Magical Marionettes

I have always loved dolls and puppets, small visions of fancy inviting our imaginations to invigorate them. Several years ago, I became acquainted with the Czech tradition of marionette-making and never fail to be enchanted by new creations based on folklore and old fairy stories. The Large Wizard from the Riki collection at Czech Marionettes in the Czech Republic just mesmerizes with his fantastic eyes!

Beautiful Art Dolls by Alba Garcia

Today I would like to share with you the work of a very talented doll-maker named, Alba Garcia.
I absolutely adore dolls and puppets and thus keep a close eye at doll artists all over the world. So, I am a bit a shamed to admit that I have only recently discovered the work of Alba Garcia.
When I first stumbled upon her work I was completely overwhelmed by all those little details captured in the faces of these dolls. The expression in their eyes and the attitude of the bodies are so lively and elegant.

Below you can see a picture of one of her dolls, a troll-like creature. To give you a good idea on how detailed these dolls are I have also added a close-up of it's face, so you can see for yourself
how stunning these dolls really are.


I think you would very much enjoy visiting her gallery, as her dolls are a real treat for people who love mythical and fairy-like creatures.

You can visit her website here.

A Scottish Fairytale

We have discovered a wonderful new blog, Chandra's Box of Stars, the home and artistic den of Chandra Cerchione Peltier, showcasing a wonderful range of art and story, as well as this artist's thoughtful reviews on pieces such as "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in The Wind in the Willows. (I don't know about you, but that was one of my two favorite chapters - the other being the one about the seafarer rat - and I must have read it over and over again as a youth.)

Take a look at Chandra's elfin and faerie marionettes (above, left)! They are a feast of delights. I need to be sure to show them to our poetry editor, who is an inspired puppeteer and an enthusiast of people with strings.

Most recently on her blog, Chandra has posted an illustration (see below) and an excerpt from her children's book set in Scotland of the 1880s, a fairy tale described by the illustrator (Julia Jeffrey) as:

"...a rattling tale, featuring Victorian Oxford dons, Shakespearian fairies, selkies, tortured ghosts, and talking dogs...."


This is definitely worth taking a look. I understand that Chandra Peltier is in the final stages of editing her book, and I am eager to see it. We need more hobgoblins and maverick fairies in contemporary literature!

Students Create Life-size Mythological Statues

Check out this article from the news. Students at Holten Richmond Middle School in Danvers, Massachusetts have created - as part of their studies on classical myth - life-size papier-maché sculptures of the Cyclops, the Medusa, the Minotaur, a centaur, and other figures. The sculptures are on display at a local library. Other art projects the students undertook included masks of the Hellenic gods and fictional retellings of Greek myths. Sadly, no photographs of the students' work are available with the news piece, but it is great news nonetheless!

Pardon my tardiness in posting to the blog this week - things are quite hectic given the preparations for Issue 2 of Dante's Heart and (on a personal note) the preparations for an upcoming wedding. In atonement for the tardiness, here is a slew of other Cyclops from our century, a morbid tribe that might arouse interest, gasps of horror, polite amusement, or wonder at our persistent interpretation of the physically deformed and disadvantaged as both other and monstrous.

First, the stop-action Hollywood Cyclops:


Second, Odilon Redon's remarkable painting Cyclops (1914), which walks the line between cute and deeply unnerving:


Third, Ray Harryhausen's conceptual image of the Battle of the Cyclops for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad:


Fourth, an interesting piece from Julio Garay's studio, blending the illustration of cannibalism with echoes of the old "contemplation of death" motif. That is to say, is Julio Garay's Cyclops groaning, "Munchings and crunchings!" or "Alas, poor Yorick!"


And finally, not to be forgotten, the X-Men Cyclops, regarded as much as a mutant and other as his ancestor Polyphemus, and unlucky in love despite his ability to shoot lethal fire out of his mono-opthalmic visor:

Enjoy this gallery, and stay tuned for news of our Issue 2, which is only a few days away.

Durwaigh fairy tale Ebay Sale

Dear readers, in honor of the start of spring season, yard sales, and auctions, here' a dispatch from one of our fiction editors:

Duirwaigh, "An Inspired Artist Agency," represents many of the artists creating iconic images of new and classical fantastical worlds. In anticipation of their upcoming move, they are hosting a special eBay sale, inviting you to "ADOPT OUR FRIENDS!"


The owners write:

"Being the wild bohemian revolutionaries we are, our friends are a colorful, diverse lot. Among them you'll find Cheshire cats and frog footmen, drag queen roosters, high heeled teapots, flitting faeries, fuzzy-brained bears, and divas of all shapes and sizes. They hale from places like Wonderland, Narnia, Oz, the Hundred Acre Wood, Lothlorien, Neverland, Fairyland and the Duirwaigh forest.

"If you're even the remotest bit fanciful, there's something for you in this auction. Even those of you with rampant practical natures will find something pressing its face against your computer screen begging to come home with you. From May 1 to May 14 we'll be listing an assortment of paintings, posters, drawings, dolls, chess sets, signed prints, sculptures, tea services, figurines, puzzles, christmas ornaments, housewares, fabrics, dresses, shoes, books, garden statues and elsewares!"

It looks like fun fraught with delicious danger. Why not have a look? Start here.

Midsummer Night's Dream Sculpture - A Fountain by Charles Vess

Charles Vess, that artist who knows Faerie so well - illustrator for Stardust and some of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, among many other wonderful projects - is together with artist David Spence in the late stages of a truly massive sculpting project - a fountain commissioned by the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia featuring figures from A Midsummer Night's Dream - Titania the Queen of Faery; Robin Goodfellow, that merry wanderer of the night (see his form taking shape above); an assortment of woodland creatures and wild faeries leaping, like this one below, out of the marble with wild abandon:

Like a shrewd and knavish sprite myself, I am thieving this story shamelessly from the Endicott Mythic Arts blog, in case some of my readers do not know of the project or read the blog. (If you don't, you should!) Longtime readers of this blog may remember my passion for fairy tale statues.

The best news is that Charles Vess has offered a generous article at the Green Man Review chronicling the way that the project has taken shape - conception, design, and all the beautiful work and merry mishaps that then ensue. Of the making of Titania, Vess writes in jocular, if rueful, good humor:

We were, perhaps, a little more than a week away from completion when the faeries began to laugh at us mere mortals. I was working below the face you see above and heard a series of small cracks. I looked up and Queen Titania slowly leaned forward, bending over as if to kiss me perhaps? But that’s 300 or so pounds of clay we’re talking about. A central steel pipe had snapped and down she came, to rest gently on a scaffolding that I quickly swung under her form.

She has an air of having just stepped out of a mist or out of the hollow hills - of being only barely present in our world. Titania rises 16 feet high in the center of the fountain, as befits a Queen. 16 feet - think Michelangelo's David, and then consider that five centuries have not made the sculptor's task much easier than it was then. I encourage all our readers to visit Vess's article. It makes for an exciting read, and the photos of the sculptures are breathtaking. They are Charles Vess drawings sprung into three-dimensional life - something I had not even dreamed of when reading Stardust or other works. Now, seeing the sculptures, I wonder how I couldn't have dreamed of them. They are beautiful - though photos do sculptures no justice. Is anyone with me on wanting to check their spare change for a trip to this Virginia theater in a few months?

Sleeping Elf

This...is beautiful.


I've written the artist - who resides in Melbourne, Australia, but who also keeps shop at deviantart as Burgundy Phoenix - to ask if she is a puppeteer. I am in awe. What craftsmanship! What imagination! Now I must go catch my breath.