Inspired by Oz

It's been a very busy week working with the artists who will be creating the mini-faerie installations, based on the 24 chapters in the original text of The Wizard of Oz this October at the Museum. Artists were asked to look over the chapters and pick their top three choices. Some even shared their early ideas and, let me tell you, we are in for a wonderful array of wee faerie creations inspired by Oz. So very excited. I plan to post the artists and their chapters in upcoming posts. 

However, this week I was looking back at the first Wee Faerie Village, and I came across some of my own collage work that was inspired by the Museum's faeries. At the time I was working with historic tin-types to create collages. Eventually the faerie enchantment crept in and I started using maple seedlings as wings to transform these sober men of yesteryear into faeries. Ironically, considering our upcoming project, I called these works "Tin Men."

Seeing my work, a friend noticed a connection with another artist, Alex Gross, who paints over cabinet cards. A very talented artist, he transforms the sitter in the early photograph into heros, monsters, Xmen, and more. I went to his website recently and was delighted by this collection of Oz-inspired images. I immediately ordered his book which is filled with his mini masterpieces. I think his approach to the characters of Oz is clearly inspired--and what I would give to own that Wicked Witch of the West. Simply Oz-some. By the way, you can get more information about him at his website, alexgross.com. His book is available from Amazon.

In closing, I want to "thank you" for reading, and do feel free to send me link of other works of art you come across that are "inspired by Oz."

David D.J. Rau

Director of Education and Outreach

David D.J. Rau coordinates as well as participates in the Museum’s October creative endeavors. You can contact him at david@flogris.org.

Upcoming Blog Entries:

• Illustrating the Museum's October Events
• Meet the Museum’s New Fantasy Illustrator Aaron Miller
• Just C’Oz: Other Creative Endeavors Inspired by Oz

A Little Creative Casting

"But it wasn't a dream. It was a place. And you - and you - and you - and you were there." ~ Dorothy Gale

I remember watching The Wizard of Oz when I was young and having that "eureka" moment when I realized that the farmhands, Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory, were the same actors who played the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. I think it took me a few more viewings to make the connection between Professor Marvel and Oz. After the realization, I wondered if Aunt Em and Uncle Henry had Ozian cameos -- I don't think so. 

With this in mind, I thought it might be fun to recast the movie with people from the Florence Griswold Museum's core story of Miss Florence and the artists of Old Lyme. Of course our own Miss Florence could have made a wonderful Dorothy, especially in her younger years. 

For the Scarecrow, I am casting Arthur Heming, the Canadian painter and illustrator. The Museum is currently featuring his work in the traveling exhibition Arthur Heming: Chronicler of the North which will be on view until June 2, 2013.

For the Tin Man I had to choose Childe Hassam, probably the most famous artist to come to Old Lyme to paint. We often show him in these black and white photographs standing outside the studio he used nestled in the fruit orchard. I can see him standing rusted-tin-man straight observing the landscape and planning his next great painting.

The painter Henry Ward Ranger, credited with founding the Lyme Art Colony, is best for the Cowardly Lion. Although a brave artist to start such a venture in the small village of Old Lyme, the body type and king-of-the-jungle-ness of Ranger seems to suit the Lion. Instead of the wagging tail, Ranger supposedly had a ring of cigar smoke ever-encircling his head. Puddum up! Puddum out!

As for Oz himself, I chose Willard Metcalf, partially based on their similar features. Not at all a humbug, Metcalf made Old Lyme famous with his painting of the front of Miss Florence's house titled May Night which won a great prize and was the first contemporary painting accessioned into the collection of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, the oldest in our nation's capitol. I'm glad somebody paid attention to that man behind the canvas.

David D.J. Rau

Director of Education and Outreach

David D.J. Rau coordinates as well as participates in the Museum’s October creative endeavors. You can contact him at david@flogris.org.

Upcoming Blog Entries:

• Illustrating the Museum's October Events
• Meet the Museum’s New Fantasy Illustrator Aaron Miller
• Just C’Oz: Other Creative Endeavors Inspired by Oz

Image-ing Our Wee Faeries

Back in 2009, when we embarked on the first Wee Faerie Village project, we envisioned printing a map for visitors that would aid them in finding their way around the Museum's campus. Likewise, it seemed appropriate to have some wee faerie images of our very own that we could use to advertise the upcoming event. We commissioned Jeff Himmelman, a young illustrator with experience drawing fantastical creatures and beings, especially for the mystical world of online gaming.

