Terri Windling's Blog, page 238

Myth, Art, and the Mythic Landscape

Walking by the river with Howard, Howard's mum, and young Tilly on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I found myself thinking about the powerful impression this landscape made on me back when I first set foot on Dartmoor 25 years ago (long before I ever dreamed I would someday settle here). The colors, the light, the shapes of tree and stone were so very different, in ways both large and small, from any countryside I'd known back in America. It felt like stepping into a storybook: into an Arthur Rackham illustration, or a painting by Alan Lee.

And in a sense, I was stepping into those paintings, for Alan Lee, one of the modern heirs to Arthur Rackham, has lived and painted here for many years (when he's not off working on a certain film set in New Zealand). His art has been shaped by these rivers, these stones, these hills stretching green, ochre, and misty blue-grey from horizon to horizon. . . from ocean to forest and field and back to ocean. . . from village lanes to the open, wild moor.

Way back in 1997 I talked to Alan about his work for an article in an American magazine. "I spend as much time as I can sketching from nature," he told me then. "Dartmoor contains such a rich variety of landscape, as many boulders, foaming rivers and twisted trees as my heart could ever desire. . . . When I look into a river, I feel I could spend a whole lifetime just painting that river."

Regarding his painting process, he said: "I like to work in watercolor, with as little under-drawing as I can get away with. I like the unpredictability of a medium which is affected as much by humidity, gravity, the way that heavier particles in the wash settle into the undulations of the paper surface, as by whatever I wish to do with it. In other mediums you have more control, you are responsible for every mark on the page — but with watercolor you are in a dialogue with the paint, it responds to you and you respond to it in turn. Printmaking is also like this, it has an unpredictable element. This encourages an intuitive response, a spontaneity which allows magic to happen on the page.

"When I begin an illustration, I usually work up from small sketches — which indicate in a simple way something of the atmosphere or dynamics of an illustration; then I do drawings on a larger scale supported by studies from models — usually friends — if figures play a large part in the picture. When I've reached a stage where the drawing looks good enough I'll transfer it to watercolor paper, but I like to leave as much unresolved as possible before starting to put on washes. This allows for an interaction with the medium itself, a dialogue between me and the paint. Otherwise it is too much like painting by number, or a one-sided conversation."

There will be an "Around the Table" discussion with Alan coming up on the John Barleycorn blog in a couple of weeks -- I've had a sneak peek, and it's terrific. (I will, of course, post a link when it's up.) In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Alan's pictures here . . . coupled with my photographs of a Sunday walk through a landscape that his Muse has oft' tread.

And on a lighter note, here's our zanni of a pup enjoying the mythic landscape in her own way....

Tune for a Monday Morning

Today's tune:  a terrific rendition of  "900 Miles" by the American roots music duo Bethany and Rufus: Bethany Yarrow (daughter of Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul, & Mary) and Rufus Cappadocia.

Friday afternoon recommendations:

Thistles in bloom in front of the "John Barleycorn" office.

I'll be getting back to the lengthier "Recommended Reading" lists once life around here settles down a bit (though when that's going to be, I hesitate to predict), but in the meantime, here are a few magpie gleanings to pass along:

* First, as I mentioned yesterday, the new issue of Stone Telling magazine is wonderful.

* Second, I've been catching up with all the fabulous posts on Katherine Langrish's Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, such as Mystical Voyages, Parts 1 & 2, new Fairy Tales Reflections, and book recommendations. Great stuff here, as always.

* If you're an Anglophile, or just love classic British literature, you'll find lots of good book recommendations in Colleen Mondor's "Hail Brittania" column, at Chasing Ray.

* Amal El-Mohtar has posted a gorgeous quote from Coleridge's notebooks ("Why do you make a book?") over on her blog, Voices on the Midnight Air. This one is definitely going into my Favorite Quotations file.

* You may have seen this link already since it's been making the rounds, but I love the post on building a house for less than $5000 on ciracar.com. What a charming hobbit-hole of a place!

