Check out this beautiful custom chess set, featured on the website English Russia. It seems to be a work in progress but, from the description, we gather that the grand scheme is for an ornately carved table concealing a glass chessboard and ivory pieces. Turning a handle shaped like a flamingo’s head will activate a mechanism that lifts the board out of the table and ready for play.
The work of an unnamed Ukrainian master ivory carver, each piece is a highly-detailed rendering of a Tenniel illustration – white players from Through the Looking-Glass and black players from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. See the website for pictures of the man at work and a longer description of the project. Let’s hope that pictures of the finished work make it online too.
Cirque du Wonderland was created by Dylan & Jo, a mom-and-pop artistic collaboration collectively known as Cart Before The Horse. Details of the work, which was a commission, can be seen on Jo’s blog. Other Alice in Wonderland creations which are for sale can be browsed on the Cart Before The Horse website, including this rather fetching Cheshire Cat.
Camille Rose Garcia: ‘De hertogin zat op een krukje in het midden, met een baby op schoot’, 2010
There’s an exhibit at the Veluws Museum Nairac in Barneveld, Netherlands, from June 12th till October 30th. It celebrates the many looks of Alice, featuring illustrations from Tenniel through Camille Rose Garcia. They also claim to have “een bijzondere Aboriginal uitgave” (special edition Aboriginal?) In addition to the art, visitors “make a journey through Wonderland, where a number of themes and life-size figures are depicted.See yourself in the strange mirrors, sliding in to the perpetual tea party celebration with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare and take a look at the animal room.” (Text google-translated from their blurb.) The museum is at Langstraat 13, 3771 BA Barneveld.
The Tinman Gallery in Spokane, Washington is hosting an Alice in Wonderland Invitational from July 30 to August 21, 2010. The event, which features paintings, drawings and sculptures inspired by portrayals of Alice 1865 through 2010, was reviewed by the Pacific Northwest Inlander last Wednesday:
While much of the exhibit artwork pulls directly from literature, others explore Alice in Wonderland’s more adult themes. Ric Gendron’s Feed Your Head is a provocative triptych complete with pot leaves and hookah. Is he pro-drug use? Against? Curiouser and curiouser.
Bernadette Vielbig asks a similar question with her Lewis Carroll Understood the Future of Modern Medicine, a refined aesthetic piece using weathered maple, eerily accurate cast plaster face and hands and a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. More…
The exhibition will be formally opened this evening with an Artist’s Reception from 5-9pm.
Alice in Wonderland Invitational Tinman Gallery, 811 West Garland Avenue, Spokane, WA 99205
Free and open to the public, July 30 to August 21, 2010
There’s an interesting anecdote in a June 4th 2010 New York Times article about Pawn Stars, a History Channel television show about Las Vegas’s Gold and Silver Pawn Shop.
Shelby Tashlin of Las Vegas walked to the counter clutching a boxed edition of “Alice in Wonderland” containing an etching and 12 lithographs by Salvador Dalí. Ms. Tashlin’s opening thrust: the Dali prints were limited in number. Mr. Harrison’s parry: “He’s pretty well known for fudging numbers.” Mr. Harrison spoke about etching versus lithography and allowed that Dalí and Lewis Carroll were a “wonderful combination.” Then it was time for business. Ms. Tashlin wanted $10,000. Mr. Harrison asked if she had taken a little blue pill, and offered $5,000.
She politely declined and walked away still clutching “Alice in Wonderland.” “I was hoping it would go the other way, but I’m not surprised,” she would tell a reporter later.
Thanks to Mahendra Singh for reminding us that 136 years ago today Lewis Carroll began his composition of The Hunting of the Snark, “and thus, in a semiotic and hypermetaphysical manner, began decomposing the non-existence of The Hunting of the Snark.” Read more at his excellent blog.
In celebration of Snark Day, here is the full text the first edition, published by Macmillan and Co. in 1876.
In lieu of a rendition of “Happy Birthday To You,” we suggest listening to Billy Connolly as the Bellman in the 1987 April Fool’s Day performance of Mike Batt’s Snark musical. When the musical was originally released as a concept album in 1986, the part of the Bellman was sung by Cliff Richard, possibly the only time Billy Connolly and Cliff Richard have proved substitutable in popular culture.
Finally, Mr. Singh (an LCSNA member and Knight Letter editor) is publishing his own beautiful Snark illustrations, coming out November 2nd, 2010, from Melville House, and it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon.com here. Only $10.08! (Don’t be fooled by Amazon’s “look inside,” it links to another edition.) Previews of many of Singh’s illustrations can be seen on his blog, and I’ve reprinted one below.
