GLITTERING SCRIVENER

MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY'S MANUSCRIPTS, ILLUMINATED
-Timothy Cummings, The Flowering, 2006 (American) Renaissance-Primitives, Cumming’s paintings are fucking gorgeous and creepy and right. He generally paints with acrylic on panel, which is amazing to me - these look like oils. I like almost everything he does. This is a particularly pretty example, but I love, perhaps even more, the Spot Portrait series, which I’ll put up here in the next few days. 

-Timothy Cummings, The Flowering, 2006 (American)

Renaissance-Primitives, Cumming’s paintings are fucking gorgeous and creepy and right. He generally paints with acrylic on panel, which is amazing to me - these look like oils. I like almost everything he does. This is a particularly pretty example, but I love, perhaps even more, the Spot Portrait series, which I’ll put up here in the next few days. 

SHE SLEEPS ALONGSIDE SORROW - Michael Garlington, Daughter of the Circus. Garlington’s work is surreal, dark, and piercing, but there’s a sense of humor alongside the grotesque. This photo? The little girl curled up, the grinning monkey, the sad clown father? Astonishing. I find myself thinking of this image all the time. I want it to be a book cover of mine, really very badly. Failing that, I want it at least on my wall.  The below is the first Garlington I saw, on the cover of Zyzzyva, maybe 10 years ago. I’m pretty smitten with this one too, but these days, I like the darker edges even more than this bear suit and beauty. (Though Exit Pursued By A Bear is very much the thing here, and that stage direction is tattooed on my thigh.) - Michael Garlington, The Fishmonger’s Daughter Garlington has also photographed the extraordinary singer/Renaissance woman Jill Tracy. I knew there was a reason I kept staring at these portraits, and it was that I recognized the photographer.  - Michael Garlington, Jill Tracy.

SHE SLEEPS ALONGSIDE SORROW - Michael Garlington, Daughter of the Circus.

Garlington’s work is surreal, dark, and piercing, but there’s a sense of humor alongside the grotesque. This photo? The little girl curled up, the grinning monkey, the sad clown father? Astonishing. I find myself thinking of this image all the time. I want it to be a book cover of mine, really very badly. Failing that, I want it at least on my wall. 

The below is the first Garlington I saw, on the cover of Zyzzyva, maybe 10 years ago. I’m pretty smitten with this one too, but these days, I like the darker edges even more than this bear suit and beauty. (Though Exit Pursued By A Bear is very much the thing here, and that stage direction is tattooed on my thigh.)

- Michael Garlington, The Fishmonger’s Daughter

Garlington has also photographed the extraordinary singer/Renaissance woman Jill Tracy. I knew there was a reason I kept staring at these portraits, and it was that I recognized the photographer. 

- Michael Garlington, Jill Tracy.

A MIND FULL OF SERPENTS- Charmaine Olivia, Medusa, 2011. India ink.  Sometimes a mind extends separate entities into the world. Medusa’s serpents are like periscopes, spying in all directions.  This is Olivia’s Tumblr.

A MIND FULL OF SERPENTS- Charmaine Olivia, Medusa, 2011. India ink. 

Sometimes a mind extends separate entities into the world. Medusa’s serpents are like periscopes, spying in all directions. 

This is Olivia’s Tumblr.

Porcupine. 2012. Roadside, upstate NY. I’m on a writing retreat in the Catskills, hence my lack of posts the last couple of days. I had to pull the car over to look at this porcupine, with its soft underbelly and sleek quills. Dying as one crosses the road is sad, but this one died young and left a beautiful corpse. Now back to writing.

Porcupine. 2012. Roadside, upstate NY.

I’m on a writing retreat in the Catskills, hence my lack of posts the last couple of days. I had to pull the car over to look at this porcupine, with its soft underbelly and sleek quills. Dying as one crosses the road is sad, but this one died young and left a beautiful corpse.

Now back to writing.

- Morgan Herrin, Untitled, 2009. Wood.  Image from Ada Gallery.

- Morgan Herrin, Untitled, 2009. Wood. 

Image from Ada Gallery.

TREAD ON ME - Shannon G. Wright. All Terrain Ass-Kicker, 60 durometer urethane rubber. 2008. Proposal for military Hummer tire tread pattern, inspired by Afghan war rugs. I’ve always loved the notion of shoes that have bird or animal tracks on the soles, creating a false (and recognizable to friends) trail in hostile terrain. This does something quite different, but it’s inspired by a similar notion - tire tracks are utterly distinctive. This tread is obviously a tire, but also contains symbols of animals, people, cars, plants…lives. 

