Chaos or Freedom?

Alice in Wonderland ends in cards flying up into the air, while Through the Looking Glass ends in anarchy when Alice seizes the tablecloth at her banquet, sending Queens, plates, silverware and all flying into the air.

The Heavy Crown

Alice makes it across the chess board to her goal - becoming a queen. And yet, and yet... the weight of the crown is so oppressive.

@##$% Blogger - Currently unable to post photos or see some photos of other bloggers, about to go out. I need to download firefox again to try with a different browser, or possibly just wait to see if it's one of those waves of chaos that periodically pass through blogger...

Alice and the Red King #2

Alice reflected in mirror fragments...The aborigines say "There is a dream dreaming us".

I used a turn of the nineteenth century advertising card to represent Alice.

In the Woods without Words

There's some text on this of which a version is in the book, see the original post here if you would like to see it.

The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon #2

One for the embroiderers... Appropriate, since the Mock Turtle's tale went around and around in verbal curlicues.

Walrus and the Carpenter #2

And here are the Malthusians communicating to each other via seashell -

Tweedledum and Tweedledee#2

The Tweedles at war. Later I'll show how I used this in a spread in the book - I got my copies today.

The Tweedles #1

What can you say about the Tweedles other than that they have a lot more convictions than brains?

The White Queen and Alice

The Red Queen's opposite number is the White Queen, who tells Alice to believe impossible things...

"When I was your age I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast..."

The figure I used above is one which survived the Berkeley Hills fire of 1991.

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Note to Deadwood fans: Timothy Olyphant is apparently reprising his role as the sheriff on that series in a movie of FX tonight. NOBODY does grim man-of-law determination like Timothy Olyphant. The link is internal, to a post in my first month on blogger, I did six posts of Deadwood characters as superhero trading cards.

The Garden of Talking Flowers

The talking flowers are cross-grained and dictatorial, they were in fact intended to satirize the flowers in Tennyson's poem "Maude" who were waiting longingly for an evocation of feminine grace, as opposed to the crazed red queen these flowers anticipate.

The Red King

Alice picks up the red king chesspiece, who does not know what force is lifting him through the air. Feeling at the mercy of forces beyond our control frequently results in reverting to the primitive (did someone say reptilian brain?).

Alice the Brave

Alice is not overly blessed in the sense of humor department, but you can't fault her for courage and determination.

Seth Godin on a wonderful typo today.

Through the Looking Glass #2

It's not that this is a particularly astounding photo so much as that I got such a kick out of the fact that since the two illustrations face each other, I could combine them into one just by inserting the little mirror and tilting up the right hand page.

This post on Walking Home to Fifty is very moving.

The White Sheep's Shop

I'm interrupting the tea party with one from Looking Glass, the White Sheep's shop where "the large bright thing" keeps eluding Alice by mysteriously slipping from shelf to shelf. The tea party will resume in my second post today, but I wanted an excuse to link to two new shops:

Nature's Whisper Bazaar and HG Handmade

Check them out for beautifully sensuous textile art.

Work in Progress

I think I have most of the writing done. I have been rereading Robert Polhemus' wonderful take on Through the Looking Glass in his book Comic Faith (its title comes from his contention that humor is redemptive, and that laughter can awaken us). Anyway, here's what I have now for the first section:

Both stories begin with pursuit, the dreaming mind chasing a rabbit in one, passing through the mirror of quotidian reality in another. The door out opens through language, both a prison and the key to escape. Carroll states his intent in the preface to Through the Looking Glass:

These magic words shall hold thee fast

I'll have a little intro to each section in prose, but will mostly let the pictures speak for themselves, with brief quotes from Lewis Carroll. I may post one or two more of the intros here, but will mostly reserve them for the book.

Strange Perspective

There's a little of William Blake's "The Crystal Cabinet" in this one, as Alice strives "to seize the inmost form". But as noted previously, these gems elude us, but continue to fascinate. The IllustrationFriday prompt is perspective.

I was very excited to see that Illustrator Oliver Flores is doing a Lost Series. I know some of my readers will be thrilled too.

And here's another take on Alice at Ambient Ink.

Linking to this just because, on Sara Lechner's blog. I remember pasting a pink cake in the shape of a lamb in a scrapbook when I was eight years old. It was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and of course, it was a lamb and a cake at the same time. Take that, Roland Barthes!

Speriments

I picked up this glass bottle stopper - now I seem to have started an interactive series with the text. The (theoretical) book seems to be expanding. Is this avoidance of finishing the project on my part? Could be. I do like the divergent thinking part more than the convergent. Where will it end? I don't know, But I think I'm going to spend the evening doing something simple with thread, while watching the last of Season 4 of Doctor Who ( So long, David Tennant). Brain hurts.

Through the Looking Glass #1

I want to be safe/I want to be free

Jenny Woolf was kind enough to send me a chapter of The Mystery of Lewis Carroll to read. Apparently he struggled all his life with wishing to believe, willing himself to do so, and the skepticism of his logical mathematician's mind.
Just reshot this (in part because I am delaying doing my homework for talking to folks at Shipyard Labs). Sometimes less is more- what do you think? As I finished, I inadvertently released the roll of silver duct tape which rolled merrily down the steep stairway and vanished (ie, did NOT roll into the street) when it got to the steps - that silvery gleam, whither is it fled?

Alice and the White Knight

It's our old friend Alice...The White Knight is encountered in the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass. Another treatment of Alice and the White Knight here, and a preview of my Alice book on blurb here.

I'm linking this to the March 26 Illustration Friday, the whole White Knight concept...

Naming

So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And, dear me! You're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

  - Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

This passage is after Alice meets the fawn in the woods, both have lost their identities/names. Coming out into the daylight of consciousness, they are once again confined in their individual selves, both a delight and a prison. The connection of language to consciousness is so close as to seem inseparable at times, that is, the ability to manipulate reality by (believing one is) standing outside it is intrinsic to both. And then, there is always a longing to return to the woods, where things are in their undefined, inchoate fullness. As documented in the R.E.M. song Radio Free Europe. Even those who aren't big fans are respectfully requested to look at this early one, which was partly filmed in Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens and features an appearance by the man himself at the very end.