Guest Post at SurLaLune for Fairy Tale Music Month: Evanescence

I have a guest post over at SurLaLune today, discussing the Evanescence music video for "Call Me When You're Sober" (using Red Riding Hood imagery) and the fairy tale connections and use by fans of the hit song "Bring Me To Life".

You can find the post, Music Videos: "Call Me When You're Sober" & "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence HERE.

Camille Rose Garcia's Dark and Disneyesque Snow White

Although I had seen Camille Rose Garcia's illustrations around in the past year or so she never really caught my attention until Amy Leigh Morgan blogged about her Snow White art and related book and show over at The Fairy Tale Factory back in February. She has, however, been around for a little while (since 2007) and has made a big impact in a short period of time. Her previous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a New York Times Bestseller.

**********************

UPDATE: I took myself to the local bookstore for a rainy-day book browse yesterday and was delighted to find Garcia's Snow White there on the Myth & Folklore shelf. Although I had already written this post a while back and had browsed the illustrations and information about the book at length I had no idea the edition was so gorgeous. Hardcover, beautifully printed and full - chock-full! - of amazing illustrations that blew me away... and this isn't the types of style I'm usually drawn to either. I had to rush home and put it on my Amazon gotta-get Wish List and update my draft before letting it publish so I could let you know: this is worth a look-see (if you can get your hands on a copy) and well worth the price. Now back to your regularly scheduled post... ;)
                                                                             **********************
Here's the artistic description of the newly released book (the cover is shown at the head of the post), rather than a synopsis, since you're all familiar with Grimm's Little Snow White.

A breathtaking, wildly original spin on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Harper Design’s Snow White is boldly and beautifully reimagined by acclaimed artist Camille Rose Garcia, the illustrator of the New York Times bestseller Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Delivering a fresh take on a vintage fairy tale, Garcia's dark and Disneyesque art, with its vivid colors and luscious, dripping  blacks, will weave a spell around fans of illustrated books from Daniel Egnéus’s Little Red Riding Hood to Femke Hiemstra’s Rock Candy.

This new gift edition presents the unabridged version of the Grimms’ tale, with an original interpretation by renowned artist Camille Rose Garcia that artfully combines wit and dark romance. 

Ms. Garcia's (gorgeous illustrated, laid out and printed!) book is available through Amazon HERE.

 I also recently came across this article about Ms. Garcia and her reworking of the newly released Snow White book thought I'd share. Orange County (Los Angeles) is rightly proud of this underground artist's success and the Los Angeles Times posted an interview with her just this week.

From the LA Times:

Garcia, when deciding on her tone and text, looked back to the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 version of the story but, having grown up near and in Disneyland, she also couldn’t resist the tug of the classic 1937 animated feature film. “I did look to Disney’s animated ‘Snow White’ as the watercolor backgrounds were especially beautiful,” Garcia said. “I wanted to reference Walt Disney’s style but bring in the creepy Germanic folk-tale element.”

The latter explains why, in this version, the Evil Queen devours  Snow White’s lung and liver in one passage — or, more precisely, she believes the organs that she’s snacking on belong to Snow White. Garcia’s dark-tinged retelling of the classic is in the spotlight with an exhibit at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Beverly Hills that runs through April 14. On Thursday, Garcia will be at the gallery for a 6-8 p.m. signing event and in the weeks to come she’ll be on a book tour with stops already announced for San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

You can read the whole article which details more of her artistic influences HERE.

For those interested in her Betty Boop meets Tammy Faye Baker style and who no doubt see other classic "old world" cartoon influences in her work and would like to know more, here's a video of Ms. Garcia working on some of the paintings for the book. When you see her skill in working with lines it's easy to see how she became an underground art darling who transitioned wonderfully to the respected art world. Her paintings have been shown internationally, she's been published in a variety of well known magazines and she now has works in several mainstream galleries:

There is a new book coming out in August on s. Garcia's art titled Mirror, Black Mirror. The official blurb gives us quite a bit of insight into why this artist paints as she does:

Camille Rose Garcia & her new book

Mirror, Black Mirror, chronicles the prolific and life changing time period of 2007-2011, when Garcia fled the sprawling mecca of Los Angeles, her lifelong home, and moved to a cabin in the woods of Northern California. Living so close to the natural world has given the artist even more insight into the major themes of her work, disenchantment with modern civilization, and the problems of becoming too removed from the natural world. 

