Gallery East in partnership with the City of Swan
Between the Sheets: 2012 Artists’ Book Exhibition
Gallery East and the City of Swan invite entries in the 2012 Artists’ Book Exhibition. Selected work will be exhibited at Gallery East, North Fremantle and the Midland Junction Art Centre from 13 January. The 2012 exhibition will be shown in full on Gallery East’s web site and be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.
Exhibition dates:
Midland Junction Arts Centre (MJAC), 276 Great Eastern Highway (Cnr Cale St), Midland, Western Australia
13 January – 5 February 2012.
Gallery East, 94 Stirling Highway, North Fremantle, Western Australia
13 January – 5 February 2012.
Key dates:
Entries to arrive by 15 November 2011
Successful entries will be notified by 1 December 2011
Selected work to arrive by 2 January 2012
Please see the attached Conditions of Entry. The Conditions can also be downloaded from:
13 January – 5 February 2012.
Gallery East, 94 Stirling Highway, North Fremantle, Western Australia
13 January – 5 February 2012.
Key dates:
Entries to arrive by 15 November 2011
Successful entries will be notified by 1 December 2011
Selected work to arrive by 2 January 2012
Please see the attached Conditions of Entry. The Conditions can also be downloaded from:
RE-ENCHANTMENT
This is a site where there will be many ways for you to add your own stories, images, ideas and interpretations. Visit the gallery to view artist exhibitions, contribute your own re-imaginings and meet other members of the Re-enchantment community.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/re-enchantment/
THE WILFUL EYE (Tales from the Tower Volume One)
Six writers - Margo Lanagan, Rosie Borella, Isobelle Carmody, Richard Harland, Margaret Mahy and Martine Murray - have taken inspiration from stories that have shaped us all, tales like 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier' and 'The Snow Queen'. This collection carries universal themes of envy and desire, deception and abandonment, courage and sacrifice.
Characters are enchanted, they transgress, they yearn, they hunger, they hate and, sometimes, they kill.
Some of the stories inhabit a traditional fairytale world, while others are set in the distant future. Some are set in the present and some in an alternative present. The stories offer no prescription for living or moral advice and none belong in a nursery.
Open the covers and submit to their enchantment.
Read the review from Kill Your Darlings literary magazine
PRACTICING MEDICINE CAN BE GRIMM WORK
In this op-ed piece for the New York Times, Valerie Gribben reflects on how fairytales provide doctors with a framework to see and interpret the world, and with hope for the future.Read Gribben's article online at the New York Times
SPECIAL GUEST EDITOR: Keryn Stewart
Keryn Stewart is a writer and editor from Newcastle, Australia. She holds a first class honours degree in English literature from the University of Newcastle, with a focus on Australian literature, and has published work in a number of scholarly publications. With more than five years experience writing and editing content for websites and publications, Keryn is available to provide advice and support on all aspects of editing, including structural editing, copyediting and proofreading. Please contact Keryn via email: keryntalia(at)gmail.com
Texts
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde, click here for more information.
Bill Willingham, Fables, click here for more information on these graphic novels. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber. Stephen Benson (ed), Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale.
Anna Kerchy (ed), Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairytales: How Applying New Methods Generates New Meanings. Other resources
The University of Newcastle's Writing Cultures Research Group 2008 symposium: Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale. Please click here for speakers and more references.
Jan Dean
Jan Dean has kindly provided the following extracts from her writings. If you'd like to create a text or single image in response to either or both of these pieces, we'd love to include them in the exhibition.
