What the East Wind Told Me

“I have never been anywhere except Richmond, Virginian, and New York, because I have always been told that only grown-up people were allowed to travel. But the good East Wind and the kindly Moon have taken me on rapturous journeys high above the world to get an enchanted view of things. In this book I have put some of my discoveries, but if you are looking here for real likeness of the things that any one could see if he were grown up, you had better close the covers now. You cannot expect me to draw an exact picture of the North Pole or of a Chinese lady's feet or of a sea-cucumber. But if you are interested in what the East Wind or the Father Stork or the Moon told me, then look with my eyes and you will not mind very much if the courtiers in the ogre's court, or the dock leaves in the Garden of Paradise, are not just as a grown-up person thinks they should be. After all is said and done, what the young ones say about it is the all-important matter.”
--from Walker’s forward to Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen (1914)

For each of his illustrations for Anderson’s fairy tales, Walker provided a short story of his own beneath the image, tales I find as creative and enjoyable as the drawings themselves:

“Fairy children are never bad until their second teeth come; and no one knows they are bad then except their mother. She thinks it very pretty, but of course she pretends she doesn't. if she had a corner she would stand them in it, but as she hasn't, she takes her naughty child's chin in her hand, very gently, and she says: "Child, you have lost your nose. Go look for it at once. And if you don't stick you finger in the hole where your nose used to be, before you find it, you will find a pot of gold at the same time." Now fairies, you know, never think; for if they did they would see they could not use a pot of gold if they found one. So before they stop to think, off sails each naughty fairy up into the air to look for its nose with its hands for oars, so that it can't stick its fingers into the hole where its nose used to be. And fanning its wings, it sails straight up into the air, and on still wings drifts down again — and up and down again it sails, looking all over the sky for its nose, which is another proof that it doesn't think, for what, pray, should its nose be doing there? Until by and by it forgets all about the pot of gold and forgets it is using its hands for oars. And then! Well, of course, you know what it does at once. Just what you did with your tongue when you lost your tooth.” (Source)

I

”Fairies say: "to play that you are doing something is as nice as doing it. They have a play called L'Envoi, that is quite the nices of all plays, that is, if you are a fairy. One has a flower whose blooms hand from the stalk like little bells, the others follow in a line that flutters from onse side to the other. The leader holds her flower high and calls, "L'Envoi! L'Envoi! L'Envoi!" And whichever side she dips the little bells in, the fairies march in that direction. After they have marched several inches, they lie down and quickly jump up again. Then the leader goes to the end of the line, and the next one becomes leader, then the third, then the fourth, and so on until each fairy has been the leader once. It sounds very stupid, but if you are a fairy, it is the most delightful play int he whole world. If only human beings weren't so dignified, there are many delightful things they could learn from the fairies. L'Envoi. L'Envoi!”

And here is the video, by Andrea on YouTube, of Walker’s illustrations in the book “Dream Boats,” which introduced me to this artist.

Mia Araujo

Mia was born and raised in L.A., and she graduated as valedictorian from LA's Otis College of Art and Design in 2007. She also recently won the "Shepard Fairey in DC" contest. For larger views of her work, go to http://www.art-by-mia.com/
I recommend it, because there are hundreds of little details you don't want to miss.

From BLOG PHOTOS

"The Inventress"

When you go to her website and click on gallery, you will find thumbnails representing several shows her work has been featured in. If you click on the second one, "Overdose" Hi-Fructose Group Show, you will find the painting "The Inventress," which you click on to get a huge, browser-sized image. Then you can begin to see what I mean about the details. Just in her hair, there are princesses, marionettes, broken puppets, masks, the inner workings of a clock, a lamp, and a complex pair of eyeglasses much like Johnny Depp wore in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. A kidnapper runs off with his prize, up the thick, ropey branches of tree that seem to have developed as an extension of her chestnut hair. Beside her floats the head of a modern, handsome Frankenstein, being polished by a little man hidden in the hair just behind her ear. Snow white owls fly by, and Dracula looks on from a corner seemingly pulled from an old German Expressionist era movie. And that's just the top of the painting, there's another entire world down below, in the waters reaching up to her chest. I imagine her to be creating these worlds, populating the earth with the figures and creatures of her imagination and dreams.

