“Botanica” by Richard A. Kirk.

The artwork of Richard A. Kirk is delicate, dense, mysterious, formidable. Rendered in ink, graphite and silverpoint, his most successful pieces conjure echoes of everyone from Rackham and Froud to Yerka and Barlow and Beksinski; everything from the The Garden of Earthly Delights to The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke to Haeckel’s monographs; yet the overall aesthetic is very much its own thing, and still evolving.

“Chimera” by Richard A. Kirk.

Kirk’s done illustration work for China Mieville and Clive Barker, and shares Strychnin representation with Coilhouse faves like Madeline von Foerster, Chet Zar and Natalie Shau. In other words, he is a badass. Keep an eye on him.

A few more pieces after the jump. Click their titles to see higher res versions. Also see previous Coilhouse coverage of:

• Amy Ross
• Kris Kuksi
• Harry Clarke
• Keith Thompson
• Zdzislaw Beksinski

It’s one of those Fridays. Nothing going on; nothing doing. Sitting at your desk, playing FreeCell, only stopping to see how far the hands on the clock have progressed. Then to see if the clock is slower than your computer. Then to check your watch, just to be sure. Maybe they’re all wrong; better check your phone. Damn.

Well, as a personal service to you, please allow the FAM to distract you for a number of minutes. Don’t worry, you can always go back to FreeCell. In the meantime let us present to you three of the animated shorts nominated for Academy Awards this year. Yes, I realize that the Academy Awards have already been handed out, thereby robbing these of a modicum of suspense, but I’m sure you’ll survive.

First up is Fabrice O. Joubert’s French Roast, the story of a less than agreeable gentleman who seems to have left his wallet in his other trousers. And just what is the deal with that nun?

Next is Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, directed by Nicky Phelan. It is perhaps best to not let a bitter, elderly woman read fairy tales. She may very well color the story with her own, distinct outlook.

Thirdly: Javier Recio Gracia’s The Lady and the Reaper, the story of a young doctor’s battle with Death over the fate of an elderly woman whose only wish is to be reunited with her departed husband. It’s a fate that she alone will decide.

And lastly we have Logorama directed by François Alaux, Herve de Crecy, and Ludovic Houplain. Police drama! In Los Angeles! A Los Angeles comprised of corporate logos! Will the Michelin Men be able to apprehend Ronald McDonald or will an earthquake kill them all!? Watch and see!

And so today’s FAM draws to a close. For those of you wondering, the fifth and final nominee was Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf or Death from Nick Park which is not on YouTube because the BBC have just a few more lawyers than these other guys. The award this year went to Logorama.

Now, what time is it…

Film courtesy of Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers

Storytelling is, among other things, the art of regulating the flow of information shared with an audience. Playwright Richard Foreman is a foremost master of this art, withholding much that makes our world familiar and meaningful.  In his plays, we are thrust into a room – perhaps suggestive of the human psyche – where information circulates without context, and language often appears to lose its capacity to bear information or even conjure words.  Characters inhabit situations and events transpire, but usually without the problem resolution endemic to most fiction.  Ultimately, we never know whether what we have witnessed is satirical, psychological, resolutely absurdist, or somehow all three concurrently.  Enduring such a bewildering circumstance, the audience is challenged to find or impose order and meaning – never knowing which they are doing.  As you may well imagine, this is not easy art.  It may leave the theatergoer uneasy – even queasy – amid buzzers, flashing lights, warped music, and the voice of un-reason.  One may even wonder whether it’s akin to what Jeremy Bentham said of natural rights: “nonsense upon stilts.”  If, however, the official tastemakers are to be believed, this is theatre operating at a high degree of abstraction, offering sly humor and curious insight into our social and inner worlds.

Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater made its debut in 1968 – a year redolent with meaning for alternative culture – and his plays have been a mainstay of the weird and wonderful (and wise?) ever since.  He has written, directed, and designed more than fifty plays, received five “OBIE” (Off-Broadway) Awards for Best Play of the Year, the Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN Club Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France, and his direction of the 50^th anniversary production of The Threepenny Opera was nominated for both T.O.N.Y. and Grammy Awards.

