Blog tip: Cecil Osbourne’s Lost Murals Rediscovered at Spitalfields Life tells the story of how murals depicting life in London neighborhoods wound up being rescued. Images of the full murals (which can be enlarged) are posted. To me, it Read More
Picturing a World
Walk on the Wyld side
February 23, 2018
On my living room wall, I have a framed poster of the 1879 John Singer Sargent painting that inspired me to send Jeanette and Edward to the Luxembourg Garden. Earlier this week , a friend who worked in the movie business for years came over. When I explained what the poster meant to me, she said, “I knew that designers for historical movies went to museums to study how things looked, but I’d never thought about fiction writers doing the same thing.”
Then this morning I came across this painting of Saint Mark’s Square by William Wyld at Charley Parker’s Lines and Colors. Parker writes: Read More
Female comic book illustrators
February 16, 2018
Website alert: Golly, a whole new dimension for Mattie Palmer’s world of publishing (and suffagism): Women Who Conquered the Comics World. Via Two Nerdy History Girls.
Art and action
January 24, 2018
Cover art by Kathleen Jennings
A blog post on her cover art by one of my favorite illustrators working today, Kathleen Jennings, piqued my interest in the new fantasy novel, Arcanos Unraveled by Jonna Gjevre. I admire good cover art and dust jackets; I'm interested in textiles and love fantasy; it's great to be introduced to a new author, and this one grew up on a sheep farm! Of course I bought a copy. One thing we can do as artists in a time of trouble is support each others’ creativity.
Kathleen Jennings does so in praising a different artist who has illustrated her upcoming Heart of Owl Abbas.
That artist is Audrey Bejaminsen. She’s new to me. I find her fantastical work strange and accomplished and am grateful to have been led to it
Finally, Jonna Gjevre has other suggestions for making a difference in the world we face today. Also for her thoughts on publishing the novel this winter, click here.
Update: Funny, fast, one twisty yarn! Now that I've read it, I can report that Gjevre does indeed knit up the plot with oodles of textile lore. The characters are vivid. Some are archetypal, like the crone who owns a wool shop; others wackily original, like the kindly paranoid father who raises his hedge witch child in an abandoned missile silo. Not deeply resonant in a mythic way, but great fun—and no one who calls the University of Wisconsin alma mater should miss it. Read More
Kathleen Jennings does so in praising a different artist who has illustrated her upcoming Heart of Owl Abbas.
That artist is Audrey Bejaminsen. She’s new to me. I find her fantastical work strange and accomplished and am grateful to have been led to it
Finally, Jonna Gjevre has other suggestions for making a difference in the world we face today. Also for her thoughts on publishing the novel this winter, click here.
Update: Funny, fast, one twisty yarn! Now that I've read it, I can report that Gjevre does indeed knit up the plot with oodles of textile lore. The characters are vivid. Some are archetypal, like the crone who owns a wool shop; others wackily original, like the kindly paranoid father who raises his hedge witch child in an abandoned missile silo. Not deeply resonant in a mythic way, but great fun—and no one who calls the University of Wisconsin alma mater should miss it. Read More
Nappy New Year
January 1, 2018
I was planning to skip a post today. Then I saw this The Saturday Evening Post cover at Lines and Colors. And THEN I mistyped Nappy for Happy and decided, yup, it has to stay. Here's to chuckles as well as tears in 2018! Read More
Witches’ interiors
November 29, 2017
Blog post alert: I’ve just finished my annual rereading of Greer Gilman’s Moonwise. The interior of Malycorne’s cot in all its iterations in the novel is pure enchantment, my favorite witch’s hut in literature. But isn’t this one dandy? It makes me want to invent Read More
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People and animals
October 20, 2017
Blog alert: The post for October 20, 2017, Animalness, at Terri Windling’s Myth and Moor took my breath away for the wisdom it quotes and its images by Virginia Frances Sterrett. If you love Golden Age illustration or have been pondering where we fit in the animal world, check it out.
For the full on-line edition of Old French Fairy Tales with Sterrett's illustrations, click here. Read More
For the full on-line edition of Old French Fairy Tales with Sterrett's illustrations, click here. Read More
Dust jackets
July 23, 2017
I’m looking forward eagerly to the October publication of the first volume of Philip Pullman’s new trilogy. The Belle Sauvage is pictured here in its UK cover. How I wish we could buy this version in the U.S.! To see both, click here.
In any case, I’ll be buying mine at an independent, books-and-mortar bookstore. It will cost more because publishers don’t offer indies the deep discounts they give the major on-line dealers, but we keep real book culture alive by supporting the stores that foster serious authors and readers. For a British bookseller’s view on this topic, click here. Read More
In any case, I’ll be buying mine at an independent, books-and-mortar bookstore. It will cost more because publishers don’t offer indies the deep discounts they give the major on-line dealers, but we keep real book culture alive by supporting the stores that foster serious authors and readers. For a British bookseller’s view on this topic, click here. Read More
Carolus-Duran, fencer
June 1, 2017
A recent update from a correspondent who is doing research on Carolus-Duran led me to look over my collection of images by or about the artist. To my surprise, I saw that I have never posted this drawing of Carolus as a fencer. His swordsmanship made him dashing to his students—and to me!
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Manuscript Art
May 29, 2017
Website alert: This morning, after looking at recent postings at Jesse Hurlbut's terrific Manuscript Art, I went back through my own recent posts on medieval imagery to see whether I had mentioned the site. Looks like I haven't, but by all means you should visit it! Read More