She gives some background on the above piece on her blog (www.miaillustration.blogspot.com):
"This painting started off being based on the Tales of Hoffman, and in fact E.T.A. Hoffman’s literature in general. For those of you who’ve not heard of him, he is most famous for writing the Nutcracker, and most of his stories also deal with inanimate, often mechanical objects coming to life in a fantastical way. They are macabre fairy tales written in a time where Romanticism ended and the Enlightenment began, so there is always tension between the imagination and reason. There is also a fragmentary nature to the Tales of Hoffman in the many interwoven narratives, and a gothic influence through which his characters are tormented on their paths to happiness. I tried to give a sense of all this in the piece.

Interestingly for me, I noticed many parallels in these stories with the way in which my mind works during the creative process. At first glance in my mind’s eye, it appears that I have dozens of ideas vying for attention, but upon closer inspection I find that some of these are half –finished, missing an arm or a leg like some of the creatures in this piece…there are also thoughts that frighten or torment me, as well as beautiful thoughts that inspire and excite me, and these coexist side by side, creating a dynamic habitat for my new piece to be born in. Again, I wanted the objects and characters in this piece to reflect this.

Finally, it just so happens that my mind is a constant battlefield for my intellectual side and my imagination to jostle upon, much like the stuff in Hoffman’s stories…plus I couldn’t resist throwing in some of the ‘30s horror film imagery that I love so much, alongside the fanciful whimsical stuff to portray the sinister, gothic aspects of Hoffman, that lurk beneath the light-hearted magic."

On her website, it states: "Mia believes that all individuals contain an entire universe within them. Her recent work strives to represent the unseen forces at work within the subject--spirits, inner demons, conflicting emotions, and the imaginations."

From BLOG PHOTOS

"Needles in a Haystack"

In an interview with Arrested Motion, she says: "Lately a lot of my pieces have been based on well-known stories...and I usually have another theme that I'm trying to get across by using those stories...sleeping/dreaming, imagination, death/rebirth of the inner self. I start conceptualizing by making a list of words and imagery that inspire me and then fixate on one mental image for the whole piece which I will sketch out...I work out the figure first, and then start drawing out the mini-narrative characters into the composition in whichever way they flow. So there is a spontaneity to it. Sometimes I'll want to include a sphinx or an apatosaurus, say, but if it doesn't work anywhere in the piece, then I won't use it. Each piece has mysteries even to me, and new meanings arise from the different elements than I intended."



Mia makes the blueprint for her work on tracing paper and transfers it with chalk-carbon paper onto a maple panel. She paints with acrylics. Her favorite color is Naphthol Crimson, because it "plays well with others."

From BLOG PHOTOS

"Across the Nile" (another one that MUST be viewed large)

"The view outside my [studio] window is an amazing eucalyptus forest, with hundreds of monarch butterflies in the wintertime. There is also a red-tailed hawk nest and I can see the birds take flight without having to get up from my chair. It’s absolutely unbelievable."

From BLOG PHOTOS

GILL:
"One of my three main pieces for my senior thesis on solitude. Each character embodies different aspects of how solitude is positive and important for the personal development of an individual.
This is Gill, and she represents self-discovery and exploration:"
Gill has made a little fishbowl through which all her limbs come out to wrap protectively around it. Her neck pulls up out of the back and her head enters the bowl. The fishbowl, that little bit of the world we see in our lives, and also a separate place, safe and secure, though clear enough to see out of into the distance... On the other hand, where all the others around her carry umbrellas, she has captured the water and dives into it, makes it a part of herself.

From BLOG PHOTOS

"Anatomy of a Somnambulist"

Mia says: "Submerged in sleep, a somnambulist that has been sleep-walking for years, and whose dreamscapes have created a habitat about her."

From BLOG PHOTOS

"Dreamcatcher"

Though the dreamcatcher is a Native American--especially Ojibwa-- tradition, made to capture the darker forces that enter the air at night to infuse your wandering soul with fear, this painting struck me as having a sort of Mexican Day of the Dead flavor, where two fearful things, Death and Separation, are overcome in a big, colorful party where you and your lost loved ones can once again connect, converse, and share a meal. Note the skeletal rabbit-type playing violin in the lower right corner, the vivid fortune-teller red of the somnambulist's hair, the flowers she arises from, the hybrid log-cutter, and the disembodied merry-go-round.