Shaun Tan's "The Singing Bones" Is Coming!

If you've been following the blog for a while, you will know I am in awe of Australian artist Shaun Tan's work and one of his most recent artistic forays delved deep into the world of Grimm's fairy tales, producing beautiful and simple* sculptures for the new Phillip Pullman's translation of Household Tales - but only for the German edition. I bit the bullet and ordered a German copy to refer to while reading the English version I already had. It was money well spent!

I put a rather detailed and image-filled post about the book HERE and another HERE.
          
I was delighted at the time, to learn that Tan became so enamored of the tales that he continued creating 'tale sculptures' long after the Pullman book was finished.

And now, soon, we will be able to have them all together in a book! (Squee! #sorry #couldntbehelped)

It's due to be released in October in Australia and I have yet to find concrete details of overseas releases. Here is the official description:

The Singing Bones: Inspired by Grimms' Fairy Tales by Shaun Tan 

"Hauntingly beautiful visual vignettes in paper and clay."

In this beautifully presented volume, the essence of seventy-five fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm is wonderfully evoked by Shaun Tan's extraordinary sculptures. Nameless princes, wicked stepsisters, greedy kings, honourable peasants and ruthless witches, tales of love, betrayal, adventure and magical transformation: all inspiration for this stunning gallery of sculptural works.

Introduced by Grimm Tales author Philip Pullman and leading fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes, The Singing Bones breathes new life into some of the world's most beloved fairy tales.'These little figures of clay, with their simplified features, their single attributes, are perfect realisations of the strangeness of the characters they represent.' - Philip Pullman

                     
Don't you love that little fox? It's a musical instrument! Like an ocarina, and meant, I'm sure, to reflect music being played on the bones of one of the characters in the tale "The Singing Bone". (I love that tale and it's related sister fairy tale ballad "The Twa Sisters"!)

I have to admit I went through a phase quite a few years ago (counting back it was perhaps fifteen or more years ago now!) in which I was tired of seeing versions of the Grimm's tales and various illustrations, even when it was the lesser known ones. On the plus side it sent me searching far beyond the range of tales I knew and into a bumbling use of translator programs (and, when I was lucky, people) to search non-English web sites to help me find different tales and discussions, and I was never bored. What I didn't expect though, was to find out more about how the Germans viewed these national (often to them) tales and, in context, about the life and work of the Grimms and the many people they worked with too. I came across a whole different range of artists, both East and West, who had fresh new takes on the Grimm's tales and it quickly revived my love of the Household Tales collection. The more I saw and learned, the more I realized the tales could function as a branching out point to discover many new and wonderful fairy tales, as well as be a touchstone for context while researching.
                            
In recent years I've felt almost spoiled with how much has come to light (and been published) with regard to the Grimm's process, collecting, editing and writing. When the internet took a giant leap into the visual communication age, including using memes and uploading images from obscure texts and out-of-print books being shared on the web, I suddenly felt I was collecting pieces of a story that wasn't so distant and isolated from my contemporary experience, but ongoing and still affecting the world today.** Almost*** every major tale collection around the world and through history either was influenced by the work of the Brothers Grimm or they themselves were influenced by it. The threads, though sometimes thin, are stronger than I first realized and I've found I can no longer be blasé about the Grimms' tales and work.

To top that, just in the last year or so, we've had Philip Pullman's fresh translation of the popular edition of Household Tales, Jack Zipe's wonderful translation of the Grimm's First Edition (with Andrea Dezso's gorgeous silhouettes, which you can see a post on HERE) and Kate Forsyth's The Wild Girl historical novel, which, though fiction, helps stitch together a lot of context and provides yet another fresh look at the tales themselves, both in a societal context and in a personal one (there will be more on this book very soon!).

Tan's sculptures are so very different from much of the work that's ever been done to represent and illustrate the Grimm's tales. In my linked posts, they details how uncomfortable Tan initially was in trying to illustrated the tales, and then he experimented with folk art-like sculpture. The interesting thing about simplicity is it's very hard to capture the essence of something so elegantly, yet despite being fairly new to the medium of clay and paper***, Tan has created a superb collection that clearly came out of the Grimm tales.


* Simple is so very difficult to do!
** In case you hadn't guessed, this was an inspiration to follow the threads of fairy tale news happening in our day-to-day, and ta-da! Once Upon A Blog.. daily fairy tale news was born.
*** While this isn't true of every collection available, it's astonishing to see how many have at least a thread connecting them to the Grimm's work in some way - either back in time or forward in influencing them.
**** Tan also used string, wax, shoe polish, sand, paint, wire, anything that would support his sculpture. His Hansel & Gretel piece even has cake decorations.