Foreman directs at Tanglewood, 1968.

For nearly 20 years Foreman has launched his plays from a little theater on the grounds of the historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery in New York City’s East Village.  For those of us for whom an annual trek to Foreman’s demented dimension provides regular respite from worlds we are otherwise doomed to inhabit, I bear bad news: this year’s play is slated to be his last.  And for those new to Foreman, or without the ability to see one of his plays in New York or when they tour Paris or Los Angeles or Berlin, there is good news: he will now be turning his prodigious talents exclusively to film making.

A blinkered guest in Foreman’s book, art, and technology engorged SOHO loft – one of the original lofts designed by George Maciunas – I feebly tossed feeble questions before the “Genius” himself.  Despite his telling me that he “didn’t like people,” Foreman was a good sport, ruminating on whether alternative- and counter-cultures have futures, the keys to a vital art scene and to becoming an artist, the meta-politics of theatre, and his mystical yearnings.  Alas, I still don’t understand why existentialists get out of bed in the morning.  The Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers maintained surveillance (see above) and the remainder was captured by my electro-ear (see below).

COILHOUSE: What first brought you to lower Manhattan?
RICHARD FOREMAN: I moved to lower Manhattan because, in the middle 1960s, I got friendly with Jonas Mekas, who was head of the underground film movement, and a close friend of his was George Maciunas, who was the head of Fluxus.  At a certain point, George made his art setting up artists’ coops.  It was totally illegal.  I was coming down all the time to look at underground films.  At one point, I told George that I was ready to take the risk and move downtown, and he got ten people to buy a building together.  Starving artists did all the work of converting the manufacturing lofts into living lofts.  I was going to films Jonas was showing all the time and, at one point, I dared to tell him that I was writing plays. I showed him a play. He allowed me to show it at his theater when the fire department closed it after they said that he didn’t have a proper license to show films, since it was a play.

Photo via Real Time Arts.

In a earlier, simpler time I would describe Ron Pippin’s work as “steampunk” for featuring as it does, bits and baubles comprised of brass and glass, replete with olde looking labels. No! That is wrong. We don’t do that anymore.

That said, Pippin’s work is bad-ass, featuring as it does evil looking machinery bonded to animals, turning them into bizarre and beautiful biomechanoids; cyborg mammals found wandering through steel forests. His portfolio also happens to feature a fair number of complex and mysterious specimen boxes which one can never have too many of.

Today the FAM presents David Lynch’s 1970 short film, The Grandmother. The heart warming story of a boy who — neglected and abused by his family — grows a kindly old lady to provide with the affection he craves. A silent film, the characters interact with abstract soundtrack cues. It’s strange and undeniably artsy; artsy enough to be mistaken as a parody of an artsy movie. And yet, whether for its brevity or Lynch’s youth, it is most certainly one of his most straightforwardly discernible films, devoid of the extraneous imagery woven throughout his later films, confounding and misdirecting the audience at every opportunity. Whether that is counted as being a good thing or not depends, I suppose, on how much of a David Lynch fan you are.

Graham Annable’s work exemplifies the best in animation. Devoid of dialogue, his films rely solely on the ability of their characters to convey emotion; their stories told with moving images, sometimes in conjunction with music. It’s animation distilled down to its most basic elements, devoid of the extra trappings that at best get in the way of story and at worst promotes plain old laziness.

In other words, Annable’s work is really good. You should take a look.

Hollis Hawthorne, Bay Area, 2008. (Photo by Alicia Sanguiliano, I think? If not, just let me know and I’ll update.)

Incredible, joyful news: Hollis Hawthorne has fully emerged from her coma.

