The Blog of the LCSNA
British artist Margaret P. Timson crafts one-of-a-kind sculptures in polymer clay, mixed media, and selected accessories. They are around 9 to 12 inches high, the size of a Barbie doll. Here is her Etsy shop (prices are in odd dollar amounts, converted from Euros or Pounds, I’m sure).
Phlizz, from the Lewis Carroll Genootschap (the Dutch Lewis Carroll Society), “distinguishes itself from [our] society’s print journal dodo/nododo: Phlizz is directed towards the society’s relations, while dodo/nododo is a journal in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, aiming at a broader audience.” The splash page of Phlizz in English is here. Click on the “Huidig nummer” (current number) tab to get to the actual articles, most all of them in Dutch.
Labyrinth, the Russian publisher, has issued the Alice dyad in luxurious Russian-language editions with lots of “extras”: tip-ins, fold-outs, pop-ups, inserts, booklets, ribbons, etc. View a video about Looking-glass here. One easy way to order them is through Vasha-Kniga, a Russian bookstore in Brooklyn: Wonderland, Looking-Glass.
The wonderful San Francisco Center for the Book, “a center of inspiration for the book arts world, featuring the art & craft of letterpress printing, bookbinding, and artists bookmaking,” which also hosted us a reception for us at our Spring 2017 gathering, has an annual fundraiser, the Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival, which features artist prints made by, yes, a 7-ton 1924 Buffalo Springfield steamroller, with spectacular results.
Artist Rik Olson was inspired this year to create Down the Rabbit Hole (at left or above–and much larger–if you click on the post link), with the Alice characters and the steamroller itself! The print is 42 x 42 inches (of course), and sells for $500. He made ten prints, of which three are left at this writing. Contact Cheryl Ball cherylball@sfcb.org for details. A great print supporting a great cause!
Bonus: Rik has confirmed that he put exactly 42 hearts in the print.
Belgian cartoonist Steven Dhondt (Stedho) created a(n almost) wordless riff on a modern Alice—“Why Is a Raven on a Hoteldesk?”—for a magazine called Brussels in Shorts, issue 2, published by Oogachtend in 2014, but available for online viewing here.
(Thanks to Craig Yoe! for the tip.)
For the last six years, California artist Phyllis Davidson has been creating a series of oil paintings exploring different “aspects” of Alice. She says:
Aspects of Alice is a series of paintings not illustrating but inspired by and celebrating the stories. While my Alices vary racially and are at different life stages, they retain the resolute spirit of the original, neither meek nor obedient, but adventurous, inquisitive and strong. My rendition of her entourage includes recognizable images of Carroll’s famous characters as well as freshly invented characters for whom new stories must be imagined.
Lewis Carroll envisaged an alternative world with outsize characters and it’s own logic. He encouraged his readers to give free rein to their imagination . . .to follow Alice down that rabbit hole and through the looking glass. And so I did. He created a kaleidoscope of illusions; I simply rotated the cylinder.
Visit her online gallery here.
Christian Birmingham is a British artist who has illustrated some of the finest authors in children’s and adult literature. He has won the Whitbread (now Costa) Children’s Book of the Year, the Smarties Book Prize and the Red House Children’s Book Award, among many other honors. His lovely Wonderland has just been published through Books Illustrated, Ltd. You can view many of the illustrations here. The edition comes in four flavors:
(Note that postage to the U.S.A. starts at £80 [$98].)
Books Illustrated also carries a line of limited-edition painted bronze Wonderland statues by Rachel Talbot, and original art (both b&w and full color) from the book. Click here.
Permafrost Theatre Collective, in partnership with The Chameleon Fools Theatre Troupe and in association with C venues, will be presenting a new Wonderland tale at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 14th – 26th. “In this bold reimagining, every actor in the all female/non-cis cast plays Alice at one point or other in the story. Built around repurposed passages from Lewis Carroll’s classic stories, Are You Alice: A New Wonderland Tale asks questions of identity, womanhood, and self-acceptance in a world which constantly redraws the lines and rewrites the rules.
“Iconic images such as The Jabberwock, The Mad Hatter’s Tea-Party, and The Queen of Hearts are brought to life using original music, dance, puppetry, and more in this multidisciplinary production [whose aim is] to create a universal ‘Alice’ for the 21st Century.” The trailer can be seen here.
If you’d like to help them get to the Fringe, they have a GoFundMe campaign.
The Eva Le Gallienne/Florida Friebus adaptation, directed by Sara Bruner, is in repertory from May 29 – October 12, 2019 at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Click here.
The show is happening in collaboration with The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, which held an acclaimed exhibition called Wonderland last year. You can see a video about that one here. (And don’t forget their phenomenal catalog.)
The UK show, titled Alice in Wonderland, will run June 27, 2020 to January 10, 2021 at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
You may wish to start planning your trip now!