Camille Rose Garcia was born in 1970 in Los Angeles, California, The child of a mexican activist filmmaker father and a muralist/painter mother, she apprenticed at age 14 working on murals with her mother while growing up in the generic suburbs of Orange County, visiting Disneyland and going to punk shows with the other disenchanted youth of that era. Garcia's layered, broken narrative paintings of wasteland fairy tales are influenced by William Burroughs' cut-up writings and surrealist film, as well as vintage Disney and Fleischer cartoons, acting as critical commentaries on the failures of capitalist utopias, blending nostalgic pop culture references with a satirical slant on modern society... She recently moved to the Pacific Northwest after 38 years in Los Angeles.

See the whole blurb HERE, which details lots more about her success and where her work has been published and can be seen.

You can see more of her Snow White illustrations HERE and her book is available HERE and HERE.

Ballet Preljocaj & Jean Paul Gaultier's "Blanche Neige" Comes to the US

Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige (modified poster)

I started a draft of this story early in the week but was unable to finish it and I'm now glad I didn't. I originally focused on the world famous fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier and his unique take on Snow White for Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige, which is finally touring the US. Despite that it was Gaultier's collaboration that initially caught my eye (that's the Gaultier of the infamous cone-shaped bra for Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour in 1990), the more I read about the work, the more I wanted to share other aspects of this new-to-us Snow White as well (the ballet actually debuted in France in 2008 and has since won awards). From a study of strong females and the evil queen, through to comments from the choreographer on the story of Snow White's relevance today, there's a few treats ahead in the excerpts.

Note: Ballet Preljocaj's Blanche Neige is a contemporary dance work, not a traditional tutu ballet.

I'll begin with this wonderful article by Pamela Trokanski of The Davis Enterprise who's actually familiar with Grimm's Little Snow White and fairy tales in general so, amongst the images of Gaultier's amazing costumes, I'll give you excerpts from here and a few other places.

From The Davis Enterprise on the ballet itself:

I grew up reading fairy tales — the real ones — before political correctness and cultural “sanitization” took place. They were stories of love and terror, of cruelty and revenge, of retribution and atonement. Good ultimately conquered evil, although there was often a price to pay, by both victim and perpetrator. 

Choreographer Angelin Preljocaj understands this in his bones. And he certainly speaks the language of fairy tale, fluently and faultlessly. His “Blanche Neige” (“Snow White”) is a stunning, visually opulent, work that captures the Grimm fairy tale version exquisitely.

On the story and characters of the ballet:

The entrance of the pregnant mother, danced by Nuriya Nagimova, her slow progression as she toils across the stage, desperate in childbirth, says a great deal about the power of well wedded movement to sound. The appearance of seven miners (not noted in the program) out of caves, high above the stage, rappelling down a rock wall, dancing vertically and horizontally above the stage, was unexpected and joyous, toying with our expectations that dance happens on a flat surface and is bound by gravity. 

Also captivating: the reappearance of the dead mother, materializing from above, hovering over and lifting her dead daughter momentarily, before leaving. 

There are small, but crucial choreographic touches that convey the story. The passage of time, between the King finding the baby, and Snow White’s growing up, is neatly conveyed by a simple, yet effective, use of set. The King moves behind a column of material, the baby sheltered in his arms, only to reappear with the young girl, beautifully portrayed by 9-year-old Camilla Pedrosa of Davis. (McKenna Lincoln, 10, of Woodland, danced the role Sunday.) Dancing with his young daughter, he circles yet another column, this time reappearing with Snow White as a young woman, danced by Virginie Caussin. 