May Gibbs on Creating Fairy Tales Out of the Australian Bush

The AFTS is close to wrapping their second annual conference and has been discussing May Gibbs' gumnut folk (among many other wonderful things). I recently saw this little presentation in which May Gibbs talks about how these beloved and iconic Australian bush fairy tales and creatures came to be.

Note: there have been a number of efforts to have Snugglepot & Cuddlepie (& friends) made into a movie but nothing has gotten past the development stage yet. I have a feeling things will get moving on this front again soon though.

Enjoy!

Last "Fables" Artist Signing Event in UK Before Series Ends

It's going to be one of the last Fables signings, (I'm fairly sure), with the Fables series wrapping in just a few months... I was so disappointed to see there wasn't a single Fables-related thing happening for Free Comic Book Day this past weekend. Would have been the perfect chance to encourage a new teen readership. -sigh-

For those wondering who Mark Buckingham is, he's been a (the?) primary/key artist working very closely with Bill Willingham since Fables began and the series is almost as much his 'baby' as it is Willingham's at this point with their collaborative work over the last decade plus (*almost*).

Press Release:

Artist MARK BUCKINGHAM signs FABLES VOL. 21 and FABLES DELUXE VOL. 10* (FTNH Edit: to be officially released May 19th, 2015) at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore on Wednesday 13th May from from 6:00 – 7:00 pm! 

Published by Vertigo, FABLES is an Eisner Award-winning series telling the tale of many familiar fairy-tale figures forced out of their Homelands by The Adversary who has conquered the realm. The Fables have travelled to our world and formed a clandestine community in New York City known as Fabletown.
Vol. 21 is the penultimate volume, and the residents of Fabletown look to live ‘happily ever after,’ but there’s a steep price to pay for happiness as Rose Red clashes with Snow White! 

In the deluxe hardcover edition of Fables vol. 10, the existence of the Fables is threatened by The Literals, who just don’t like their messy, mythical lives. 

MARK BUCKINGHAM started working professionally on strips and illustrations for a British satire magazine called The Truth in 1987, where he first worked with Neil Gaiman illustrating some of his articles. His American debut came the following year as inker on DC Comics Hellblazer. Mark is best-known for his work on Marvelman, Hellblazer and Fables, though has worked on may titles for both Marvel and DC. He and Fables writer Bill Willingham have announced that they will switch roles in an up-and-coming one-off for the title’s hundredth issue. 

Forbidden Planet London Megastore179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR

*Description for Vol. 10: In an epic from FABLES #77-82, JACK OF FABLES #33-35, and THE LITERALS #1-3, the existence of the Fables is threatened by The Literals, who just don't like their messy, mythical lives. And in the original graphic novel FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND, Bigby Wolf goes on a quest to find a new location for Fabletown, only to find a village populated by werewolves! *** COVER SUBJECT TO CHANGE ***

I really hope they DO change the cover - it's not going to look so nice next to my other volumes if they stay with this artwork. (Not being shallow - they've just worked so hard on the aesthetics of the covers to work together to date - it would look weird for it to look so very different, even though they will have to represent the crossover with "The Literals".)

Lesley Barnes' Colorific "Firebird"

Something lovely and a little bit different to start off with this week. The Firebird as illustrated by the amazing Lesley Barnes.

Lesley is a British illustrator, originally from Glasgow. If you're familiar with animation you wouldn't be surprised to learn that's where she started, but her colorful illustration is what she's best known for today.

Currently Lesley is featured on the cover of the new image-delicious book The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature: The Definitive Anthology of Kid's Lit as Graphics and Visuals edited by Russ Kick.

Presenting a selection of pieces from the The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature, written by Russ Kick and published by Seven Stories Press.  

In this follow-up volume to the lauded Graphic Canon series, master anthologist Russ Kick shows adults everywhere that great children's literature is great literature, period. And that it's not just for children.

 

The original three-volume anthology The Graphic Canon presented the world's classic literature--from ancient times to the late twentieth century--as eye-popping comics, illustrations, and other visual forms. In this follow-up volume, young people's literature through the ages is given new life by the best comics artists and illustrators. Fairy tales, fables, fantastical adventures, young adult novels, swashbuckling yarns, your favorite stories from childhood and your teenage years . . . they're all here, in all their original complexity and strangeness, before they were censored or sanitized.

You can find out a little more about the sorts of projects she's worked on and upcoming works in this short but lovely article HERE.

Enjoy!

