Finding Fairies in the Woods

 

This is a my pen and India ink illustration of my daughter. 

And while, this work is new, it actually began a long time ago when I took a photograph of her when she was eleven years old. She was wearing her fairy wings in the woods in the back of our Connecticut home. She picked up a stick and this became a magic wand, and then began her pretend-play. 

I believe we had just read a book by the French author Charles Perrault so my daughter and I were under the influence of the Blue Fairy Stories.

When I was a little girl, I too was under the influence of the fairies. I would wake up very early in the morning, just as the sun was rising and tiptoe into our backyard, where I found the perfect magic wand and proceeded to wake up all the flowers.

And so, when I took the original photograph, I was referencing my own childhood memories, which was a reference to Peter Pan and the Blue Fairies and photographs of my mother as a little girl dancing with a group of little girls who looked a lot like Isadora Duncan's dance troupe, The Isadorables, who looked like fairies in the Blue Fairy book.

Creative Friends--you have all these mysterious and magical images circling and dancing around you. And they have been part of your subconscious (and perhaps your conscious mind for all of your life.

Your assignment for this week is to go out in the early morning and find your magic wand. Go for a walk, commune with nature, and let the fairies speak to you. And yes, fairies can also be found in the urban landscape. (It's a matter of looking.) The point is honor your unique influences--childhood books, long-lost friends, that wacky college professor, the old woman at the bus stop wearing one shoe, the doll left at the side of the road, the red ribbon someone tied to an oak tree. These images are yours and yours alone. They are a gift from the universe and a roadmap to your creative destiny.

Let them whisper in your ear and and show you the way. 

Have fun.

Love,

Jamie