The cats, minions of The Queen, were perfectly matched and moved sinuously across the stage, menacing and mischievous. Dancers Natacha Grimaud and Lorena O’Neil were perfectly suited for these roles. Athletic and elegant, they were able to convey both the bonelessness of languid felines and their willingness to play with prey. 

The Prince, danced by Sergio Diaz, made a marvelous partner for Snow White. While their opening interactions at the ballroom were everything they needed to be, it was the duet of the prince and the dead/unconscious Snow White that was incomparable. A pas de deux with one partner required to act limp and unresponsive calls for strength, timing, trust and true connection.

(Edit FTNH: Sounds like choreographer Kenneth MacMillan's tomb pas de deux of Romeo & Juliet - which is also amazing and heart wrenching.)

Did anything not work for me? An opening scene at court went a little long. Also, the program notes, by Preljocaj, state his belief that the wicked stepmother is, to him, the central character. I didn’t see that at all. But all in all, these are very small things, nothing compared to the torment of the wicked stepmother, forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance to her death.

On the costume designs (source):

“Snow White has this beautiful flowing costume, but it’s almost nonexistent on the side,” said Renae Williams Niles, director of programming at the Music Center. “So you see far more of Snow White than you ever thought you would.” 

...(Jean Paul Gaultier's) costumes make it to the Music Center thanks to Angelin Preljocaj. The artistic director of the French ballet company and choreographer of the work said there’s a purpose to the revealing elements. The outfit shows both the character’s childhood purity and how she is in the process of becoming a woman.“The costume is half [a] costume of a woman and half [a] costume of a child,” he said in heavily accented French. 

In terms of costume design, it’s hard to get more contemporary than Gaultier. The fashion icon, who worked for Pierre Cardin before launching his own label, brings his unique style to all of the outfits while maintaining perfect harmony with the rest of the production, according to Niles.

(from  shopfair:) The costumes were designed by Jean Paul Gaultier and really suited the modern interpretation of the classic fairytale choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj to music by Gustav Mahler. The designs ranged from subtle JPG touches like straps and suspenders to full-blown JPG with the stepmother's bondage queen outfit (which was wonderful) and the best use of fringe I have seen this year (pictured on the right). "This is not the first time that Gaultier designs clothes for dancers. He has collaborated with Régine Chopinot, the choreographer, for 11 years in the past(1983-1994), during which he had sewed costumes for –more or less- 18 ballets choreographed by Chopinot." 

And excerpts from a completely different sort of review fro a 2009 performance, focusing on the evil queen, by Claudio from iHeartBerlin,de:

Being a fairy tale expert and a psychologist I was always indulged by the strong female characters appearing in Grimm’s fairy tales. I appreciated their impact in the stories as an evil and intense element of the plot. One of my favorites has always been the evil queen of Snow White who is obsessed with her vanity to the point where she loses everything.

...If I had to describe the style and the feeling the piece was giving me I would say that it is a great mixture between a stylish gothic music video and a really classical nice Midsummer Night’s Dream production. What perhaps sounds like an odd combination results in an emotionally touching balancing act between both styles. 

...Most intriguing was obviously the charming Beatrice Knop who proved herself as an enormously powerful solo dancer. Especially in her mirror scenes I totally believed that she was doing real magic instead of dancing. Also the scene where she kills Snow White with the apple really had a disturbing intensity. I literally saw the poison entering the body through the movements of the witch. (Read the whole review HERE.)

And finally, some very interesting comments on his Blanche Neige from the choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj (who, by the way, is referencing Bettelheim):

Preljocaj said the fairy tale remains relevant today, in the age of plastic surgery and other ways that women can remain young-looking.

"It's a very modern story, in the sense that today with scientific and medical progress, women can stay young and beautiful for a long time," said the choreographer. 

"That creates a potential conflict between generations. Daughters, faced with mothers who want to remain lovers, desirable and active socially, can develop a kind of Snow White complex."

"Generations are coming together. You often see 50- or 60-year-old women in the street with their daughter, dressed the same, swapping clothes and handbags. They can even be love rivals."

As with the upcoming big screen versions, Preljocaj's production does not follow the Disney version of the fairytale, rather putting more focus on the cruel stepmother. 