The Trap“Make yourself comfortable. I won’t be long”, Adam says over his shoulder as he leaves.Sinking into the soft cushions of an enveloping chair, Eve watches him go. She glances around the small room, encouraged by its gentle mood. The wallpaper reminds her of English country houses. Soft lemon posies soothe a blue background. Her breathing becomes heavy and soon she sleeps.Forcing her eyes open, Eve sees the wallpaper is different. The previous dainty floral sprays are now huge angular flowers in orange and lime. The harder she tries to get out of the chair, the tighter it holds her back. A drum inside her head beats louder and louder.Suddenly Eve remembers her nudity, only to find her hair has grown profusely, twisting in and out of the wallpaper. Taking contrary convulsive motions a snake flays itself about while its head remains still with red eyes fixed upon her.“I am nothing but a bramble bush”, Eve moans. “Will the thorns I’m sprouting repel the serpent? Whatever my predicament, he’ll never tempt me.”EndsTanka of the Night
be carefulwhile you rummage through starssearching for stardustwhy not read a tankaabout Buddha and the moon?strange fruit in our tree ... an abandoned snakeskin translucent, long nights wandering, wondering where its owner wentclouds cross the moonwhen she ventures out alonein the valleythis time, farawayempty houses block her cries© Jan Dean 2011
Michelle DouglasRomance writer Michelle Douglas has kindly provided the following extract from her upcoming Mills & Boon novel. If you'd like to create a text or single image in response to Michelle's piece, we'd love to include it in the exhibition.Alex parked his car and spent a moment just drinking in the view. Finally he turned to Kit. 'I had no idea it would be so beautiful.'The grin she sent him warmed him as effectively as the sun on the bare flesh of his arms. She settled a floppy canvas hat on her head and gestured in the direction of the breakwater. 'C'mon.'She insisted on carrying one of the fishing rods—the lightest one—and Alex carried the other rod, the tackle box, a bucket and the net. He couldn't explain the primal urge to take her rod, though, and add it to his load.Perhaps it was just good manners?Yeah, right! If he had any manners whatsoever he wouldn't be trying to catch as big an eyeful of those golden legs of hers as he could.She pointed to their right. 'This is called the Rock Pool. It's where all the local kids learn to swim. It's where I learned to swim.'A sweep of golden sand and clear water stretched out from the breakwater to a smaller bank of rocks bordering the channel. Kit told him the channel led into Wallis Lake. The breakwater provided a wave trap and this little bay had been roped off to provide a safe place to swim. Tiny waves lapped at the shore in rhythmic whooshes and the water was so clear he could see the sandy bottom, free from rocks and seaweed.He couldn't think of a prettier place to learn to swim.To their left, though, stretched mile upon mile of golden sand and the foaming, rolling breakers of a surf beach. The salt in the air and the sound of the breakers intensified the further they walked out on the breakwater. The firmness of the path beneath his feet, the warmth of the spring sun and the sound of seagulls on the breeze eased tension out of his shoulders he hadn't even known was there.From the book The Secretary's Secret by Michelle DouglasMills & Boon Romance November 2011© 2011 Michelle DouglasPermission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A.Blake LiddellNewcastle Writer's group member Blake Liddell recently created a fairy tale titled 'The Snail-Princess'. Again, if you're an artist or writer, and would like to respond to Blake's story, either with a single image or another piece of writing, we'd very much like to include it in Happily Ever After.The Snail-PrincessWhen the new baby princess arrived the nurse screamed so loud a window shattered, the doctor’s moustache fell off and the queen’s hair turned white in a second. The king, very calm, asked “Am I right in saying that my daughter is half snail?”He was right. The little girl had a soft pink face, downy hair, chubby arms and a round little tummy but just below her belly button her body slipped up into a curled white snail shell. She was a snail princess.The king took charge and called his trusted councillor. “We must have been cursed to have a horrible baby like this. Take it and lock it in a tower where nobody can get in. Tell the kingdom the princess is sick and can’t be seen until she is better and then send out secret messages to every magical being we know, call the magicians and the witches, the enchantresses and the sorcerers, get every hedge-witch, gypsy and cunning man, even call in the centaurs and the fox-mages. Tell them that if they cure this child, they’ll earn a diamond so heavy they won’t be able to lift it and a crystal seed that will grow into a gold-leafed tree. Get them all