The collaborative creation process was a great deal of fun. After some initial conversation about the map and what kinds of faeries would best represent the project, Jeff got to work. One night, an email arrived with the words "faerie sketch" in the subject line--these emails most often arrived in the middle of the night, so this gives you an idea of when these enchanted creatures are conjured. Deep breath time: it's always a little nerve-wracking to open the attached image; you have no idea what you're going to see. Double click. Ahhhhhh! The first demo faerie was truly beautiful, but not quite the tone the Museum was hoping to set with families. Back to the drawing board--or, to be more accurate, to the computer and keyboard.

Not to worry. Jeff took the feedback in stride: 

"Love the autumn leaves as wings." 

"The dress of natural elements is inspired." 

"She may be a bit too adult and perhaps a tad too stern for this project."

Days went by before the first sketch of Griswold appeared. He was a boy faerie who was just the right age with a playful and slightly devilish personality. Next came Florence. She was sweet and demur, but also a perfect muse for the Old Lyme artists. Yeah, we had our first pair of faeries. 

I personally loved his tattered leaf wings and artistic weaponry. The small pencil tucked into his belt like a sword. Griswold holds the ink pen like a spear, the sheafs of blank paper readied for creativity. Jeff Himmelman was masterful in the details: the acorn beret, maple seedling upper wings, and the pair of pointed shoes. For Florence, he gave her a tiara of purple flowers and work belt strung with jars of pigments. 

For the 2009 project, we planned to have both a girl and a boy faerie to represent the inhabitants of our Wee Faerie Village. However, as the process continued, it became apparent that a few more faeries were needed. Himmelman to the rescue!

He even created a wee faerie dog and wee faerie cat to welcome visitors to the Village--L. Frank Baum would have been thrilled since he believed in animal faeries.

Last year, we added to wee faerie family with a few more faerie characters. Another playful boy and impish girl, however, the creative process remained the same.

In 2013, however, our Wee Faerie Village in the Land of Oz characters will most likely look different from the ones above. Firstly, Jeff Himmelman has turned over the creative reins to a friend, Aaron Miller, so the illustrator's personal vision and style will be new--more on Aaron in the upcoming weeks. Secondly, this year's characters will be informed by L. Frank Baum's original text whereas earlier characters were not based on anything too specific. And lastly, it's our goal at the Museum to push beyond what we've done and to create something excitingly new for the audiences who love to visit the Wee Faerie Village, and for them, we will work hard not to disappoint.

David D.J. Rau

Director of Education and Outreach

David D.J. Rau coordinates as well as participates in the Museum’s October creative endeavors. You can contact him at david@flogris.org.

Upcoming Blog Entries:

• Illustrating the Museum's Non-Faerie Village Events
• Meet the Museum’s New Fantasy Illustrator Aaron Miller
• Just C’Oz: Other Creative Endeavors Inspired by Oz

"To Oz?" "To Oz!" Oz Park That Is

Last week I spent a long weekend in the windy city of Chicago. It had been at least 20 years since my last visit, so I needed to study a map long and hard to get my bearings: big lake to the east, Frank Lloyd Wright architecture to the west, museums to the south, and what's that to the north? Oz Park. That's what my map said, so I started to walk, and walk, and walk, and then hailed a cab since it was so darn cold. I couldn't even bring myself to ask the cab driver to drop me at Oz Park, since I had no idea what we would find there, so I asked for an intersection a few blocks away and approached by foot.

It was charming. Opened in 1976, the small park was just over 13 acres and was built in a section of Lincoln Park to bring a bit of luster to a tarnishing part of the city. Turns out that L. Frank Baum lived just a few miles to the west in the 1890s, so the locals had an affinity for the man and his stories.

A statue of the Cowardly Lion (2001) by John Kearney (a Cranbrook-trained sculptor) greeted me as I approached from the south-east. Below the sculpture are yellow bricks marked with donor names. I decided to circumnavigate the park. My next stop was the Tin Man (1995), by the same artist, but this time created out of old car parts, the sculptor's signature medium.

