her.

 

The images above are just pencil sketches, a few are details of the larger images, things have yet to be inked, stories have yet to be told about Grimalkin's "buddies" and the last image is just a character sketch of Grimalkin from the 1980's when she wore "a raspberry beret!"

 

I dedicate these drawings to my friend, Miya.  Happy early Valentina's Day!

I believe what I love to do best is create characters.  In fact, most of my best art is an emphasis on character design.  The images I posted here today are early works depicting Melusine, from the old French fairy tale.  The first image, and the images thereafter, are scans of an original pen & ink illustration I completed in 2000.  I no longer own this illustration, unfortunately, and I've regretted selling it ever since.  But I was starving at the time -- literally.  That was a year ago today that I sold it.  At least I still have a print.  The man I sold it to owns a tattoo parlor downtown and he proudly displays it there.  I have a feeling that someday it will be worth ten times more than what I sold it for.  I don't even want to mention how much I sold it for.  But when you're starving...  

 

I've had a hard time looking at these drawings.  The image in my mind of Melusine does tend to change, but it's a lot like looking at a lake -- always changing but never chaged.  Melusine is more than just a "fantasy" character for me, she's much more than that.  Someone once scolded me for writing about her.  He told me that it was blasphemous, but he just didn't understand why I've written and drawn her so much! 

 

I can't get her out of mind.  Like Grimalkin, she can be both a Goddess and a fictional character.  To study such characters is a form of worship.  Just don't expect me to sell out to Disney any time soon.

I'm posting a lot of old illustration I've done to make a point to myself.  Over the last three years I have lost a lot of confidence in my talents and abilities.  I believe this is because I've been too isolated from artistic nurturing community and that I've too often gotten sidetracked by bad relationships.  (Aren't bad lovers such a distraction?)  Today is Imbolc.  A time for me to reflect and meditate upon my dedication to my Goddess.  My inner "goddess" is a creatrix.  Without the desire to create, I am nothing.  I need to show myself what I've done over the years.  I need to remember that I can be powerful.  I must realize that I have a lot of stories that are worth telling and drawing.

 

So I've turned back to one of those on-going projects I've worked on that I never did complete, mainly because it's quite the epic fantasy story.  Such epic things can wax and wane in their "sucky-ness" as I attempt to put it all together.  I don't know if I will ever be finished with it.  The stories come out in a series but without a coherent plot.  More like getting in the middle of a television series where I haven't watched the beginning, I know the characters because they've been all over my mind and I can dress them up any way I want, but as for how they all got into the world I've put them in, well, there's where it gets messy.

 

I'll attempt to give a brief description of each image:

 

1.  Agent Jove: The story behind this one is that a "cosmic" divorice took place between the gods Juno and Jove.  Jove seems to have the upper hand in the battle.  Juno is more in the background, silent but not compliant.  The gods' struggle is the same struggle men and women have -- trying to harmonize, to get along, and understand one another after this shift of balance between the sexes.

 

2.  The Horned One:  You think Christians own the copyright on virgin births?  Not so.  Long before the Virgin Mary, there were hundreds of virgins impregnated by Gods.  And it may still be happening today!  Except in this age no one will ever believe a white trash girl became pregnant after taking a dip in a lake.  Pregnancies aren't contagious like that, right?  Sonya Maybell claims that she wasn't raped or abused by anyone.  However, she does have dreams about a man with the antlers of a deer...  was he real?  Once her belly gets fat, no one believes what she claims didn't happen.  Her family kicks her out of the house.  She's got no where to go.  No where but the woods.

 

3.  Jade Winter:  Ever wonder what lies beyond the twisted vines and thorned canopies in the deepest woods?  Ever get the feeling that you're never alone while walking in the park?  Ever hear the tree branches move although there is no trace of wind?  Sometimes there is someone in the green just beyond your reach.  His gun is alive and it sings blue silver.  Jade is the only man whom the trees obey.  He may not be a man at all.  Can a god not know what he is?  Perhaps he only knows he is.

 

4.  Juno Rose:  She was human... once.  She wished all her friends away.  Now all Jazmin has are her delusions.  She wanders the streets a homeless vagrant, openly inviting danger and death.  But Juno won't let her die.  And just when Jazmin was getting used to being hopeless.

 

5.  Jazmin parts the veil:  sketch of Jazmin behind a curtain.

 

6.  The Veil:  final illustration of Jazmin parting a "reality" she can no longer handle.  

 

7.  Jazmin:  Primary sketches of Jazmin -- a before and after shots of her "look."  I'm very fashion conscious when it comes to my characters.

 

8.  Jasper:  A musician who composes the "soundtrack" of life.  Very mysterious fellow.  He wears a computerized coat, allowing him to record sounds and mix tracks where ever he goes.

 

9.  Jasper's coat:  Think of it as part magic cloak, part computer -- but it's more than a gadget, it's an invention all his own that only works for him.  Everytime he attempts to create something like it for someone else, it just doesn't work.  Why does the "magic" of it only seem to work for him?

 

10.  Morrigan concept:  All the gods are alive and well in our world.  Did you really think they were dependent upon our imagination to keep them going?  The Celtic goddess, Morrigan, is only one of a host of many believed to not exist.  This is just one concept sketch of her.  For me to really draw her the way she really appears in real life would make my fingers bleed and your eyes boil.

 

11.  Macha concept:  Gods don't fit nicely into one description and they posess many different "looks" but every now and then, maybe just to be nice, we can see a glimpse of one of them in something mundane like a fashion magazine, or they might even pop up during Entertainment Tonight.  This sketch features yet another design concept of an aspect of the Morrigan.

 

12.  Derek Snow sketch:  Not all "gods" are immortal.  There are those we choose to worship simply because they pretend to be people they aren't.  Performers get as "celebrated" as Jesus Christ.  Just ask Mr. Lennon.  He knew what he was talking about.  Derek Snow is one of those actors.  A terrific liar.  Walking illusion.  Pretty boy with power.  Too bad he pissed off a Goddess...

 

13.  What makes you think I want you?  Derek shows us a smirk.

 

14.  Gossamer opening page concept:  A peek hole of Sonya escaping something... or someone.

 

15.  Gossamer opening page concept 2:  Sonya running.  She looks really scared.  Too bad I lost the script to this scene.  *sigh*  Oh, well, at least later I can use it for something else.  Something possibly better.

 

16.  Sonya and the Horned One concept:  Sonya gets a surprise visit from her baby daddy.

 

I can't forget any of these images.  I can't leave them sitting in dust anymore.  I've got to do something with them.  Remind me to keep it going.  I'm a terrible dreamer.