Status report about the March class

The March ‘Intro to Fairy Tales’ class is going swimmingly, thanks for asking! We have six full-time students and one who drops in when he can take time away from working on his Ph.D. in mythopoetic studies at the Pacifica Graduate Institute (this is an unusual privilege – don’t go getting any fancy ideas). In terms of age, I think we’ve got a representative from each decade of life from the teens to the fifties (with a few doubling up in the 20s and 30s); in terms of experience, we span the entire spectrum, as well. And it works beautifully! Class discussions are funny, intelligent, and engaging thanks to the cool folks who came out to play this time.

Last night was the third class in this series, so we have officially hit the halfway mark. There’s no turning back now! With each class we move steadily closer to our goal of a complete, polished, original fairy tale for every student. There’s some great imagery on the table, and I’m looking forward to the stories that are in the pipeline.

Check back in three or four weeks (at the very least), when I will post student stories – if the students in question don’t get too shy!

Aimee Mullins on transformation

This video is not, on the surface, related to fairy tales or the creative process. But it is if you look under the hood. Aimee Mullins is a double amputee who has prosthetic legs of every variety – sprinting legs modeled after the hind legs of a cheetah (she broke a world record for speed in the ’90s), carved wooden legs like baroque fantasies, polyurethane legs that look like glass, and more. She talks about that ability that is imperative, vital for artists to have: true sight, the ability to see beyond the surface of things, the ability to breed seemingly unrelated ideas to create exotic, miraculous offspring.

Hopefully her short lecture will inspire you to see new wavelengths of creative light.

Toni Morrison interview

Five-minute interview with Toni Morrison about her writing process and history, and writing in general.

Women, Creativity, Stories

Delicious video of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Toni Morrison, Jessye Norman, Judith Weir on the Charlie Rose Show talking about a collaboration they did called Woman.Life.Song. Interesting, funny, intelligent conversation about creativity, femininity, and more.

NoCloo.com

This image is an illustration from Kay Nielsen for “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.”

Nocloo.com is a treasure trove of Golden Age illustrations. In addition to their awesome blog, they have a big ol’ on-line store from which you can buy beautiful giclee prints of your favorite illos.

Russian Snow White

Check out this beautifully animated Russian version of ‘Snow White’ from 1951:

Courtesy of Coilhouse.

Every once in a while you discover a new blog that is its own reward. Teetering Bulb is such a site. Illustrations that capture everything I love about illustration and lots that I love about fairy tales. Maybe one day I’ll get rich and commission them to illustrate stories for me. (sigh) One can dream …

Alice in Wonderland

How long has it been since you’ve watched the Disney version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’? That’s too long. Take a break and feast your eyes.

One of my favorite fairy tale motifs is transformation. In the fairy tales I love the most, characters shift from human form to animal form and back again with a wanton grace, symbolic of everthing in the world at once. So I now happily point my blog-finger at Ryohei Hase, whose work is a perfect meditation on this very subject.

Courtesy of Coilhouse.

Baba Yaga toys

If you don’t know who Baba Yaga is, you’re missing out on one of the great characters in fairy tale history. She’s dark and light, she’s good and evil. She lives in a little cottage that stinks of carrion and the cottage runs around on big, creepy chicken feet when she feels like a change of venue. The keyhole to her front door is a mouth filled with sharp teeth. She takes a merciless measure of the characters she encounters and acts accordingly.

I love Baba Yaga.

So it is with great delight that I discovered this plush version of Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged house by Melissa Sue Stanley on sale at Etsy.

Thanks again, Super Punch!