In some ways this week has been very difficult, and in others it has been very extraordinary, and the reason for the latter is art and artists.
I need to write something much longer and more involved about these feelings, because I am an inchoate swirl of them. In brief: I’ve been honoured and overjoyed to take part in two projects that have involved providing words for an artist to work with, and this week I got to see their art, and my joy boiled me away into vapour. I am now a cloud.
Today I can share some of it! Here’s a tiny peek of Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim’s Field Guide to Memory, which launches on Monday; my contribution’s the second image, a Glasgow-based beekeeper’s lament (including a message from her bees), but you can get a sense of the variety of objects and contributors to the project from the rest.
The interior art is by Isa Hanssen, and I’m still basically just aethered by the life and expression she’s breathed into my script. I can’t share that yet, but hope to have more about both these projects next week — there’s so much to say!
But in the interest of keeping this a Friday Open Thread, let me ask: who are some (living! working!) artists whose work utterly dazzles you? Whose work do you want to basically surround yourself with constantly because it makes you feel big-heart things?
Happy Friday and yay art! I would say in terms of artists whose work dazzles me: Banksy, Janelle Monaé, the people who made Gone Home and the people who made Firewatch. Gerard Way. N.K. Jemisin. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Anaïs Mitchell. Audra McDonald :)
I mean ... we've got one of your poems (Thunderstorm in Glasgow) on our dining room wall, with another planned to go up when we get around to it so, honestly, you. But also my long-standing friend from Usenet Ailbhe Leamy who does vibrant and beautiful paintings, two of which are on the wall opposite where I'm sitting.
You are a pretty easy place to start. I also have Diaro downloaded on my phone just for Jeeyon Shim's journaling adventures, so you can imagine how I felt when I realized you were taking part in Field Guide To Memory. John Picacio. Every artist at UChiCon last weekend - a con held on a virtual campus I designed! - and every artist at Capricon this weekend.
That art is all so good! The Fieldguide art tickles a very specific found object bone, which is what I worked with for a senior thesis at uni, too. It's just such tactile, delicious stuff. Admittedly I backed that kickstarter when Shing and Co. launched it, too, just to help it grow.
Also look forward to reading the Reynard book. His depiction in the Magicians series is my most recent experience of the archetype, so variations will be nice.
As to working artists I can't gush enough about:
Illustrator Julie Dillon. Her work is lush and vibrant and makes me think expansive thoughts.
Tonko House Studio, an animation outfit whose short creations are delightful.
Likewise with Cartoon Saloon, of Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers and Book of Kells.
Rovina Cai is a wonderful, ethereal illustrator.
I'm in love with the writing of Susanna Clarke, Becky Chambers, and Martha Wells, lately.
I could list a hundred, and they all make me feel warm and good.
I lost my Mom early in September--one of those sudden wrenching losses that gutted me viscerally, and that I'm still struggling with piles and piles of guilt and what-ifs over, as we so often do with loss. It's all been compounded by the fact that growing up in a single-parent household, she was as much my best friend as Mom, and I wasn't ready to lose her before thirty. Which's all very long prelude to say: art has felt like such an elicit, necessary joy. Even when it felt like the height of heresy to feel anything even verging on joy--as it so often still does even all these months later--it also felt like a vital counterstrike against the pervasive abyss of grief to intentionally make a refuge of art. (I was going to say carve out a space where grief couldn't interfere, but that's not quite right. Throughout all this, I've come to find that the art itself...when it's powerful enough, or when its themes viscerally connect with your emotions has a kind of mesmerizing current, as you just stand in awe, watching this magnificent thing unfold, and there simply isn't room for anything else. It's the kind of sacrament many find in religion, that I've come to find in art.)
Marie Brennan was the first to give me solace; do you know much of her work? I know y'all overlap fields quite a lot. Her Lady Trent memoirs, so full of kindness and scientific discovery! and inventive world-building and hope in the face of impossible odds just delighted me; I'd been saving Within The Sanctuary of Wings, which was their capstone, for a special moment, and it stuck the dismount beautifully; there's so much love! in these books; Lady Trent's love for her collaborators and her dragons and her husband, and the world around her, and it reminded me what a joy it was to be alive.
I reread Vivian Shaw's Greta Helsing novels so many times these last six months it's embarrassing, but they're such big-hearted books, with Greta doing her best to patch up the entire supernatural world, while oft feeling like the only thing between her and sudden disaster is the skin of her teeth and her own complete refusal to relinquish her hard-won medical competence. And they brim over with found family and redemption and the world ending and yet somehow setting itself to rights. They bring me to tears just thinking of it: weeping for the gratitude that they're in the world; that someone took the time to create something that beautiful. That is queer as hell, as a wonderful cherry on top, with an M/m romance as much of the series' backbone that's all shot through with redemption and quiet domesticity and--I just dissolve into an incoherent mess trying to praise these books because there just aren't enough words for the glory of them.
Same with Patti Smith's work, especially her books and later music, all soft ballads and rolling poetry; she's lived nearly three decades without the two men who most shaped her life, and watching her somehow still not only navigate life but relish! it gives me so much strength. I love! her song Peaceable Kingdom, which for me encapsulates so much of the ethos she has when sliding seamlessly from music to poetry: tinyurl.com/2kggomc5
And I've listened to Amanda Palmer's Machete over and over: tinyurl.com/2ga5jrsy It felt like one of the few pieces that could simultaneously express the constant yawning abyss of loss but also the profound gratitude that the dearly departed had given you the strength to withstand the loss, too, if that makes a bit of sense.
There're also so many artists and pieces of work that we share in common: Anais Mitchell's Hadestown and Child Ballads that've given me such immense solace, but I'm trying to keep this to stuff you may not have seen before, because your essays, as well as your convos with Arkady Martine and C. L. Polk have been some of the very few moments when I didn’t have to fight to make space for joy: I actively wanted too. And so if I can repay with recs of pretty things, I will. So, before I end this unpardonably lengthy comment: have you read Seanan McGuire's Indexing duology before? All brimful of little sly fairytale nods, with a cast of characters hell-bent on resisting the fae narratives they've been unwillingly thrust into, all while working in a bureau dedicated to keeping fairytales from encroaching on our modern world. I never thought I'd feel like devouring a book again after everything happened: I could reread, and sometimes I could manage to finish a book, ala Marie's Sanctuary. But it was always a slow. grinding process, reminding myself that I was entitled to this joy. And then I encountered Seanan's Indexing on audio, read by the incomparable Mary Robinette, who I'm shamefully late to've discovered. And there was just this vocal symphony Mary created, with this acerbic. deeply caring lead and these side characters who had me carving crescents into my palms rooting for them to be happy. And somehow I and a friend had devoured both books in a matter of a couple weeks and the floodgates just burst open on my reading--it felt like the middle of a joyous spring in January.
I try to surround myself with love, so when Spouse and I got married I refused to put together a registry. Instead, I asked for gifts of my friends' talents. One of my friends is a sculptor and multimedia artist so I have one work (a silver ink print of multiple body parts superimposed) hanging in the bedroom and two other works of hers (plays on mirrors and glass) which I still need to hang in this new place. From another friend I have three abstract oil paintings that were wonderful plays on our wedding colors, so they make me think of the sunshower that preceded our ceremony. Finally, we have an amazing paper-and-paint collage from a couple who I helped get together :) Whenever I look at any of them it feels like an intimacy caught in time, which has been particularly lovely during quarantine.
As far as people who others might know, though, I'm completely, stunningly in love with the art of Geneva Bowers/Benton (GDBee - I have too many of her prints to count) and Ashley McKenzie. I also love the tree-based art of Clive Barker - I have a print of his painting "The Lightning Tree" in my office and am hoping to get one of "The Sandpaper Trees" soon.
Happy Friday and yay art! I would say in terms of artists whose work dazzles me: Banksy, Janelle Monaé, the people who made Gone Home and the people who made Firewatch. Gerard Way. N.K. Jemisin. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Anaïs Mitchell. Audra McDonald :)
I mean ... we've got one of your poems (Thunderstorm in Glasgow) on our dining room wall, with another planned to go up when we get around to it so, honestly, you. But also my long-standing friend from Usenet Ailbhe Leamy who does vibrant and beautiful paintings, two of which are on the wall opposite where I'm sitting.
The first fox looks like you, the second like Jess! This is such wonderful news, AMALCLOUD!!!
You are a pretty easy place to start. I also have Diaro downloaded on my phone just for Jeeyon Shim's journaling adventures, so you can imagine how I felt when I realized you were taking part in Field Guide To Memory. John Picacio. Every artist at UChiCon last weekend - a con held on a virtual campus I designed! - and every artist at Capricon this weekend.
That art is all so good! The Fieldguide art tickles a very specific found object bone, which is what I worked with for a senior thesis at uni, too. It's just such tactile, delicious stuff. Admittedly I backed that kickstarter when Shing and Co. launched it, too, just to help it grow.
Also look forward to reading the Reynard book. His depiction in the Magicians series is my most recent experience of the archetype, so variations will be nice.
As to working artists I can't gush enough about:
Illustrator Julie Dillon. Her work is lush and vibrant and makes me think expansive thoughts.
Tonko House Studio, an animation outfit whose short creations are delightful.
Likewise with Cartoon Saloon, of Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers and Book of Kells.
Rovina Cai is a wonderful, ethereal illustrator.
I'm in love with the writing of Susanna Clarke, Becky Chambers, and Martha Wells, lately.
I could list a hundred, and they all make me feel warm and good.