From there I walked towards the center of the park and found the Scarecrow (2005) standing just inside a small fence that bordered The Emerald Garden. Next to nothing was in bloom, but I could imagine how pretty the small garden must be during the warmer months of the year. I walked past the children's play area, identified as Dorothy's Playlot to the north entrance to the park to find  Dorothy and Toto (2007) atop their pedestal. Although the sculpture was cast in bronze, the shoes were patinated a bright ruby red.

Satisfied with my find, I decided to walk back to downtown to find that the Chicago River had been dyed a bright Emerald City green--oh yeah, it was also the weekend of  St. Patrick's Day. Later that night, we met up with a real Chicagoan, Aaron Miller, a great artist who will be creating the artwork for our Wee Faerie Village in the Land of Oz, but that's for another blog entry.

David D.J. Rau

Director of Education and Outreach

David D.J. Rau coordinates as well as participates in the Museum’s October creative endeavors. You can contact him at david@flogris.org.

Upcoming Blog Entries:

• Illustrating the Museum's October Events
• Meet the Museum’s New Fantasy Illustrator Aaron Miller
• Just C’Oz: Other Creative Endeavors Inspired by Oz

Prequel Sheds a Little Light on Original 1900 Text

When I read "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" recently--admittedly for the first time--I was strangely bothered when it strayed from my version of the story, the one I knew from countless watchings of the 1939 over-the-rainbow version. I soon discovered that the MGM film omits whole chapters and characters. Indeed, one of the many reasons I was excited about the new movie "OZ, the Great and Powerful," was that it included aspects of L. Frank Baum's original 1900 text that did not make it onto my TV screen each spring.

This is important because the "Wee Faerie Village in the Land of Oz" is going to be based on the original 24 chapters, and thusly, many visitors who only know the story from the movie will be a bit lost when these seemingly new ideas show up in faerie-land. However, if visitors see the "new" movie, some of the "new" ideas won't seem too "new" come October.

One is China Girl, who in my humble opinion, stole the show. She is discovered by the Wizard and his flying monkey friend Finley in China Town. Yes, a whole town made out of china and porcelain, including the  inhabitants. Sadly, the flying monkeys were sent by the witch to rough up the town and they did a considerable amount of damage. China Girl is the only survivor.

In the book, L. Frank Baum gives us the odd Chapter 20, "The Dainty China Country." It is into this fragile world that Dorothy and her friends find themselves after climbing a wall via a ladder fashioned by the Tin Man. At the bottom of the ladder they discover that they've entered a strange new land.

Baum writes: "Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colors. These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as high as Dorothy's waist. There were also pretty little barns, with china fences around them; and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups."

Disney does a nice job of using the forms of real china, coffee pots and tea cups, to fashion a fantastical city. And in the same way that the Scarecrow is scared of fire, for obvious reasons, the inhabitants of this porcelain province are terrified of being knocked into or worst, knocked over.

Another shifting of the Ozian paradigm involves the poppy field. In the MGM film, as soon as our travelers see the Emerald City for the first time in the distance, they begin to run with wild abandon through a field of poppies to get there. The Wicked Witch of the West, angered by their progress, casts a spell using her mortar and pestle (why does magic smoke not rise from mine when I crush my dried spices?), that, in her words, “And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell. Poppies... Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they'll sleeeeep!” The spell only works on Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion, and one by one they fall asleep amongst the beautiful blooms. The Tin Man begins to cry and the Scarecrow figures out (brainless though he is) that this is trick and they should call for help. Glinda to the rescue and a few waves of the wand bring on the spell-breaking snowflakes. 

In Baum's text, Chapter 8 is titled "The Deadly Poppy Field." According to Baum, "...and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever." 

The new movie uses the deadly scent of the flowers in a very clever way, and to the advantage of good, but in the spirit of not wanting to have to shout, "spoiler alert," I will leave it at that. 

There are still a few more aspects of the book that are not in the popular films.  The best way to discover them for yourself is to pick up a copy of the book or download it from Kindle or similar sites. Or, stop by The Shop at the Museum, where we have both the 100th Anniversary Edition with all the original artwork, or a new publication with stunning images by Michael Sieben. 

David D.J. Rau

Director of Education and Outreach

David D.J. Rau coordinates as well as participates in the Museum’s October creative endeavors. You can contact him at david@flogris.org.

Upcoming Blog Entries:

• Illustrating the Museum's October Events
• Meet the Museum’s New Fantasy Illustrator Aaron Miller
• Just C’Oz: Other Creative Endeavors Inspired by Oz