Persephone Returns, attributed to illustrators: Mike Harrison and Justin Maller
Almost immediately my mind began wandering back through other images and stories from mythology that lend to a visual influence. In my final year of undergraduate study my Latin professor required some form of creative composition (art, haiku, etc) that was inspired by Latin text, and one of my classmates did a really stunning drawing of Icarus who drowned as a result of foolhardily not listening to his father. The image this student created has had an impact on me though I only saw it once and can only remember that it was made up of shapes blocked out between black lines as if it were stained glass. This memory has affected some of my recent work using polygon cutouts of dyed fabrics and arranging them on black backgrounds so that black lines show through between them.
Mythology continues to pop up as visual stimulation. Last semester in my fibers class, I read a book called Material Matters, in which there were multiple articles about Arachne and Penelope. I particularly liked the retelling of Penelope's story in relation to textile hand-crafts. Basically, while her husband, Odysseus, was fighting in the Trojan War, Penelope held suitors off by telling them she had to finish the cloth she was weaving. Every day she would weave and every night she would take out what she had woven that day.
Then of course thinking of Penelope makes me think of the movie, which I have to say I quite enjoyed - particularly how the fantastical meets the nitty-gritty natural human world (the art direction, sets and costumes).
The costumes were designed by Jill Taylor and I find them to be just fantastical enough to be convincing. Makes me wish I could live there.
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