* Video recommendation this week: Mark Tiedeman interviews Ursula K. Le Guin.

* Art recommendation this week: Christina Cairns has finished a very beautiful new painting at A Mermaid in the Attic.

And an update on art and artists from my village:

* Wendy Froud gives us a glimpse of her current desktop over on the Realm of Froud blog (and of Buster the cat in a very undignified position).

* Danielle Barlow discusses horses and knitting this month at Notes from the Rookery. (Reading Danielle's blog is always like taking a good deep breath of Dartmoor country air. I just love it.)

* There's  exquisite new art, end-of-summer adventures, and Dartmoor photos at Rima Staines' The Hermitage.

* Virginia Lee goes underwater for a thoroughly magical new portrait painting. (The tiny merchild curled in a shell is an image that threatens to break my heart with sheer loveliness.)

* David Wyatt has posted some terrific pages from his graphic-novel-in-progress, Sunsound, over on his Posterous blog. More, please, David!!! (Be sure to follow the thumbnail links at the top to view all four pages.)

* Howard & Rex have listened to the Will of the People and have posted more 1st-draft pages from their comic on John Barleycorn. They say the plot-line has changed somewhat since this early draft was written...but I'm loving seeing the roots of the JB story all the same. I'll find it interesting to compare such scenes to the final draft of the graphic novel, for I love seeing the creative process at work -- the changes, large and subtle, from revision to revision. And that reminds me of yet another quote, which I'll leave you with today:

"I love revisions...We can't go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest."  - Katherine Paterson

Have a good weekend.

Friday morning: Living in Gratitude

Early morning mist over our house, Bumblehill.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  - Melody Beattie

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." - G. K. Chesterton

Black dog in motion on the slope of the hill glimpsed in the picture above.

Living in gratitude

Early morning mist over our house, Bumblehill.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  - Melody Beattie

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." - G. K. Chesterton

Black dog in motion on the slope of the hill glimpsed in the picture above.

Stone Telling

Don't miss the new issue of Stone Telling Magazine, which is focused on myth and mythic poetry this time out. The poetry gathered here is simply stunning, the photographic illustrations are terrific, and the Roundtable on Story and Identity (Julia Rios with Mike Allen, Erik Amundsen, Shira Lipkin, Koel Mukherjee, Delia Sherman, and JT Stewart) would be worth the price of admission alone -- except there is no price of admission, all these treasures are generously offered up free of charge.

You'll also find an insightful review from Mike Allen, a discussion of multicultural myths and poetry from Emily Jiang, and some very kind words about The Journal of Mythic Arts from Amal El-Mohtar, Brittany Warman, and Alan Yee. (*blush*)

Midori Snyder and I do miss JoMA...but we're thrilled beyond telling that a younger generation has picked up the editorial torch and is lighting new pathways into the mythic tradition. The editors here are Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan, with editorial assistant Jennifer Smith.  It's the magazine's fifth issue, and it's going from strength to strength. Bravo to everyone involved.

And thank you.

Companions

What Tilly Did On Her Summer Vacation

Now that, alas, the summer is over, and the morning winds are smelling of apples and autumn, here's a report on how the pup spent the last dog days (excuse the pun) of August. She....

Crossed over a stream:

Climbed up a hill:

Checked to see if the blackberries were ripe yet (they weren't):

Walked by the river with Howard and me:

Chased a stick:

Brought it back again:

Was startled when three more black dogs appeared:

Got very wet:

Found a very smelly ball:

Gave up the ball in exchange for a very big bone:

And fell asleep in the sun beside Howard, snoring softly, dreaming sweet canine dreams.

Tune for a Monday Morning

Today's tune: "Over the Rainbow," performed by the late Eva Cassidy at Blues Alley in Washington Dec, 1996. Beautiful.

How to Build a Good Life, Part II

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."
- Henry David Thoreau

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald