Yet another visual reference for The Difficulties of Courtship and along the same vein as Grafted: Spirit of the Wood. Painted in 2007. I like documenting mythic themes and artistic continuity within my own work. This originally started as a piece for Nemus Animae, but it evolved into its own story which kind of encompasses my metaphysical predilections amongst other things. All things organic surround us, how do we connect to it all?

I thought I would offer a visual reference point to a running motif in more than one of my paintings, and which wound up in The Difficulties of Courtship. This painting was completed sometime in 2001-2002. To a certain extent, I’ve been constructing my own inner network of signs and mythic resonances, and this was one of the earlier seeds. I consider this a flawed piece, as are most of my pieces. I do love it for what it signified to me at the time and what it signifies to me still, but I would really like to do a traditional medium, fine art version of it. As for The Difficulties of Courtship, I’ve been getting some interesting responses to the painting as different people see different things in it. I like this! It’s the multiple possibilities/perspectives that excite me, and even if my execution is flawed, if I’m somehow telling a story, that’s good enough for me.

Erzebet Yellowboy, founding editor and creator of Cabinet des Fées comments here about diversity in fairytales and lesser known fairytale types, particularly with regards to submissions to the magazine. Erzebet co-edits Scheherazade’s Bequest along with Donna Quattrone. I’ve personally enjoyed the collection of tales produced every issue which shows the gamut of human expression within the context of retold fairytales. There were many thoughtful and intelligent responses to Erzebet’s call to arms; I was particularly appreciative of the musings of Donna Quattrone whom I tended to agree with. The resulting discussion had me thinking my own agitated thoughts, based on my years of producing art and fiction from between the boundaries of culture, and I felt a need to share at least some of them here.

We tend to have these aesthetic preconceptions based on how things are packaged; I was first introduced to Cabinet des Fées when my writing buddy Stace Dumoski got her beautiful fairytale with hybrid Polynesian and Thousand and One Nights motifs published there. And so, I never saw Cabinet des Fées as being predominantly Eurocentric, particularly when the online journal was named Scheherazade’s Bequest, pertaining to one of my favourite fictionalised storytellers, she of the Thousand and One Nights. But again, this has to do with aesthetic and cultural templates in our heads. My aesthetic will be forever different because I came from a mixed-race, hybrid, multi-cultural background. When I hear “fairytales” I have so many different associations; my early childhood was lived in two countries, and filled with fairytale books from various cultures, inclusive of the old (scary) Grimm, the Andrew Lang books, stories from Asia and Africa, the Middle East and Russia. But it does give me an additional set of triggers, so I’m aware of that privileged viewpoint and conscious about it. It allows me to discern the hybrid and oriental elements within the tales of Madame d’Aulnoy and the rest of the French salon fairytale tradition, for instance.

However, growing up, I learned that when most people hear “fairytales”, they believe it heralds the bowdlerised, whitewashed versions that is dished out by popular culture. This has been talked about a bit in Adaptation Studies also, and Julie Sanders has written some good stuff about it. I don’t think this is inherently wrong or that we should fault people for having been brought up within this cultural schemata, but I also think that as people grow older and more self-aware, the time then comes to smash these markers. My argument for this site and for most of my life has been about the nature of fairytales themselves. They are, in themselves, hybrid creatures, made for cultural overlap and cultural assimilation, and because they are so ripe for experimentation, we can, and should experiment. There are many fairytale scholars who talk about the inherent hybridity and overlapping schemata within fairytales; I’ve posted a review of Jack Zipes on this site, and there are various others, such as Marina Warner and Maria Tatar who delve into these cultural markers as well.

Which is why I think Erzebet is absolutely right, that sometimes we do have to be obvious to smash these preconceived ideas about fairytales. I’m not saying the appropriations should be dominated by any one culture, I love the fairytales of Europe as much as I love the tales from the Americas, my Asia, and of course Africa. I love the commonality which feeds the markers of human experience, and the fact that fairytales were always meant for the people. However, I think that if we’re going to be in the business of mythic and fairytale appropriation for our art or our music or writing, it is really, really time to be more bold.

I suspect that I will, at some point develop this painting further, but for now, this is as complete as it gets. You may click through the above image to access a bigger version on deviantart.

Jarhane (and his twin Jehan) were on the feature painting for The Faerie Lord’s Bower over at Domus Exsulis circa 2000-2001, before I took the painting down because I was unhappy with the proportions. In part, this is a pictorial demonstration of what I’ve been gnashing my teeth about for years. The fact that people assume that if one is writing about faeries or mermaids etc, they must needs exist only in one culture – an Eurocentric culture. Jarhane was supposed to be a faerie from Borneo (just like Hrelgar the dragon and Ungu the orangutan were from Borneo), but he evolved into something else, and right now, it seems like he’s either scaring a girl faerie away or awakening her from slumber. Who knows what is truly going on here? Not me! But I’m looking forward to finding out. I do hope he’s not scaring her away, because I’ve always been fond of these East Malaysian twins, since I first painted them. Then again, they were in the Bower, where all the naughty faeries, watermaidens, and sorceresses from more than one culture congregate in a neverending revel.

Here’s the work in progress from an earlier incarnation of this post!

Some changes are happening over here on the domain. I have finally transformed all of the backgrounds for all four of the mythopoetica.com sites. They’re all spiffier looking now, though unfinished. The most important thing I felt I needed to do was to remove the parchment background for the middle of each page, because it wasn’t really making for optimum reading. I’ve also prettified each site because I felt the designs should flow into each other, be both simple and complex, and every background should tell its own story. It’s not quite there yet, because I am a busy girl, but I am going to enjoy slowly polishing each background over the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you all know when it’s finalized but you should also peek at it now and off and on, because virtual graffiti-making is happening over here and that’s always fun!

In other news, related to Domus Exsulis and the WIP novel that had been given the working title of Saltwater Orphee - I’ve decided to name the novel Watermaidens, and those of you who have been keeping track would know exactly why. The novel does not belong solely to the Orphee, who has moved quite a ways off the centre stage – even if that mythic trope still informs the backstory. And I have more than one protagonist. Anywho, the name is apt for more than one reason and it does help seal the direction and depth the story has taken over the past couple of years. Also, the Watermaidens have been getting cheekier and more insistent in both my fictive and visual imagination, so how could I deny them? After all, did they not have me declare that the Fourteenth of February shall henceforth be known as Official Watermaidens Day?

Watermaidens began as a project that wove together three novellas I had written together, all of which had ties to Alta Exsilii (the Sea of Exiles), and of course, the element of water. However, Watermaidens has now turned into a distinct novel with its own unique character. The storytelling process has been instructing me and educating me about the world I created, and I am looking forward to seeing where it leads me, after I finish writing my phd dissertation. I have a good feeling about both of these tales and a solid plan.

The Caretaker’s Tale and The Dragon Who Thought She Was a Tree: Two Novellas will be released early next year, on this website in various ebook formats under The Mythogenetic Grove Press. I’ll hammer out the details with regards to pricing and other practical matters later on. I suspect the title will be shortened also, because there’s a very strong possibility both novellas will experience a fictive mind-meld. Watermaidens, on the other hand, will be a traditional (in so far as the medium goes, not the content) manuscript which I will be looking to submit, either to agents or editors, assuming I get to do everything the right way and produce a manuscript that I can be proud to submit.

As mentioned, all this will be happening in 2011, after I finish my phd. dissertation, but there will still be short, impromptu storytelling fragments posted in Domus Exsulis as part of my pledge to bring more content to this site, and to keep my fictive muscle (and my spirits) going with virtual word-busking. There’s a tip jar over there if you want to toss me a few coins, and word-of-mouth will help as well, but only if you want to, and only if you feel you’ve gotten something from the stories. For now, do enjoy the changes on all four of the sites!

Love,

The Ninny One and her elemental helpers