Many of you will recall an urgent plea that went up on Coilhouse exactly a year ago, to the day, titled Performer/Cyclist Hollis Hawthorne Needs Our Help. Hollis, a lion-hearted young woman from the bay area performing arts/activist community, was traveling through India by motorcycle with her beau, Harrison, when tragedy struck– a driving accident left her bleeding out from severe head trauma in the middle of a busy road while Harrison frantically performed CPR to keep her alive. Twenty minutes passed before some good Samaritans stopped to pick them up and drove her to a hospital.

Hollis was in a vegetative state, thousands of miles from home and in dire need of highly specialized medical care– care unavailable to her in Chennai. Time was of the essence, but Hollis’ mother (who had rushed to her side) was told that they would have to pay $150,000 up front for medical transport from India to the States– an impossibly huge sum of money. As an uninsured American traveling abroad, Hollis was stranded.

“For the Love of Hollis” benefit in Portland, March 2009. Photo by Brooke Dillon.

Horrified word quickly spread online. If the internet were truly as cynical or callous a place as they say, people could have easily have dismissed Hollis for making a “reckless” choice to travel without insurance. But hey, guess what? Humanity prevailed. Turns out there really is something to this idea of a global tribe! Thousands of donations began pouring in from all over the world for this feisty, foundering girl we could all relate to. A dollar here, ten dollars there, it quickly added up. Across the country, massive benefits were held by concerned friends and strangers alike– auctions and raffles and kissing booths, dance performances, marching band processions, puppet shows. It was an incalculably huge and steady outpouring of support coming from every direction, “for Hollis, the doer, the mover, the shaker, the dancer, the muse, the generous, the dumpster queen, the friend.”

Meanwhile, her chart was reviewed and accepted by Stanford Medical–one of the best hospitals in the world– as a charity case. After three long, anxious weeks, $100k was raised. Hollis was able to return to California in a discount air ambulance. Her community rejoiced and folks flocked to visit Hollis at her bedside, to talk and cuddle, trying to coax her back from oblivion. But her fight, and her kin’s 24-7 vigil at her side, was only beginning. On March 24, 2009, Harrison wrote:

What does it mean to be in a coma? What does it mean to wake up? What defines consciousness? Where are the lines between ‘coma’, ‘persistent vegetative state’, ‘minimally conscious’ and ‘fully conscious’?  Hollis waxes and wanes between these and nobody can really say what’s going on behind the surface of her eyes.  I do know this; Hollis is beating all the odds.

Ever since the story broke, I’ve been checking in on Hollis’ progress via Friends of Hollis Hawthorne and Help Holli Heal. The latter is a site updated regularly by Hollis’ devoted mother, Diane, who has stayed with her daughter through this entire harrowing post-accident ordeal, sleeping on a cot beside her, holding her hand in the dark. Diane’s entries are rarely anything less than three-hanky tearjerkers! But her tone has remained steadfastly hopeful.

Hollis, healing up. (Photos via The Hindu, Eliza S., Angela Mae, Diane Allison.)

Eventually, Hollis was moved from Stanford to a rehab facility near Diane’s home in Nashville, TN. Loyal friends still visit as often as they can. Continuing benefits to help pay her overwhelming medical bills have been held as recently as last month. (If you want to donate, click here.) With the help of doctors, healers, medications and physical therapy, Hollis has shown slow but steady improvements these past few months. She has been fighting very, very hard.

There is so much love surrounding this girl. So many people –family and friends and strangers alike– are rooting for her. Why? Because any number of us could just as easily have wound up in a similarly nightmarish predicament, had our luck been different. Because a situation like hers reminds us just how easy it is to give, and to care. Because all of us weirdos, us wanderers, we’re in this together. Because she is luminous and we cannot afford to lose her:

Photo by Kyle Hailey.

And now, finally, she is waking up. Harrison, who visited her last week, just posted this update:

HOLLIS IS NOT AT ALL IN A COMA ANYMORE!!! Yes! You read that correctly! Scream, shout, jump up and down! Have a shot! Dance! Kiss somebody! It’s the real deal, seen it with mine own two eyes! She is awake and talking and present and brilliant and amazing!

