Jen Jovan Art Musings and Random Thoughts

Rapunzel

4/25/2023

"Rapunzel" - oil on canvas, 15 x 20 x 1. Ready to hang. Available here and at Artfinder.

"I reread Rapunzel the other day after many years and wondered why I ever liked this fairy-tale. I found myself screaming at the pages: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, cut off your hair! Use it as a rope and escape from there!” - Leah M. Mariani

The wild god is a-pushin' and a-nudgin' into the realm of fairytales. There is a hoard of Alices, Little Reds, an Evil Queen and a few wanna-be fairytale characters parading on the studio wall. Each one is demanding a deeper look into their story - or for a story to be created around them. (They are a LOUD bunch, btw. Anyone who thinks these characters are mild-mannered and well behaved is kidding themselves)

Mariani got me with the quote - Rapunzel had the means of escape all along. So why didn't she?

Rapunzel

Which got me to thinking, when in my own life (creatively, professionally, personally) have I remained trapped in a metaphorical tower while the path to freedom was right within my grasp? And oh, dear reader, there are many times. The "towers" that trap us might be in the guise of security, predictability, fear of (insert any word you'd like here), or the things we've been told (and come to believe) about our own strength, talent, tenacity and creativity. I think I build my own towers, mostly. Fortunately, there have been people along the way who have opened my eyes to the ladders hanging from the windows. And now and again, I've cut off all my hair.

About the art: the AI bot and I had a grand time coming up with the inspiration image for this one. There were very few wonky interpretations - a pretty straightforward creative collaboration (unlike most of the others, which have been quite meandering).

Beginning with a canvas lightly toned with oil paint and Liquin, adding a colored pencil sketch and thin layers of paint. Keeping the color palette pretty narrow and focusing on value. Using thin washes to create shadows in the fabric and in the window frame. Using a narrow, round brush heavily saturated with paint and paint thinner to drag individual ropes of hair across the canvas. Whispering to Rapunzel to climb out the darn window already.

6 Comments

Carol Edan link

4/25/2023 02:47:36 pm

Now you are after my heart. Fairytales were the only thing I read. Will have to re-read them. Wish I could revisit fairytale land. Better than reality., sadly. Waiting for more!
Sent by tablet

lola

4/25/2023 03:17:27 pm

Carol! Kindredness! Hooray! More to come...xo

Carol Kitchell link

4/25/2023 03:07:06 pm

A powerful post! How many towers have we ascended on our own as women, and waited for permission to lower our hair? When we could have walked down the stairs we had walked up? Here's a story I wrote on my website several years ago:

Oh, well, we all know about Prince Charming. He traffics in saviorship - Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel.

But let's say Sleeping Beauty wakes up without him. A wasp, for instance, flies in the window and rousts her with a stinging kiss. Or a chunk of masonry gives way from her turret ceiling and plummets down onto her bed.

Dazedly, she peers out the window. She's surrounded by a murky forest so dense, a thicket so staggering in its complexity, we're hard pressed to imagine how she'll find a way to leave the castle. Surely, she wants to breathe a fresher air in an open space, perhaps a meadow where the sight of sun and moon are unhindered?

We could airdrop her some power tools, but how un-fairytale like is that? How about we send in a very large bird, engineer an avian extraction?

Well, that's chapter one or chapter 100. The question is, how come the story isn't from Beauty's point of view? What if she did wake up on her own?

"Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you,
as a fish out of water hears the waves.....
Come back. Come back.
This turning toward what you deeply love saves you."

4/25/2023 03:20:19 pm

Carol! OMG! "waited for permission" - ACK! That resonates so loudly.

Your story - saviorship and power tools. Beauty's point of view. Yes, yes YES! Thank you hugely for sharing this. My grin is HUGE!!!

For you readers who want some more of Carol's amazingness, head over to her site: https://carolkitchell.com. You'll be SO glad you did!

Dotty Seiter link

4/25/2023 03:44:54 pm

1. huh! I've been writing permission slips to myself for about a week now (brené brown introduced me to that concept years ago) for the first time in quite awhile. SOOOO transformative.

2. i remember way back in the day when we first met, one of my first questions to you at your blog was to inquire as to how you'd painted the hair on one of your depicted characters (which was how i discovered posca paint pens!) and, now, what am i drawn to? the magnificence of how you've painted rapunzel's hair here. spectacular brush work! all this fascination from yours truly whose own personal hair care and coiffing could not be more minimalist!

Lola

4/28/2023 02:22:32 pm

Dotty!!! I need a whole box of permission slips. That’s brilliant! Gonna do that NOW.

As for the hair - I’d forgotten all about that! Thanks for the memory reminder and for noticing. Making painterly hair is a whole thing. 😁

Rapunzel

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