🐺 ⚔️ 💖 🌹 Fairytales, the feminine and fandom - Letter 2
Some recent thoughts on fairytales, the feminine and fandom. About 4 minutes reading time.
hi friend,
Hope you've been well! We're nearly out of the winter doldrums– so close to spring! 🍀
I've been thinking about fairytales and the role of fantasy, the past month or so. It's come up in so many different areas of my life and in different ways, and while there's no firm conclusions I can share with you, I do have a new piece of artwork! It's yet Untitled, but the working title is Fairytale Still Life. The full video turnaround is available here.
The still life is a small 3D scene made in Blender– which I'm slowly familiarizing myself with– utilising its Greasepencil tool. Greasepencil effectively lets you draw 2Dish strokes in 3D space. Here I've drawn on surfaces like the tree's trunk and sword, but also created marks floating in place, like in the tree branches and the chest. It's a really interesting tool that's still being developed by the program's makers, but also experimented with by artists. I referenced many a Youtube tutorial, which you can find in my log channel here. I wanted to use Greasepencil more because I'd gotten really into turn of the century Golden-Age illustration, particularly illustrations of fairytales or folktales like those of Arthur Rackham, Virginia Frances Sterrett, and Kay Nielsen.
In January I was about to start another semester at Sheridan beginning with a narrative illustration project for the first half… which I felt entirely unprepared for. While I was desperately researching I stumbled back onto book illustrations around 1900. I'd seen before, but this time it felt so fresh to me all over again. Maybe because I'd been seeing so much slick, über eye-candy digital artwork (both online and from students), but the pen and ink, the figures with their period clothes and the natural environments, all felt so human in a very charming way. I did some pen and ink drawings of my own, too, which was such an enjoyable, tactile making experience. I even found a book of my grandmother's from 1932 with plate illustrations like these.
There's definitely some childhood nostalgia in the illustrations of fairytales. And largely, that's what I was responding to. I've continued to enjoy fantastical and magical stories into adulthood.
Which brings me to another influence: The Witcher.
I've been really into the Witcher for the past year. Starting with the show, then the games, books, and boy the fan-made content– there's definitely an active fandom around it (and while we're on the topic, let me rec' this podcast episode featuring a fanthropoligist). I was looking up things like 'which movie sword fights are realistic?' and 'how are castles built?'. But I've been wondering why it's held my attention for so long– it's definitely fun, but why a whole year?
My theory is that I've needed the fantasy– the escape– especially during the past year. It's got monsters and magic, battles and romance, humour and camp. It's generally just a good time, imo. But more than that I think the world building of the series made for fantastic escapism. Going into the second year of the pandemic and x number lockdown, the 13th century-ish setting was quaint and simple– no screen fatigue there. The monsters were legendary but always bested in the end– not so microscopic they were invisible. Even topics like 'the plague' was a step removed from reality. It was both imaginative and safe.
At the same time, however, I felt kind of embarrassed about my enjoyment of this media. It wasn't high-brow in any way– especially with the tv show, I was having flashbacks to my teenage love of the Supernatural series. And despite the gradual nerdification of our culture– and a lot of journaling and self-reflection– it still felt (feels) embarrassing to own up to.
Late last year, my good friend Charlit💕 was getting into making worlds in VR Chat, a social virtual reality game that allows people to create avatars and worlds. We were talking about VR, fairytales, pen and ink illustration, the Witcher, and decided we wanted to make something together (more on that later). She was really the one who started putting things together when she prompted, "What would it be like to step into one of these illustrations?" And "what would a female gaze-y VR Witcher world be like?"
While searching for answers to these questions, it was actually this video about The Feminine Gaze that felt like it connected things for me– and called me out. In it, the creator talks about a friend who binge watched the Witcher series, and was embarrassed that she enjoyed it. Yes, me! 🙋♀️ And then the creator goes on to explain why she was upset at her friend's reaction to something that's been praised as being for the feminine gaze.
Briefly, Joey Solloway defines the female gaze as a prioritizing and valuing of the feminine, which in film uses the camera to involve the audience in connecting with the emotion of the characters, including what it feels like to be the object of the gaze, and at times returning that gaze. There's also examples of media created by men that were then transformed by female creators, of which The Witcher is cited as one. There's lots more to it, and I'm no expert on feminist film theory (though I am curious so hit me up if you have recommendations), but the thing that stuck with me was "valuing the feminine".
This made me consider my relationship to the feminine in the media I was watching, as well as what I make.
I'd never really looked at the work I make and considered what may be of the feminine sphere in it. But thinking on it, I found a lot of hidden vs. revealed forms, light and dark drama, things that are ephemeral, graceful, and even imagery that could be considered feminine such as flowers, veils, hands open in offering/receiving. My interpretation was that it's actually a large part of what I love in the media I consume, both visually and also in stories. And yet it's also something that I was devaluing, when I was embarrassed or nervous to talk about those loves. There was a conflict between what I was saying versus feeling.
The Youtuber also mentions towards the end of the video that fairytales were often told by women storytellers– which I haven't been able to verify, but still neat– and later co-opted by 18th century fancy French ladies in their salons as a way to critique modern society while avoiding censorship. How cool! I want to know more.
This fairytale still life comes from all of that. And the on-going project with Charlit that I've hinted at, does as well. I'm excited to continue exploring this– there's almost a kind of indulgence in the making of it, and it's fun! So I hope to share more on that next time.
If you're curious about anything that I've mentioned and would like to know more, you can always reply to this email. I hope some of that piqued your curiosity! And if you have any favourite fairy or folktales to share, let me know.
🐺 ⚔️ 💖 🌹
Katherine