Between lightcross and shadowcross, Story awaits…

This entry is a website designed to demonstrate the creator’s roleplaying characters AND biography. (The artwork is used by the site creator with the written permission of the artist.)

You can see the whole thing here.

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Here’s an art gallery, presented in three pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

This is a link to my art gallery on DeviantArt. This is what I do.

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Words, words, words.

Shakespeare knew. He knew the power of language. It’s a power that is overwhelming, that can shape lives and leave you laughing or weeping over a simple turn of phrase. It’s a power that has infinite possibilities.

I’ve been fascinated with that power since I first learned the alphabet. I have in my possession a story-about a unicorn, of course-that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. It isn’t anything particularly unique, or noteworthy, but it’s a reminder that even then I was exploring the incredible idea that words can do anything. Entire worlds and the people that filled them were at my fingertips, if I would only just pick up a pencil and prove their existence. My imagination was my playground, and each sentence I wrote was a monkey-bar by which I could swing into the next adventure.

And it’s still true. Simply put, I’m an addict. I’ve tried to imagine a life in which I never wrote again in any form and come up short. There’s a rush in knowing that you can shape someone’s perceptions and expectations, that you can convince anyone of anything, that you can make a person feel exactly what you want them to-just as long as you have the right words.

So I write.

I’ve experienced other art. I play the clarinet. The way that I feel when I’m surrounded by music is incredible. A simple melody can be full of emotion, and being part of that…it’s indescribable. But. It isn’t mine. It’s realizing someone else’s dream, some genius composer either long dead or far away. Amazing as it is to be caught up in the notes and rhythms of a masterpiece, it doesn’t compare to creating my own masterpiece. Maybe that’s being a little too generous with my abilities-who am I to judge?-but the fact of the matter is that my symphony will be in words.

Every story that I have written, from childhood to this very moment (and hopefully on into the future) has been an exercise of joy in imagination. Not all of them have been the most creative, but to my memory there is not a one of them that didn’t carry a little spark of joy or excitement with its inception. Even the challenges I embrace for pushing me to the limits of what I am capable of accomplishing with only a scrawl of letters on a page or a screen. My daydreams in class are more likely to include the next events of my latest project than the cute guy a few rows over-because once inspiration hits me, it’s inescapable. Not that I would want to escape it.

I’m not defined by what I do. Who I am outside the written word is a spacey, kind of klutzy and pretty average college student without a major. I prefer listening to people over speaking out in a large group, so I come off as a little shy. I’m an unabashed nerd-fantasy books, sci-fi shows, Dungeons & Dragons and all. The outside world knows me best for my bone-crushing hugs; I’m a firm believer that hugging-that physical contact in general-is the best possible way to show affection. I appreciate the cheerfulness and optimism that people seem to see in me. But in spite of all this, there are times that I want to broadcast to the world: I am a writer; if you have not read what I am capable of creating, if you have not seen me where I truly shine, then how can you know me?

Here I lay before you my talent, my passion, the thing that I can feel confident bringing into the world for all to see. These are my words.

This is the link to her page.

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Shaping Life

Name: Charlotte Lenox

My hands are often covered with graphite, sand, snow, clay, ink, blood. They bear the scratches and marks of the places they’ve been, and the things they’ve shaped. They’ve touched life that is black, staining, and imagined, and red, dripping, and real. The left has killed while the right has created in recognition of the fine line between that which exists, and that which does not. From the snow I shaped giant snails, patting snow into the grooves of their shells while marveling at their size. With thread and needles that stabbed my fingers, I meshed beads of ceramic and bone into amulet bags that no one would wear. From my Pigma pens come dragons, every black stroke between their lines releasing the pain in my body and transforming it into something beautiful. Through my camera, I have frozen light.

What would I do if I couldn’t use my hands?

My hands are small and soft despite the abuse they’ve suffered during my creative moments. I have always joked that all of the fish slime I’ve touched soaked into them long ago. From the slime, I created webs until a hose washed them free of my hands. Cupping them together and scooping them through the pond near my home, I created safe havens for water boatmen. On foggy car windows, I drew eyes to help me watch the world as it flew by. Anything is usable as far as I’m concerned.

But most of all, with my hands, I shape people (who are sometimes dragons). In writing, much like artistry, I can shape anything. Unlike artistry, I must do so with care, or I risk creating enemies along with friends – and sometimes friends become something more. Sometimes they share my pain, and vice versa. Sometimes they become so full of life that I long to touch them and discover that the imagined has crossed into the real. I look into their hearts, and in so doing I look back into mine. Through dreams, I’ve spent days in their shoes and have seen the world from their perspectives. Sometimes they become such an indelible part of my world that I can’t live without them, but I love to write and use my hands, so the risk is worth it.

When I had no friends, my characters were there for me. Working with them filled in the loneliness. The simple wonder of shaping life (and sometimes death), both real and imagined, helped me pull through. I give my characters life, and in return they give me theirs.

Link to text plus illustrations is here.

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Also view here.

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What follows is this entry’s text. You also NEED to see the image in this entry.

Entry #1: Spinning & Dyeing

One of my favorite hobbies is handspinning yarn and dyeing it with natural dyes. For thousands of years, all textiles, everything from sails to lace, were made from yarns spun by hand and dyed, if they were dyed at all, with dyestuffs gathered from nature. Now we have machines to spin the yarn and then weave it, and petrochemicals to dye it with. Many of us do not even know how a spindle is used, or what it means to mordant wool. Spinning and dyeing have turned from a necessary part of life to an esoteric hobby. After all, if there is no need to spin, why take the trouble?