From Mahendra Singh's illustrations for Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark
The Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA is currently offering a two-for-one deal on Wonderland-inspired photography exhibits. (Actually, both exhibitions are free and open to the public, which makes it an even better deal.)
Maggie Taylor is an artist of the digital imaging process. The exhibition features 40 of her photo montages created from 2003 to 2009, including 23 works from the project “Almost Alice: New Illustrations of Wonderland.” The illustrations were united with the text in 2008 in the now hard-to-find Modernbook Editions edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You can see more of the illustrations on this website.
Abelardo Morell, like Maggie Taylor, sculpts digital images but the results are strikingly different. This exhibition features fifteen images which were created by combining cutouts of Tenniel’s illustrations with Morell’s own photographs. The exhibition has been organized by the Silver Eye Center for Photography as part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Photographs by Abelardo Morell
People of Pittsburgh, have you seen these exhibitions? What did you think of them?
Translating a Japanese manga cartoon into English must be a trip down the rabbit hole itself. Thankfully, some unknown hero has taken the plunge and translations of all three volumes of Heart No Kuni No Alice or Alice in the Country of Hearts (by author Quinrose and artist Hoshino Soumei) are being published this spring. Volumes One and Two are available now and Volume Three will be released on June 1st.
Buy two and preorder one from the publisher Tokyopop, or from Amazon.
And the winner of the 2009 Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award is…
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
By Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by Oleg Lipchenko
ISBN 978-0-88776932-0
Horray for Oleg!
“…Oleg Lipchenko has turned this classic story into a rich expression for both the youngest reader greeting Alice for the first time and those who remember reading the original Alice as children…Lipchenko’s illustrations are more than images on a page, they are a homage to the surreality and humour of Carroll’s text as well as a meticulously and brilliantly constructed vision of a longstanding tradition in children’s literature.” – Jury’s comments
The prize is awarded by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY):
THE ELIZABETH Mrazik-Cleaver Award was established in 1985 following the death of Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver, one of Canada’s pre-eminent book illustrators. In her will, Cleaver left a fund of $10,000 dollars for an award to be given annually in recognition of outstanding artistic talent in a Canadian picture book. The recipient receives a cheque for $1,000 dollars and a certificate.
The Cleaver Award is administered by a committee of three members of the Canadian section of the International Board on Books for Young People. The recipient is a Canadian illustrator of a picture book published in Canada in English or French during the previous calendar year. To be eligible, the book must be a first edition and contain original illustrations. All genres are considered: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, folk and fairy tales.
This is the first time an edition of work by Lewis Carroll has won the prize.
In addition to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Oleg has illustrated Humpty Dumpty and Others: Selected Nursery Rhymes and a number of Russian children’s tales. Many of these illustrations can be viewed onhis website.
Is it the surreal and episodic nature of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that inspires so many collage-style artistic responses, or is it just what good twenty-first century artists do? Handmade “vintage” jewelry, steampunk fashion, photo collage: it’s all very po-mo, isn’t it? However, as the following demonstrates, the results can be pretty cool.
"A Mad Tea Party" by Kenneth Rougeau
Kenneth Rougeau has created eighteen illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (enough for a new edition!) using fragments of previous illustrations, vintage photographs and other assorted photo stock. The resulting digital collages can be viewed on his Flickr photostreamor purchased from Etsy.com, where he sells under the vendor name Synchronicity 313. Though fragments of each creation are familiar, the overall effect is new and fun to explore.
"Steampunk Alice in Wonderland Plays Croquet" by Ramona Szczerba
Ramona Szczerba’s Alice is more muted but no less effective: “Hand painted, hand cut and hand assembled with vintage images on a stretched canvas, it is embellished with Thai lace paper, ivory crocheted trim, brass rivets and a single brass rose on Alice’s hat.” It’s the essence of steampunk. The collage is for sale on Etsy.com where Ramona, previously featured on this blog, sells under the name of her childhood imaginary friend Winona Cookie.
Alice in Wonderland Charm Bracelet by Janine Byrom
Janine Byrom of Cherished Trinkets, makes sweet fairytale pieces out of brass and bows and, in all probability, sugar and spice. She sells from her home in Manchester, England, but has a flat rate worldwide shipping fee. Her “Alice in Wonderland Collection” contains necklaces, charm bracelets and greetings cards, all for the little girl who loves pink, however old she is.
Of course, post-modernity has its ugly babies too. How about a Disney 2010 Alice in Wonderland-theme Yahtzee dice cup? It’s certainly contemporary. We should all feel very proud of our century. Keep up the good work!