"It's the same as with 'Swan Lake', with the black swan and the white swan: Snow White is the positive character, beautiful and pure, while the stepmother is the opposite, also beautiful, but dark and hate-filled," he said.

"Snow White' is "really a thriller," he said. "The story of 'Sleeping Beauty' can be told in two lines. 'Snow White' is full of twists... leading to lots of ways of interpreting it choreographically." (source)

Here's a video of excerpts from the ballet. though the first courtier scene is a little long, the rest of the video is very dynamic and shows off choreography, costumes and the Snow White story beautifully:

For it's US debut gala at the Mondavi, Magrit Mondavi, Don Roth and Jeremy Ganter got together round table style to discuss Blanche Neige of KVIE's Studio Sacramento. It's about 20 minutes long but for anyone who likes theater and ballet production as well as Snow White, it's worth watching:

Watch Mondavi Center on PBS. See more from KVIE.

I've only seen ballet school versions of Snow White so to see a full-length professional work, complete with world famous set and costume designer collaboration would be amazing.

"Snow White" will be staged in Los Angeles from March 23-25, before heading to the East Coast at the end of March, through to April 21. The US cities where the work is to be performed include Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (source)

Lovecraft Jack and The Beanstalk by Ellis Goodson

Something very different and fairly self-explanatory via the title.

The piece, "Lovecraft Jack and The Beanstalk" is by Ellis Goodson (you can find his website HERE). It  underwent a number of edits on the TAG Tuesday Art Group blog HERE.

I wish there were a bigger version of the final edit - which I like best. It has quite a pulp noir novel cover or 70'/80's sci-fi cover feel - I can almost smell the yellowed pages that have been hidden in the back shelves of an old used bookstore somewhere. :)

You can see more details in the other edits at the TAG blog link if you're interested.

Apparently he intends to re-do the idea with a whole different art direction at some point. I'd be curious to see that too, though it's been a while since this was posted and I can't find any update.

NBC's Grimm Picked Up For 2nd Season

News I forgot to post from last week:

From hitfix:

NBC has announced that they're renewing the Friday drama "Grimm" for a second season.

...Going head-to-head with similarly themed sci-fi/fantasy shows "Fringe" and "Supernatural," "Grimm" has maintained a healthy following in the ratings. 

Good for them! More fairy tale based entertainment for us. I'm curious to see how the second season develops. Will it weave in a layered story and bring us a modern reworking of myths and fairy tales? Will it mine a little deeper from fairy tales and give us some new takes on old? Or will it be more of a solid, steady procedural drama with a supernatural element?

StitchPunk's Dark Fairytales

Remember my recent post about the use of red against a single color to illustrate and bring out the symbolism in a fairy tale? These beautiful embroidered designs from StitchPunk - Urban Threads, released in August 2011, do the same and with quite a few fairy tales.

I'm not really a crafty and needlework person, though I have been known to work on a tapestry or two, but beautiful and graphic art in any medium is fascinating to me. Embroidery, needlework and stitching of every kind is making a contemporary comeback with some creative and very non-traditional uses of the craft (like embroidery on metal HERE and stitched portraits HERE. You can see a whole lot more unusual stitching via these artist links at Mr. X Stitch HERE.)

Rapunzel

Jack & the Beanstalk

 So much you could infer from the blood red beans Jack threw away!

Snow White

Red Riding Hood

 I find it interesting to see where the red appears. Some, like the two above, are obvious while others, such as the Jack & the Beanstalk one, less so.

Sleeping Beauty

When I see red roses surrounding Sleeping Beauty in this context of a series of fairy tales, it makes me think of roses blooming out of the blood from her pricked finger. Vampire roses... hm. Yet another version of Sleeping Beauty.

Hansel & Gretel

 The red in the candy for Hansel and Gretel is a nice touch. Candy, in this case (as well as others) equals danger!

Cinderella

I like that they used the Aschenputtel version of Cinderella for the text, though they substituted rose blooms for bleeding. (Gives a whole new meaning to the pharse "love lies bleeding..". Even more if you change the punctuation: "Love. Lies. Bleeding.")