The concertina book is now on my (impossible things) fairy tale wish list too!

You can find Lesley Barnes in many places on the web! There's a nice board showing a range of Lesley's work HERE on Pinterest, and below are all the official links:

instagram 

shop 

vimeo 

youtube

twitter 

blog 

tumblr

facebook

Tin Can Forest's "Bremen Musicians" Is Coming

Tin Can Forest is working with more fairy tales! 

Sing Fire Like Dragons (print available)

I love Tin Can Forest's work. It's perhaps not for everyone, but there's no denying it's mythic and folkloric-full.

Just look at how at home in the forest their artwork is! (see right)

This time it looks like they're retelling a whole tale in a book, so I can't wait to see their take on it (and I do love this story with the old animals triumphing over the baddies!)

From the press release:

"We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians" by Geoff Berner and Tin Can Forest - Book Launch 

Thursday May 7th, 2015
Book Launch at 7pm, Geoff Berner Performance at 9pm
@ The Pilot, 22 Cumberland St., Toronto
Free Event 

Come celebrate the TCAF book launch of We are Going to Bremen to Be Musicians by Tin Can Forest and Geoff Berner at the Pilot , 22 Cumberland St, Thursday May 7th. 

Internationally acclaimed graphic novelist Nina Bunjevac (Fatherland, Heartless) will interview Geoff and Tin Can Forest about the making of the book, followed by a live performance by fearless klezmer punk accordionist and self-proclaimed "whisky rabbi” Geoff Berner. 

Come drink and dance with us!

About We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians:
Accordionist and novelist Geoff Berner together with folk-surrealists Tin Can Forest, re-tell this dark, strange German folk tale about four animals running away from their masters to become town musicians in the city of Bremen.

Art: The Wild Swans by Anna & Elena Balbusso

Apparently the Once Upon A Blog... Gallery of Enchanted Arts, turned two years old yesterday! In an

effort to spread more fairy tale love and awareness through various social media sites, Tumblr was one of those spots on the web that I set-up not too long ago (well, I guess it's two years ago!). I don't mention it much but I do try to post some new fairy tale every week or more often, so if you ever need more beautiful fairy tale images, go take a look.

(Of course Pinterest remains my main image hunting and gathering spot and that rarely overlaps with any other social media at all. It's not quite daily but almost!)

In honor of milestones I thought I'd add an art post for today, especially as on Tumblr I don't tend to post all the work from one book or by one artist at once - I like to spread out the visual fun there but seeing all the images from one story is inspiring to me to, so today we're looking at one of my favorite tales The Wild Swans.

The artists for this stunning looking book are Anna and Elena Balbusso. They're Italian twin sisters and have been working as a team in art and illustration for over fifteen years, something you don't see too often (anyone else immediately thinking Snow White and Rose Red?) You can read more about their works and many awards, HERE, while their main website is HERE.

Let the illustration gorgeousness begin! (You can click on the images to see them full sized.)

Incidentally, the scene above, with Eliza, (or whatever name she goes by in the various tales), being bathed and having cursed, poison toads put in with her, that hopped onto her head and heart etc but then changed to poppies, was my favorite as a child from this story.

As much as I am fascinated - and love! - the whole boys-turning-into-swans (and back again) aspect, it's this bathing scene which was so very vivid to me. Perhaps it was the colors mentioned or perhaps the clear symbolism but finding illustrations of this scene proved quite difficult for many years. So this is the scene I storyboarded (but which no one will ever see..).

Below is the full cover of the book these illustrations are from. I wish the front illustration was available to view without the added graphics for the read-aloud book, but nonetheless, I just love it.

Catching Grimm Shadows - The Art of Andrea Dezsö (Now Showing in NY)

Left: Fairy tale silhouettes created for the Complete First Edition translation, Right: Andrea Dezsö self portrait

For lucky New Yorkers (and those visiting before the end of March) there is a very special solo exhibition you need to put on your "must see" list, that just opened (February 21st, 2015) at the Nancy Margolis Gallery. Much of the art was created specifically for Grimm's fairy tales and the artist is Andrea Dezsö.
   
If you're not familiar with the name Andrea Dezsö it's probably not because you haven't seen her work. You have; especially if you're a regular reader of this blog. One of her most recent projects was completing twenty different illustrations for Jack Zipes new translation of the Grimm's First Edition (twenty-one, including the cover) and these special pieces are a large part of the gallery showing.
   
(Oh to see these in person!)

Her silhouettes communicate a raw folk-like quality like the unvarnished tales they accompany.

