Thursday, October 25, 2012

Halloween and Hans at the Sheldon

My notecards have arrived at the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Museum of Art Museum Shop just in time for Halloween. 

How I wish I could go shopping here. Clearly we are kindred spirits. I would purchase everything I see. Here are my Poe card and Halloween Hedgehog card amidst a lovely Halloween display:
Gorgeous display of Halloween treats. Photo by Genevieve Ellerbee, Registrar Extraordinaire

They are in such good company. Photo by Genevieve Ellerbee
 The incredible thing is that my cards on the rack below are adjacent to an artist whose work hangs in my studio. It's an image of an angel who is gifting the world to an imaginative soul. I love the message. It made me cry when I saw it and my sister Amy bought it as a Christmas present for me. I read it every day.  It makes me very happy to see that I am now sharing space with someone who inspires me.
My Dancing Bear, Brementown Musicians, and Hedgehogs in Love. Photo by Genevieve Ellerbee



Monday, October 8, 2012

Featured artist on Artsyshark.com!

Today I am the featured artist on artsyshark.com, a wonderful site run by Carolyn Edlund, the director of the Arts Business Institute. If you're an artist, you should sign up for email blasts from this site. It has so much helpful information for making a business out of your art.

Please check it out! I am very proud of this today, and I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.artsyshark.com/2012/10/08/featured-artist-jessica-boehman/

Friday, October 5, 2012

A Great Horse Came Bounding out of the Sea

The third in my "Beasts in Books" series is the hippocampus, the Greek hybrid seahorse, with forequarters of a horse and hindquarters of a fish. The word derives from the Greek "hippos" (horse) and "kampos" (sea monster); its fantastical nature is therefore found in his very name.  Pausanius says they are part whale, Philostratus says that they are akin to dolphins, while Homer claims they were golden-hooved. 

What would a hippocampus look like? My first inclination was to make him with a fine coat from head to tail, like a seal.  I could imagine them rolling and frolicking in the surf.  But then again, I was imagining a cold water animal.  The waters of the Aegean would not befit such a suit of hair.  Would he be slick, like a dolphin? But then, we would lose his horse-like nature.  I decided to make him a true mythological hybrid, with a fish's scales and tail, but muscular, so he could propel the chariots of Poseidon.  I gave him a ridge of mane all the way down his back, in place of a dorsal fin.  I kept his surroundings fantastical, flanking him with the real (octopodes and fishes) and the imaginary (mermaids).

His text draws from the Argonautica, the text from Apollonius Rhodius, a Hellenistic poet who wrote the story of Jason and the Argonauts.  In this scene, the hippocampus rises from the surf and gallops away. His appearance is seen as an omen, and the men decide to carry the ship on their shoulders across the desert in the sea horse's wake. The speaker is Peleus, an Argonaut whose later fame came from his demigod hero son, Achilles:

"A great horse came bounding out of the sea, a monstrous animal, with his golden mane waving in the air. He shook himself, tossing off the spray in showers. Then, fast as the wind, he galloped away. Peleus was overjoyed and at once explained the portent to the others. `It is clear to me,’ he said, `that Poseidon’s loving wife has just unyoked his team. As for our mother, I take her to be none but the ship herself. Argo carried us in her womb; we have often heard her groaning in her pain. Now, we will carry her. We will hoist her on our shoulders, and never resting , never tiring, carry her across the sandy waste in the track of the galloping horse. He will not disappear inland. I am sure that his hoofprints will lead us to some bay that overlooks the sea."

"The Hippocampus" pencil. Copyright 2012 Jessica Boehman