detail of “Odalisque de la Forêt”
I admittedly am seriously neglectful of my blog and I’m pretty sure ‘all’ my posts start with this same apology/excuse…but I really am so much better at expressing myself with pictures rather then words so I just seem to forget about it most of the time….BUT since I finally settled on a title (which must ….”Use your words”) for my upcoming show I figured now is a good excuse to tend to the desert garden that is my blog ;-P
“Charming the Wilds” I have been working on this new body of work since early 2014. My process is that of a slow evolution of thoughts and ideas, a melding together of the images that spoke to me in the last “body” and the reshaping of those familiar characters into their expanded world and skin.
When I first began thinking about the direction for my new body of work, I kept thinking about mysteries, magic, the unknown, Alchemy imagery…
‘Conjuring’ this was the word that kept creeping into my mind, I wanted an action word in my title, often my titles are only descriptive of the work such as “Creatures of Saintly Disguise” or Treacherous Gardens” but this time, this show called for something more direct, or at least as direct as one can get while trying to still create work that is elusive and open to personal interpretation ;-P So originally I thought the title would be “Conjuring Miss Direction” I like plays on words…I still like that title and will likely use it for one of the individual pieces but it didn’t seem to work as an overall theme.
detail WIP peeks from several pieces
I do like the images the word ‘Conjuring’ evokes, it feels powerful, assured, direct, but maybe too strong…I had written down “charmer” in my sketchbook along with enchantment, illusionist, incantation and Miss perception…..I came back to that page today and it suddenly seemed so clear….Charming….I like that word, A LOT, it is a delicious sort of word. To have the ability to Charm takes a different kind of power, it is still strong but soft and alluring at the same time, it ‘conjures’ images of hypnotized ladies being led through the woods by beasts or the ability to charm the fairy voice out of a flower and bring it to a new level of life, the ability to communicate with animals, it also can feel mischievous but not too dark. It was finally settled, the first word anyway….the rest came quickly though. In looking around at what was coming to life in my studio there’s a mingling of nature, mysterious creatures and Lilith..
details of several ‘Lilith’ characters in new work
…all of these things make me think of the words ‘The Wilds’ the wilds in the deep dark parts of our hearts and souls, the wild beast that lives inside us sometimes, it evokes images of wild animals and hidden places and plant life that can grow around whatever we put in its path, “the wilds’ feels alive. I want to charm the wilds I want to bring a little magic into the world if I can…So “Charming the Wilds” feels like it was there all along under the soil waiting for me to kick some dirt aside and find it there smiling up at me like a shiny coin with a cute little face.
detail WIP
Thats all for now I hope to see some of you at my show“Charming the Wilds”
opening on June 13th 2015 at AFA gallery in NYC
You can also follow me on Instagram @jennybirdart if you aren’t already to see more sneak peeks of works in progress
tweets for the sweet,
jennybird
Jennybird Alcantara 