September 2011

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Cold as the Winter Wind, Sharp as a Fox (Yuki-Onna)

September 22, 2011 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan, ` | 4 comments

Cold as the Winter Wind, Sharp as a Fox (Yuki-Onna) cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches
medium: cut paper on wood

Look, if you dare, into the mesmerizing, frosty gaze of Yuki-Onna, the winter woman, the temptress of the snows. Feel the chill creep up your shivering spine. You hands shake from the frozen air and the arctic fear. Will you go to her when she beckons you out into those cold, cold wastes? Will you welcome her icy breath? Will you surrender your dimming warmth as she encompasses you in her pale arms, comfortless wintery lullabies gliding you off to frost-tinged sleep?

Lafcadio Hearn introduced me to Yuki-Onna in his fantastically spooky collection of ghost-stories and yokai-tales, Kwaidan. That frosty mix of mercilessness, loneliness, regret, and love stayed with me, defining Yuki-Onna. Like most folk tales, there are numerous versions of Japan’s Snow-Woman; icy temptress, lost soul, killer, lover, ghost, goddess.

Cut-paper is, by definition, a hard-edged medium. For reason’s I will probably never understand, I always find myself trying to push this very dry, very sharp technique to be wet, oily, and, in the case of Yuki-Onna, soft and translucent. Always a fun challenge. The pale skin tone, with the wood grain visible underneath, was achieved with at least four layers of two different kinds of washi paper.

Detail views follow: Read the rest of this entry »

In Sleep I am Engulfed in Feathers (Rokurokubi)

September 10, 2011 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan, W.I.P.s, ` | 2 comments

In Sleep I am Engulfed in Feathers (Rokurokubi) cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches
medium: cut paper on wood

In sleep, we live strange and separate lives. In the case of Rokurokubi, that life happens to consist of short-range travel isolated northward of the shoulders. There are any number of legends detailing the motives and origins of this yōkai. I’m partial to the ones where Rokurokubi is unaware of her supernatural nature, waking with the memory of odd locations and wanderings beyond her natural boundaries.

In Sleep I am Engulfed in Feathers is the third piece, and first official yōkai, in a series which I think of as depicting the complicated and raw inner lives of unique women. The heron follows the clever fox and the dusky crow. Read the rest of this entry »