The Little Mermaid 

I'm not sure it was intentional, but the shape of the hair looks a lot like a ragged tongue here.

The Ugly Duckling

These designs are available for machine embroidery or as designs for hand embroidery and can be purchased HERE.

They have a few other designs such as a fairy tale castle (see below for design and an example of use), a book of fairy tales and a mushroom house in the same series and style.

I always wanted to do a contemporary Jack and the Beanstalk quilt & stitching wall hanging for my son (his name is Jack) but I quickly realized it would be an expensive and long term trial and error project. Projects like the ones shown here (and the non-traditional embroidery works I've linked to) make me want to dust off that project again.

Pinterest Board Spotlight: Grimm (group board)

I don't know if I can manage to post a regular Pinterest "Board of the Week" so let's just call it a Pinterest "Fairy Tale Board Spotlight" feature. :)

The plan is for them to fairy tale themed, of course, but from time to time I may send you over to something that's more related to topics and/or illustrations  or photos fairy tale people may be interested in as well.


As you're probably aware by now, Pinterest is an image collection site in which you "pin" images you like into categories, known as "boards" that you create.They're being used for everything from digital scrapbooks to inspiration boards and one of the cool features is the "group board" feature. Whoever sets up the board has the option to invite pinners they know to participate and add their own images.

Today's board of the week is a group board and is titled Grimm. Here's a small preview:

Although there are many fairy tale boards on Pinterest (from fanciful fairy tale like images to collections of illustrations for a specific tale) this board contains images that are mostly collected because they remind the participants of certain tales, rather than the image having been created based on a tale to begin with, like specific illustrations, though it has a few of those too. (See throughout post for examples.)

There's much more to the board so go check it out and be sure to read any descriptions posted so you can see what images reminded the posters of which fairy tales. (I thought of a couple of different ones for a few of them.)


The participants of the board tell me they originally created it as a party planning tool for Halloween but enjoyed the theme so much they kept going with it. I'm glad they did. :)

You can see the whole board - which I gather is still growing - HERE.

Please note: this first post spotlighting a board is a lot longer than these posts will be. It'll really just be a giant blog-based arrow to send you to some cool fairy tale finds.

Music Video: Of Monsters and Men's "Little Talks"

Here's a video I recently saw for the first time that I thought would appeal to fans of myth and fairy tale. It's by Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men and their music definitely has folk roots while this particular video delves into myth and folklore and has a lot of fun doing so. The song is titled "Little Talks".

What's it about? Opinions vary. You can see the lyrics HERE and draw your own conclusions or scroll down below the lyrics and see people's interpretations...

Article: The Better To Entertain You With My Dear (aka Fairy Tales Are Outdated)

Red Cap American McGee Wine Label by Ken Wong

In this article posted by the New York Times, we have the writer arguing this:

The world from which fairy tales and folk tales emerged has largely vanished, and although it pleases us to think of these stark, simple, fantastic narratives as timeless, they aren’t. Thanks to video games, computer graphics and the general awfulness of everyday life, fantasies of all kinds have had a resurgence in the past few years. But the social realities on which the original fairy tales depend are almost incomprehensibly alien to 21st-century sensibilities; they reek of feudalism. And the lessons they’re supposed to teach our young don’t have much force these days. Kids learn to be skeptical almost before they’ve been taught anything to be skeptical of.

Really? This sounds like someone who was raised on a diet of Politically Correct (remember those?) and Fractured Fairy Tales without having the benefit of a classic canon collection to compare them with.

I think it's the first time in a while, particularly in this time of pop-cultural fairy tale focus, that I've seen fairy tales being called outdated and useless. It's not a new accusation. It's the argument I've heard throughout my life as to why my time would be better spent pursuing the study of other things. (Obviously, I don't agree.) I do hope the normally more balanced and critical NYT follow up with an article from someone who argues the opposite (and with more substance).