There are many answers to this question. Perhaps the simplest is, “Because it’s fun.” But “fun” does not capture the essence of the craft. The essence is transformation – the transformation from fluffy wool into tight-spun yarn, from undyed white into brilliant color. It is taking disorder and creating order and beauty from it. It is creating something that never existed before, and that will never be replicated. In short, it is sheer creativity.

The picture shows yarns I’ve spun and dyed, along with the spindles I spun it on. (No, I did not make the spindles; they are there because they are the tools I used, and as display devices for the yarn on them.) The larger spindle has undyed wool, the smaller one has some dog hair from my friend’s poodle.

Dyes, from left to right:
(All dyes are on wool)

Dark green: Onion skins overdyed with indigo
Yellow: Onion skins
Bluish-greenish-gray: (wound into ball) Onion skins, mordanted* with copper sulfate, overdyed with indigo
Magenta: Cochineal
Gray-blue: Indigo on gray wool, no mordant
About the Dyes

Cochineal

Cochineal is an insect that lives on the pads of prickly pear cactus. It builds webs that look kind of like miniature cotton balls. If you squish one of these webs between your fingers, they will be stained with bright red juice, and if you then wipe your fingers on your clothes, you will have a really hard time getting the stain out. The red juice is the dye from the body of the insect that lives in the web. To use the dye, you have to pick the webs off the cactus pads one by one until you have as many as you need. It takes a lot of bugs to dye a skein of yarn, too, because the amount of dye in each insect is so small. (And yes, I gathered the cochineal for that skein myself. That wasn’t so fun.) But the results are gorgeous – cochineal has to be one of the brightest of natural dyes.

Onion Skins

These are the papery skins of normal onions, the yellow kind. To use them for dye, you collect a bunch of onion skins, simmer them until the water is dark-colored, strain out the skins, and add your mordanted* wool. Then you just wait for the wool to get to be the color you want. It’s a popular natural dye because it’s easy to get, makes a nice color, and uses a comparatively simple process.

Indigo

You have probably heard of indigo; it is the classic blue-jeans dye, although most “indigo” used on blue jeans today is in fact synthetic. There are only a few plants that produce a colorfast blue dye, and indigo is by far the most famous. It’s also a little unusual in that it doesn’t require a mordant; instead of being absorbed by the fibers, indigo just sticks to the surface of the fibers and rubs off eventually. This, incidentally, is what causes blue jeans to fade.

*”Mordanting” is the process of treating the fiber with chemicals so that it will absorb the dye better. This makes the colors brighter and more durable. There are too many mordants, with too many different effects, to describe here, but the one I used for all the examples (except where otherwise noted) is alum (pickling alum, the kind you can get in the grocery store).

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What follows is this entry’s text. You NEED to see the site to see the original paintings that go with it.

It’s a great compliment when people pay me good money to make a special painting for them. If it’s to be a portrait, not everyone can come and sit while I push paint around a canvas for hours on end. So they send me photos of their children and grandchildren, pets, and even houses or favourite landscapes.

They want me to re-create an image that is personal to them, realistic and instantly recognisable. They choose photos that are about how they see themselves, and how they want others to see them.

I love the continual challenge of striving to meet the very particular expectations required of me. It means I get the opportunity to paint subjects I wouldn’t normally be able to choose, and develop delightful friendships with people all around the world. And I get paid for doing it – how cool is that!

But there is a flip-side to my passion for painting, which may be more about myself. It starts with a pure white blank canvas, and no plan. If thoughts and imagery try to butt in, I push them away, until my mind is completely cleared. Only then, do I pick-up the first brush to hand, dip into a random colour, and just paint.

If the brush is large, the paint strokes turn out broad and flowing; sometimes the marks are small scribblings that make no sense at all. But on I go, putting one colour next to another, adding shape, tone and texture, until suddenly, to my own amazement an image emerges, that ’speaks’ to me. And then some other part of my brain takes over.

The ‘Red-Haired Madonna’ was created this way. I have loved being a mother, and somehow with this painting I said everything about how it felt when my boys were small enough to keep safe in my arms. For a few short years, I had the power to protect them from the bad in the world. How different that painting is compared to ‘Mother of the Missing’; the fear and terror in that haunted expression were dredged-up deep from some frightened place.

The still watcher ‘In Disguise’ could be a metaphor for those times when I can’t always be what I want to be; occasions when I have to adopt an extra personna to hide behind, or get to fight for me; then biding my time until the crisis passes, I can then remove the layers and relax into myself again.

When I was younger, it seemed that any troubles I had were mostly self-inflicted. Being a quick learner, I dealt with that. As I get older I’m having to fight on the side of the angels, against forces outside my control, or experience. The old skirmishes have provided a useful apprenticeship.

I used to dream of living on a Mediterannean island where I could spend my time languishing in a ‘Summer Daze’. I live on that island now, atop a mountain overlooking the sea, but still I dream of being somewhere else. (see Figure in a Landscape)

Friends and other artists are a constant joy. I paint about those I meet day to day, in reality or in cyberspace.

At the end of the day I have the love of my life and best friend. We’re an ‘Odd Couple’; my grandmother would have understood us. People likee us, she would say, were “Somat together and nowt apart”. And if you don’t understand broad northern English dialect, that means ’something together and nothing apart’.

So are my abstract expressionist paintings autobiographical? Or are they like characters in a book, conjured by artistic licence and imagination? You be the judge

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