Another world...

First off, if you have not gotten an email from me with the details of the swap and want to participate, please email me at artsy_mama@hotmail.com I have a few that said they are interested and I have no way of reaching them. Thanks! So last night my husband surprised me with my Valentine's present. I was clueless (and skeptical) at first, having never heard of the movie. He said to trust him, that he thought I'd like it. Sometimes it's scary (in a good way!!) how well someone may know you. I love that my hubby really gets me deep down inside, knows what my artistic process is like and feeds it. Stretches me to try new things that I normally wouldn't feel would be my style. Awesome..xoxo, Joe!

Ok, back to the movie. It was just released in the US, so we had to wait for it from Amazon. Has anyone seen the movie MirrorMask? It is quite the feast for the eyes. Definitely the most "artsy" movie I've ever seen. Very, very cool stuff. The sketches that the girl in the film does are wonderful. She places them all over her walls and they become "windows" between real world and the fantasy world she ends up in. She looks through them from the fantasy world and sees how her "real world" self is not who she thinks she is.
Here's the official web site. Summary: MirrorMask is the compelling story a young girl who runs away from her family's circus and finds herself in a twisted landscape of floating stone giants and flying books. To find her way home, she must first find the MirrorMask and, in the process, discover the secret behind this strange world.

Analysis (from here): It's a wonderfully demented fairy tale filled with fanged cats out of Escher sketches and prickly spiral staircases to nowhere, but at its core is simply a girl wishing her sick mother would get better. It is a thoroughly surreal scene, a circus by Salvador Dali come to life. What follows is a lovely journey through a fantastical landscape. The young girls (Helena) mother falls sick, and Helena herself, wishing to join the real world, finds herself instead in the Dark Lands, a twisted world where fish fly in schools through the air, insulted books return to the library of their own volition, and everyone wears a mask. It is a quirkily charming place, yet it is also dangerous. The movie (and book) are written by Neil Gaiman. You may have read some of his books. Here is his site and blog. The amazing artwork is by Dave McKean.

I'm not even sure what to say about it. Still working through all the imagery in my head. I do know that it got my creative juices flowing. Such a different style than my own art, but so much inspiration there. Some of the masked creatures reminded me of Zettiology stuff. Ever since reading an article by Teehsa in her Art and Life zine about creating another world through art, I've been facinated by this idea. It is something that I do not do. I think that's the scrapbooker in me. I tend to use images of family and friends, things in my real life. When I try to use old photos of people I don't know, I tend to loose the connection. I feel like I'm creative, but not sure how imaginative I am. Something interesting to think about. For those of you that use a lot of other images in your art, what is your process like for choosing those images? Do you feel like you're creating another world with your art? I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on this.