Another "No Such Thing"

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

This art journal evolved gradually as I played around with a drawing I made of a lovely dancing horse figure that was woven into a beautiful old ikat  that I collected some years ago. I confess that I feel a twinge of guilt when I think of what I paid for some of these gorgeous old weavings. I have been spinning, dyeing, and weaving for a long time and I consider myself to be reasonably competent at these activities.  But I don’t come anywhere near to the mastery the people who dyed and then wove these pieces.

I used a version of the horse you see here a few years ago when I was taking a screen printing course.  I wanted a graceful shape to use to create a stencil for a class assignment.  And I find it so appealing that it continues to show up in my work regardless of the medium.

As I was working on the dragon pop ups for my ‘No Such Thing’ series, I started to imagine art journals based on other mythical beings, for example, unicorns.  So my little dancing horse looked in a mirror in the moonlight one evening and found his inner unicorn. 

This journal is 6” by 6”.  The section wrappers were painted, monoprinted, stamped and otherwise marked up with color, one of my favorite parts of the process.  The covers were made with some lovely hand marbled papers that were a gift from my friend Molly who made them.