Tag Archives: creativity

The Trickster’s Hat Part 7

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The Idyllian Summoning Fetish

And now, for a slightly creepy interlude.

Following instructions, I turned out two slightly unnerving projects. Above, the Idyllian Summoning Fetish, exercise 24. This was another one that required me to go buy junk at Goodwill: take a doll or action figure and modify it until it’s unrecognizable as the thing it started out as. This thing used to be a Barbie doll. My husband, whose response to 99% of my art is, “Ooh, pretty,” took one look at it and said, “That’s kind of terrifying.” So, good, an emotional response. I’m thinking of sending this thing to Nick Bantock. It’s certainly too bizarre to display in my home. The exercise also instructed me to create a descriptive card, as you’d see in a museum; I connected this item back to the country in exercise 7.

Exercise 25, part 1

Exercise 25, part 1

The next page in the book also resulted in willful weirdness. For part one, readers are instructed to cut parts of faces out of magazines and reassemble these disparate pieces into a new face. I choose people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities and ended up with a fellow who might have some difficultly getting a date.

The second part was the same, except that the parts couldn’t be from actual faces. So, I have a man whose nose is a hook, whose eyebrows are binders, whose mustache is a forest. Overall, the results are pretty weird, but it does teach something about faces and proportion.

Exercise 25, Part 2

Exercise 25, Part 2

The Trickster’s Hat Part 6

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I do hope this image is sufficiently abstract/artistic to avoid suggesting straight up pornography. It's not meant to be erotic; it's meant to describe a dual principle.

I do hope this image is sufficiently abstract/artistic to avoid suggesting straight up pornography. It’s not meant to be erotic; it’s meant to describe a dual principle.

Exercise 20 explored the concept of muse and duende. The term “duende” was new to me; Bantock uses it as a sort of counterpart to the muse. It was supposed to be executed in two pieces, on wood, and I’m kind of sorry I didn’t follow the directions, because I was really pleased with the finished product and the paper was not designed for this kind of paint. It would have looked and held up better on a more suitable canvas.

I followed the spirit of the instructions, if not the letter. I suppose most people would have drawn actual characters, but whichever entity, muse or duende, spoke to me, I was inspired. To highlight the sacred nature of the yoni and the lingam, I adorned the image with stick-on gems.

The Trickster’s Hat Part 5

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If you plan to apprentice yourself to Nick Bantock, you’ll need a lot of art supplies. I had most of them already, although I had to go out and purchase different types of paper at various points in the process, along with matte medium. There were a couple exercises that instructed readers to go to thrift stores and buy, essentially, junk, and something in me bristled at this. I was in the process of getting rid of junk and didn’t want to accumulate more.

You're simply much more likely to find unicorns and fairies than dragons and monsters on the knickknack shelf at Goodwill.

You’re simply much more likely to find unicorns and fairies than dragons and monsters on the knickknack shelf at Goodwill.

Still, I had intended to do every exercise, so I relented, and I’m pleased and amused with this one. Exercise 10 asked readers to find a cheap item that represented themselves (Bantock’s was a taxidermied skunk that had sat so long in a window it was bleached white) and mount it in a box with other items that seemed to go along. My diorama is conveniently situation within a cigar box, which I acquired, along with all the trimmings, at Goodwill.

box of me 2

For the purposes of this exercise, I am a pewter unicorn, sitting upon a mirror, surrounded by colored glass, mounted inside a wooden cigar box, with a playful tile roof. The unicorn is chill and so am I. 

The Trickster’s Hat Part 3

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If you’re familiar with Nick Bantock’s work, you know that collage figures prominently. Collages are fun; throughout my life, I’ve often created them, not with the intention of producing a work of great art. They offer a method of self-expression, but they’ve never seemed to require any great amount of creativity.

Exercise 4, Part 1: early childhood. I was a bit of an alien.

Exercise 4, Part 1: early childhood. I was a bit of an alien.

Exercise 4 began with 3 cardboard squares and asked for an autobiographical triptych, complicated by the restriction that the images must all be black and white. In fact, in the 21st century, black and white printing isn’t terribly common. Color printing is so very cheap, and so much more eye catching. Even newspapers are printed in color, but I didn’t have much in the way of newspaper either, since it’s the 21st century.

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Exercise 4, Part 2: Adolescence. Dark and confusing, morbid and upside down, with moments of hope.

For the most part, the materials I had on hand were old National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. I found a few usable images in the local free entertainment paper, The Tucson Weekly, and one or two bits in my husband’s trade magazines. Toward the end, as the squares began to fill up, I utterly ran out of useful black and white images and finished with a couple things printed in black on colored paper: the invitation to an annual volunteer breakfast I never attend, the map to the Arizona Renaissance Festival, the thank you notes we had custom printed for the wedding.

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Exercise 4, Part 3: The Present. My life is basically awesome. I am older and wiser, with a supportive life partner and plenty of experience. I know who I am.

I was pleased with the final product. These panels do represent my life, even if I don’t feel that collages require much talent or effort. Talking about these images is complicated, though; they’re very personal and meaningful, even with the limits set on the exercise. But collages are easy. I still wanted to learn to draw better.

The Trickster’s Hat Part 1

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The Alphabet of Desire was the hardest project I ever undertook. I’m not a magician, except in the sense of being an artist, and I found that the project asked a lot of me.

Some lettering work done for inspiration in the early days of the Alphabet of Desire. The font is based on Lucinda Black Letter.

Some lettering work done for inspiration in the early days of the Alphabet of Desire. The font is based on Lucinda Black Letter.

I was unable to generate momentum, for instance, until I had organized all my books (over two thousand) into Library of Congress organization. Whenever I gained a little traction, something (for example, my wedding) slowed me down.

I got married.

I got married.

I simply was not as good an artist as I wished.

After reading an advanced review of Nick Bantock’s The Trickster’s Hat: A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity, I wondered if a book could kick start my creative drive,  help me immerse myself in art, and establish the foundations of regular creative work. The book hadn’t actually been published yet, but my local library system bought it for me as soon as it came out.

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