And Ms. Dezsö is not new to getting to the heart of a subject, nor to folktales and fairy tales either. Her self-portrait (see the head of the post) illustrates just how important a theme this is to the artist, showing the essence, the true tale, inside something, or someone. It should come as no surprise that she's often called on for editorial work as a result.
   
Although am award winning illustrator and known for her distinctive silhouette work (something I find truly interesting - showing the outline to show the inside..), it becomes quickly apparent this artist isn't limited to any one medium at all. While she does work with paper, she also uses etched glass, mosaics (small and wall+ sized!), paint, ceramics, puppets, animation, mixed media sculptures, giant public murals ad site-specific art, stainless steel sculptures... pretty much anything she seems to be able to get her hands on. 

I don't know if the term was coined before she made it popular but Dezsö is also known for her "tunnel books" and "tunnel installations". A recent and extremely popular exhibition had people walking inside of giant cut outs, lit in different sections, as if one were walking through a story. 

Often she returns to books and to tales and folktales, the theme often returning to looking at the inside and of seeing through layers. More recently, and included in the Nancy Margolis Gallery exhibition, is a new form of tunnel one, one in which she translated her tunnel book technique to glass! 

(Seriously: any one want to sponsor me a ticket to see this? Please?)
        

Of creating the Grimm tale illustrations Dezsö says:

"I wished to find the heart of each tale and express it visually. My aim was to create a feeling of atmosphere that could convey a strong sense of place and I wanted the drawings to look like made-up folk art, instead of simply relying on details from the region or period."
   
"I chose tales to illustrate that gave me immediate, strong mental images as I read them. The images that popped into my mind first are generally what I illustrated. Using silhouettes leaves room for the reader’s imagination; not everything is concrete, it’s more a conjured world of dreams, in the same way that the Grimms' tales invite in the reader."

Here is an excerpt from the gallery's press release for the show:

February 21 through March 28, 2015.
Inventive, brilliant, undaunted by complexity or scale mixed media artist Andrea Dezsö, masters a multitude of materials to execute numerous projects ranging from intimate graphite drawings, book illustrations, magnificent mosaics, paper tunnel books, large ink drawing, sandblasted glass, subway murals, colored marker on paper, a long list reflecting Dezsö’s exceptional capacity to take on any challenge regardless of medium.

       

Growing up in communist Romania, Dezsö found art and literature allowed an escape from the rigid limitations the regime imposed on the lives of people. Absorbed, introspective, Dezsö took control of her life by creating her own worlds filled with wishful flights to charmed lands of dark beauty, and haunting iconography. Dezsö’s art, boundless, unrestrained blends a personal vision, contemporary sensibility with a touch of darkness born of Romanian/ Hungarian expression.

      

In the current exhibition Dezsö brings together many creative moments, some familiar, others more recent. Utilizing the flat glass technique learned during a two week 2014 residency at Pilchuck Glass Dezsö succeeded in transposing the layering concept used in her popular paper tunnel books into multi layers of glass panels to form a tunnel book, ”Girl and Devil in Underwater Cave”, and four, one-of-a-kind single flat glass panels sandblasted with lively pictorial scenes.

While visiting Hawaii in 2014 Dezsö made a series of marker drawings and one long drawing 112” x 36.75” made with marker, latex paint, ink, and collage. An exciting addition to the upcoming exhibition are the illustrations Dezsö was commissioned to do for the Princeton University Press publication of The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Translated and edited by Jack Zipes.

It sounds amazing and hearing from people who have seen her work in person - it's rave reviews all round, something to be experienced that doesn't completely translate to a flat image on a computer screen. Hopefully one day I'll be lucky enough to get to see these in person.

These bowls - they're just wonderful!

I strongly recommend you peruse Ms. Dezsö's website. You'll see folktale references and fairy tale references throughout, including some originals of her own making. All are touching, some are raw, some are stunningly beautiful... and I envy the people who take the subway where those gorgeous stainless steel railings are installed and where her mosaics and other public art brighten up the tunnels! You can also keep up to date on the many exhibits and activities of this busy artist through her page on Facebook HERE.

For a quick overview I've started putting together a Pinterest page where you can see a variety of her work at a glance. I predict you will not be able to "just glance" though, but will go for a further journey to closer... she's good at helping us do that.

Fairy tale bonus of the day:

You may also recognize Ms. Dezsö's art from the book cover Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge that was published last year. Here's a promotional video that includes some of Ms. Dezsö's work from the darker side (don't watch right before bed!):
Writing in free verse honed to a wicked edge, the incomparable Ron Koertge brings dark and contemporary humor to twenty iconic fairy tales.