ghost stories

I've been working over the past few days on a series of pieces that will accompany the  eleanor and the tiny machines collages I made months back, which have been waiting patiently until I could get to them.  Maybe it's the season, maybe it's just my general penchant for the gothic, but it seemed like they called for a ghost story, in the same way the summer house series did somehow--the changeling story of that project.  They are actually going into different longer book projects at this point with different focuses, but they both have in common that they started visually then moved to written (as opposed to the other way around, which is more how I work in general.)

If you haven't watched the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, I more than recommend it, it straddling so well the border between the truly supernatural and the emotional reality of family. I think I best described it as the sensation of watching someonething with your heart in your throat, then something spooky happens and it jumps into your lap.  I love it so much. Because it is not just a haunted house story, but a family in crisis story.  On the surface, a group of sibling's reeling from the earlier suicide of their mother, and the current suicide of their younger sister.  But it's so much more.

And so beholden to the ghosts that walk among us--addiction, madness, loss--the real things that haunt.  Stephen King has always been a master at this, though sometimes he gets too into character development and loosens the wire too much on his horror, which then gets dragged along. (i started watching Castle Rock last night, which is probably why I am thinking of King so much this morning.) But I am most interested where our own ghosts and the supernatural ghosts inhabit and rub up against each other and cause static--the best horror comes from that place.