The writer's concern seems to revolve around how cringe-worthy so many "fairy tale films" are and while I understand his point I think he's actually missing the real one. He says:

...the characteristic tone of fairy tales and folk tales, which is derived from oral storytelling traditions, is awfully difficult to replicate on screen. 

Rapunzel American McGee Wine Label by Ken Wong

Films that try to put a specific fairy tale on screen often do have problems in translating the wonder aspect of fairy tales (note I didn't say "fantasy aspect") into a visual, filmic state that's as believable and substantial as the one that happens in your head when you read (or are read) them. We inevitably place the stories in a specific time period and outfit them with supposedly magical special effects that often can't live up to the imagination. But it doesn't mean films are unsuccessful in communicating that "characteristic fairy tale tone". Think of Pan's Labyrinth, Like Water for Chocolate, Freeway and The Secret of Roan Inish among many others.You do feel as if you've entered a fairy tale but the real world connection is still very evident. (I'm leaving out animated films here - that's a different conversation.) As I see it, there are fantasy films (think Legend), fairy tale fantasy films (The Slipper and the Rose, Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood) and fairy tale films (see above examples). It's the latter that appeals to me most as they communicate the feeling of being absorbed in fairy tales the best. Fairy tale films that have a fairly straight retelling of a specific fairy tale tend to fall into the fairy tale fantasy arena (though not always) and there aren't that many that are succeed from a storytelling or box-office point of view. So, while I see the writer's point, I think he should have been more specific.

It also would have helped to define the "characteristic tone" he's talking about. I don't think he means the wonder aspect of a tale, which is what actually makes it a fairy tale, but that is the elusive thing. Fairy tales aren't magical stories full of unicorns and pixie dust. That's fantasy. Fairy tales are everyday stories with an element of wonder. The focus is different and it's that wonder factor amid the mundane that makes all the difference. The tough thing is that people tend to retell (resell?) fairy tales as fantasies so it gets confusing.

Snow White American McGee Wine Label by Ken Wong

I'm not thrilled by the lack of deeper research (specifically with regard to supporting the writer's argument) in the article. The whole point of the piece is the argument that "fairy tales have nothing to offer audiences of today" and yet it ends with how popular Grimm and Once Upon A Time are, how many fairy tale films keep coming out and how the target audience will likely very much enjoy Mirror Mirror.

When I got to the comment in parentheses: (Was there really so much insult humor in the Middle Ages?) I had to shake my head. Because yes, there was. There really (really!) was. Apparently the writer missed his Shakespeare and Chaucer classes.

There is, however, one interesting sentence I wanted to point out, even though it's rather throw-away in the body:

The TV series “Grimm” and “Once Upon a Time” are, surprisingly, more thoughtful than any of the recent fairy-tale movies have dared to be. Maybe the succession of weekly episodes more closely approximates the regularity and one-thing-after-another quality of bedtime stories.

Bedtime stories. Hmm. I think there actually might be a connection there, just not necessarily in the way the writer implies. Fairy tales aren't chapters in a novel in which they all go "Into the Woods" so to speak, but there is a definite feeling of accessing a unique world just out of sight from story to story, even if Rapunzel is not ensconced in the same woods Red Riding Hood's grandmother lives in (although this is part of the premise of both Once and Grimm). What do you think? Is there a connection between the qualities of having fairy tale bedtime stories and watching weekly installments of fairy tale TV shows?

You can read the whole article HERE.

Video: "Mirror Mirror" Stars On Adapting A Classic Fairy Tale

Behind the scenes of Mirror Mirror with director Tarsem Singh

 From the Washington Post:

The stars of "Snow White" adaptation "Mirror, Mirror" discuss reading Grimm's fairytales to their children and working with the film's phenomenal director, Tarsem Singh. (The Associated Press)

It's really an ad, with extra footage from the movie and a couple of teeny tidbits about the stars response to the Grimm's version of Snow White. The biggest surprise (to me) was that Julia Roberts seemed to have no idea how dark the Grimm version was (at least in comparison to Disney).

Behind the scenes of Mirror Mirror with director Tarsem Singh