TREAD ON ME - Shannon G. Wright. All Terrain Ass-Kicker, 60 durometer urethane rubber. 2008.

Proposal for military Hummer tire tread pattern, inspired by Afghan war rugs.

I’ve always loved the notion of shoes that have bird or animal tracks on the soles, creating a false (and recognizable to friends) trail in hostile terrain. This does something quite different, but it’s inspired by a similar notion - tire tracks are utterly distinctive. This tread is obviously a tire, but also contains symbols of animals, people, cars, plants…lives. 


There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

—

- Wendell Berry, from the essay “Poetry and Marriage”

***

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.  I think this is why I like editing other writer’s work. It forces my brain out of its comfortable little waterways, and makes it carve out new canals.  But it’s also why trying new genres, new forms, boundarying oneself in that way, is very fucking useful. 

27 RATS REACHING FOR THE MOON - ALEX RANDALL, Rat Swarm, taxidermied rats, bulb. I have a love affair with this sort of thing*. This one, especially, reminds me of a bunch of folklore and fairy tales, the obvious Hamelin, of course, and also some pretty excellent other stuff. Here’s Lafcadio Hearn retelling a Japanese folktale, The Boy Who Drew Cats. Alex Randall makes some amazing things with light and skin. I love pretty much everything she does. There’s a series of rawhide and electricity sculptures that break me down.  As is often the case with the artists I post here, I’d be very happy to hang out with her for days.  This lamp’s a kind of riff on the anthropofolkloric construct of the Rattenkönig, or rat king. The French term for that is rouets des rats - or a spinning wheel of rats, the knotted tails being wheel spokes. Here’s sculptor Katharina Fritsch’s version, in which the rats are joined by what looks like a monkey’s fist knot: - Katharina Fritsch, Rattenkonig, 1998. And here’s a real rat king. Well, maybe real. Hoax creatures are nothing new, and rat trappers sometimes likely made money by making marvels. Either that, or a lot of rats got stuck in a fireplace and died there, ensnarled - this rat king was discovered in a chimney. It’s from the scientific Mauritianum museum in Altenburg, Germany. As I was researching, I happened upon a reference to a squirrel king. Oh my god. I want to see that squirrel king, so badly.  * Randall only works with already dead or culled animals, FYI.  *** See also: Handful of Cicadas; Twisty Serpents; X-rays of Impossibilities; Animal Shoes; Giant Mole

27 RATS REACHING FOR THE MOON - ALEX RANDALL, Rat Swarm, taxidermied rats, bulb.

I have a love affair with this sort of thing*. This one, especially, reminds me of a bunch of folklore and fairy tales, the obvious Hamelin, of course, and also some pretty excellent other stuff. Here’s Lafcadio Hearn retelling a Japanese folktale, The Boy Who Drew Cats.

Alex Randall makes some amazing things with light and skin. I love pretty much everything she does. There’s a series of rawhide and electricity sculptures that break me down.  As is often the case with the artists I post here, I’d be very happy to hang out with her for days. 

This lamp’s a kind of riff on the anthropofolkloric construct of the Rattenkönig, or rat king. The French term for that is rouets des rats - or a spinning wheel of rats, the knotted tails being wheel spokes.

Here’s sculptor Katharina Fritsch’s version, in which the rats are joined by what looks like a monkey’s fist knot:

- Katharina Fritsch, Rattenkonig, 1998.

And here’s a real rat king. Well, maybe real. Hoax creatures are nothing new, and rat trappers sometimes likely made money by making marvels. Either that, or a lot of rats got stuck in a fireplace and died there, ensnarled - this rat king was discovered in a chimney. It’s from the scientific Mauritianum museum in Altenburg, Germany. As I was researching, I happened upon a reference to a squirrel king. Oh my god. I want to see that squirrel king, so badly. 

* Randall only works with already dead or culled animals, FYI. 

***

See also: Handful of Cicadas; Twisty Serpents; X-rays of Impossibilities; Animal Shoes; Giant Mole

CIRCUS INTERNAL - Deborah Ballinger, Untitled, Pencil, 2011. British. A ribcage bigtop, containing a girl on a swing, and circled by big cats. Sometimes, this is exactly how it feels.  *** See also, Fay Ku’s Tigers

CIRCUS INTERNAL - Deborah Ballinger, Untitled, Pencil, 2011. British.

A ribcage bigtop, containing a girl on a swing, and circled by big cats. Sometimes, this is exactly how it feels. 

***

See also, Fay Ku’s Tigers