I lost my Mom early in September--one of those sudden wrenching losses that gutted me viscerally, and that I'm still struggling with piles and piles of guilt and what-ifs over, as we so often do with loss. It's all been compounded by the fact that growing up in a single-parent household, she was as much my best friend as Mom, and I wasn't ready to lose her before thirty. Which's all very long prelude to say: art has felt like such an elicit, necessary joy. Even when it felt like the height of heresy to feel anything even verging on joy--as it so often still does even all these months later--it also felt like a vital counterstrike against the pervasive abyss of grief to intentionally make a refuge of art. (I was going to say carve out a space where grief couldn't interfere, but that's not quite right. Throughout all this, I've come to find that the art itself...when it's powerful enough, or when its themes viscerally connect with your emotions has a kind of mesmerizing current, as you just stand in awe, watching this magnificent thing unfold, and there simply isn't room for anything else. It's the kind of sacrament many find in religion, that I've come to find in art.)
Marie Brennan was the first to give me solace; do you know much of her work? I know y'all overlap fields quite a lot. Her Lady Trent memoirs, so full of kindness and scientific discovery! and inventive world-building and hope in the face of impossible odds just delighted me; I'd been saving Within The Sanctuary of Wings, which was their capstone, for a special moment, and it stuck the dismount beautifully; there's so much love! in these books; Lady Trent's love for her collaborators and her dragons and her husband, and the world around her, and it reminded me what a joy it was to be alive.
I reread Vivian Shaw's Greta Helsing novels so many times these last six months it's embarrassing, but they're such big-hearted books, with Greta doing her best to patch up the entire supernatural world, while oft feeling like the only thing between her and sudden disaster is the skin of her teeth and her own complete refusal to relinquish her hard-won medical competence. And they brim over with found family and redemption and the world ending and yet somehow setting itself to rights. They bring me to tears just thinking of it: weeping for the gratitude that they're in the world; that someone took the time to create something that beautiful. That is queer as hell, as a wonderful cherry on top, with an M/m romance as much of the series' backbone that's all shot through with redemption and quiet domesticity and--I just dissolve into an incoherent mess trying to praise these books because there just aren't enough words for the glory of them.
Same with Patti Smith's work, especially her books and later music, all soft ballads and rolling poetry; she's lived nearly three decades without the two men who most shaped her life, and watching her somehow still not only navigate life but relish! it gives me so much strength. I love! her song Peaceable Kingdom, which for me encapsulates so much of the ethos she has when sliding seamlessly from music to poetry: tinyurl.com/2kggomc5
And I've listened to Amanda Palmer's Machete over and over: tinyurl.com/2ga5jrsy It felt like one of the few pieces that could simultaneously express the constant yawning abyss of loss but also the profound gratitude that the dearly departed had given you the strength to withstand the loss, too, if that makes a bit of sense.
There're also so many artists and pieces of work that we share in common: Anais Mitchell's Hadestown and Child Ballads that've given me such immense solace, but I'm trying to keep this to stuff you may not have seen before, because your essays, as well as your convos with Arkady Martine and C. L. Polk have been some of the very few moments when I didn’t have to fight to make space for joy: I actively wanted too. And so if I can repay with recs of pretty things, I will. So, before I end this unpardonably lengthy comment: have you read Seanan McGuire's Indexing duology before? All brimful of little sly fairytale nods, with a cast of characters hell-bent on resisting the fae narratives they've been unwillingly thrust into, all while working in a bureau dedicated to keeping fairytales from encroaching on our modern world. I never thought I'd feel like devouring a book again after everything happened: I could reread, and sometimes I could manage to finish a book, ala Marie's Sanctuary. But it was always a slow. grinding process, reminding myself that I was entitled to this joy. And then I encountered Seanan's Indexing on audio, read by the incomparable Mary Robinette, who I'm shamefully late to've discovered. And there was just this vocal symphony Mary created, with this acerbic. deeply caring lead and these side characters who had me carving crescents into my palms rooting for them to be happy. And somehow I and a friend had devoured both books in a matter of a couple weeks and the floodgates just burst open on my reading--it felt like the middle of a joyous spring in January.
Ahh! I love that artwork.
Happy happy Friday, Amal!
I try to surround myself with love, so when Spouse and I got married I refused to put together a registry. Instead, I asked for gifts of my friends' talents. One of my friends is a sculptor and multimedia artist so I have one work (a silver ink print of multiple body parts superimposed) hanging in the bedroom and two other works of hers (plays on mirrors and glass) which I still need to hang in this new place. From another friend I have three abstract oil paintings that were wonderful plays on our wedding colors, so they make me think of the sunshower that preceded our ceremony. Finally, we have an amazing paper-and-paint collage from a couple who I helped get together :) Whenever I look at any of them it feels like an intimacy caught in time, which has been particularly lovely during quarantine.
As far as people who others might know, though, I'm completely, stunningly in love with the art of Geneva Bowers/Benton (GDBee - I have too many of her prints to count) and Ashley McKenzie. I also love the tree-based art of Clive Barker - I have a print of his painting "The Lightning Tree" in my office and am hoping to get one of "The Sandpaper Trees" soon.
Beautiful images. Condolences for the difficult portion of your week.