here, but keep it secret! If the kingdom finds out about this monster, I will feed you to a hippo, understood?” The councillor nodded and ran from the room.And the snail princess was taken up to the top room of the highest tower and locked inside. She grew up in that room, her shell growing with her and getting lovely purple and pink swirls over the pearly white. She watched out her window, looking out over the boys learning to use a bow and arrow and shoot at a target. She saw groups of children laughing and running and tumbling with piglets. She smelled the cinnamon buns cooking in the kitchen and she stared out at the dark forest in the distance. Every day, someone came to try and break the curse. She had to lie in a bath of swamp mud, be sprinkled in smelly skunk dust, swallow magic rocks or sing strange nonsense chants while a magician waved yellow smoke over her. She had to sleep wrapped in a goat skin and spend hours upside down, or eat raw bacon for a week. And still she stayed a snail princess.One day, a woman bought her a cup of slime to drink. The snail princess stared at it. It was dragon spit and she was going to have to drink a glass of it every day for the next year. Instead of drinking, she asked why she had to. The woman replied “This will break the curse and your ugly snail shell will disappear and you’ll be a beautiful, proper princess.” The snail princess thought about that. “So,” she said, “then will I be able to roll around with little piglets and learn how to hit a target with an arrow and explore the whole world and eat cinnamon buns every Friday?” The woman laughed, patted the snail princess’s shoulder. “Oh, no, dear. When you are a real princess, you will marry Prince Eugene from Murgell. He’ll become king and you’ll be his queen. It will be your job to do everything to keep him happy. You’ll wear dresses he chooses in the colours he likes. You’ll make sure he has his favourite dinner every night and you’ll rub his feet when they hurt. You’ll go to balls, if he wants you to, and dance if he feels like it, otherwise you’ll sit all pretty and still. You’ll learn all the things he loves to talk about and have conversations about them, unless he wants you to be quiet and you’ll sit without speaking. You’ll learn to sing the songs he likes best when he asks for them and learn how to walk just the way he wants you to.”The snail princess blinked. “You mean I just have to do everything he wants? And nothing I want?”The woman patted her again. “Yes, dear. Won’t that be a lovely life? Now drink up your dragon spit.”That night the snail princess decided to run away. She didn’t want to live her life doing everything someone called Eugene said to do, especially not touching his smelly old feet. She wanted to go out in the world and find out everything, see everything and then decide how she wanted to live. So she packed up some things into her shell, a blanket, some food, her favourite book of adventure stories, and she left.Of course, she was locked up in a tower that nobody could get in, but the king and the royal guard had forgotten something: she was half snail and so she could climb up walls, slide along ceilings with no trouble at all. She opened the window, took a deep breath and went straight down the high tower wall.She didn’t stop until she came to the edge of the forest. Tired and sleepy, she leaned against a tree to rest and then a fox padded up to her. The fox was skinny, her fur all dull, and she spoke, saying “Do you have anything to eat? I’m so hungry. Would you share with me?” The snail princess smiled and took out some red apples and they ate together. The fox shivered and the snail princess invited her to spend the night with her. “It will be cold and I can curl right up inside my shell where it’s warm and cosy. You can fit too and we’ll sleep so deep.” The fox agreed and they both snuggled up inside the shell. The fox wrapped her thick tail round the snail princess’s neck like a scarf and tucked her nose under her shirt. She asked “What are you doing out here in the forest? I’ve never met anyone like you before.” The princess, all sleepy, murmured, “They were going to keep me all locked up and drinking dragon spit until I stopped being a horrible snail and then I’d get married and be a servant to my husband the king and do everything he says and even have to rub his feet. So I ran away.” The fox nodded. “A very wise choice. What will you do now?” The snail princess buried her face into the fox’s soft fur and replied “I’ll do everything, go everywhere, meet everyone. I’ll play with other children and chase piglets, I’ll learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, I’ll learn to sing the songs I like and I’ll talk about my favourite things. I’ll dance when I want to and wear the dresses I think are pretty. I’ll walk any way I like and I’ll do what makes me happy and I’ll eat cinnamon buns every Friday.”The fox smiled and whispered, “What a lovely life.”.
