This week may be the perfect storm of projects and coincidences--that everything that I am focusing on relates to each other thing so completely. There is the Holmes project, buzzing along now and three days into NAPOWRIMO (I have about a dozen total pieces now and hope to round it off this month.) So much of my research is picking through facts and fictions and getting at the heart of the mythology. It's a dark subject matter, but I am, as always, curious about the local history aspect. (this is the same girl who will devour any Chicago book, history tour, or show on pbs. I also have a weird fascination with the World's Fair in general (though I have met at least one Columbia student who knew more trivia than I do.) This week, I also started some collages to go with the textual pieces, which are turning out nicely and will make a nice artist book or zine in the future. I also sent off some of the first written pieces to a favorite journal, so we'll see how they fare...
This week, I am also printing copies of MANSION, the Slender Man anthology edited by Kristin Garth and Justin Karcher, which will be available shortly on the dgp site. I'm hoping to have some copies available for sale at next weekend's Artists & Scholars Colloquium, since it seems so very appropriate. Our own project, necessary violence will be installed today, along with most of the STRANGE FEVERS exhibit, some of which is already on the walls. The Colloquium next Saturday will feature the official opening and artist discussion, as well as my Spooky Little Girls Roundtable and the Oddities Reading.
These two facets would seem to have things only tangentially in common, but actually the more I read about Holmes, the more I think about the fascination he evoked in the public. Fun fact: after he was caught and right before he was executed. they were on the verge of offering tours of the famous "Murder Castle" but there was a mysterious, most likely intentional, fire set (though it could have been unintentional, it was badly and cheaply constructed and would have went up like a matchbox.) I would have suspected that such dark fascinations would have been a more contemporary thing, but according to the tabloids, even turn of the century Americans loved their serial killers. Holmes himself was said to be influenced by the sensationalistic coverage of Jack the Ripper overseas.
We've thought about a focus on true crime next fall, but I am still amidst my hesitation of idolizing men who do horrible things to women (though we've joked this does not preclude focusing on women doing horrible things to men, or just horrible things in general...lol..) And granted, obviously, I'm a hypocrite writing a series of poems about HH. Holmes (though it's definitely about the women more and more.) Which brings us full circle back around to the Slender Man girls and their penchant for violence--about horrific little girls in particular, who are always a prime subject for artmaking...