The folks over at A Journey Round My Skull were so kind as to scan a 1923 copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, illustrated by Harry Clarke. Clarke, an accomplished turn of the century stained glass artist and illustrator, relished anatomy and minutiae, obsessively rendering every refined cheekbone, elongated toe, hair follicle and fabric fold. I spent at least an hour poring over this Flickr set in wonderment, pausing to view each hyper-detailed image at high resolution.

Though Clarke was Aubrey Beardsley’s contemporary, and they share a fondness of stylization and monochrome, I think he surpasses mister B. not only with the amount of detail packed into his illustrations, but also with the darkness radiating from each plate. There is something inherently unhinged about these characters and a certain demonic unrest dances behind their thin, sallow faces, even in moments of outward tranquility. These haunted faces, fragile silhouettes,  and rich patterns have earned Harry Clarke a spot among my top favorite illustrators of all time, right next to Von Bayros and, of course, uncle Vania. Hit the jump for a few more.

Meryem Yildiz’s world is a prescient place of whispered warnings, subtle secrets and an eerie language of memory, of reveries, of loss.  Strange, stark, images of ostensibly quotidian objects – “mementos, hidden treasures, dusty mirrors, nonchalant cats, mason jars, pages lost and found” – are laden with layer upon fragile layer of ambiguous allegory and understated intent.  There is a structured discontinuity here; moments fragmented, multiplied, merged yet again, that creates an uncanny whole – broken spaces full and empty, austere and adorned.  A Delphian dream, interrupted, repeating itself over and over.

A bit of  biography from Meryem’s website provides an intriguing glimpse into how her diverse background has influenced her work, manifests itself in current endeavors, and inspires future projects and collaborations – and the artist has herself kindly answered a few of our questions, elaborating on these points.

Born in Montréal from a French-Canadian mother and a Turkish father, Meryem was exposed to a variety of outlooks at a very young age, driving her to the diversity and malleability of perspectives … self-taught, Mme Yildiz’s work arises essentially from a wise use of unconventional resources. Throughout the creative process and at the heart of her work, Meryem Yildiz never forgets cognition, whether hers or others, nor the messages the human mind wishes to express (or to suppress).  It is no surprise then, to learn that she majored in psychology at McGill University and completed a graduate diploma in translation at Concordia University.

COILHOUSE: The duality you feel influences your work –  from your background and  exposure to different and disparate outlooks  –  can you expound upon this?
MERYEM YILDIZ: With my upbringing, I was confronted to two different worlds. This duality is a functional one: I love each culture without subduing the other, and without melding them into an indiscernible hodgepodge. When one is removed from the other, my reality and my self no longer make sense. The same applies to how I approach most of my work. By favouring diptychs, I can illustrate two facets of a single story. Whether it is a moment cut in half, a before or an after, or elements of a same narrative: one could not be without the other.

Ahead of Tim Burton’s newest, Hot Topic flavored attempt to completely discredit his career as a director, the British Film Institute has released this restoration of the very first film based on Lewis Carroll’s classic, from 1903 directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow. At just over nine and a half minutes it is a “greatest hits” version, choosing to frame each scene based on John Tenniel’s famous illustrations for the book. In doing so, it features characters and situations that do not make appearances in most modern versions; namely the events concerning the Duchess. The BFI also points out that, like Burton, Hepworth also cast his wife as the shrill and psychotic Queen (although Burton casts his as the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass and we can assume that here Hepworth’s wife plays The Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), and even makes an appearance himself as the Frog Footman. Their cat also puts in some screen time as the Cheshire Cat; an effect that is at least up to par with the computer generated special effects found in the upcoming film. It’s a lovely bit of history, though one that requires a knowledge of the material to fully appreciate. Certainly much less to ask of your viewer than enduring Johnny Depp made up like a clown for two hours.