Auditory Inspiration

Freaks Alive - On the Inside - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

Detail of The Cabinet of Curiosities - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

Freaks - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

Detail of the Albino Girl on Freaks - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

Te Knife Thrower's Assistant - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

The Amazing Tattooed Lady - from the Carnival Collection by Mab Graves

Dearly Beloved,

I often get asked where I get my inspiration. What I surround myself with. What kind of music I love and like to listen to when I paint.

Well, on the subject of music and auditory inspiration - I am the only artist I have ever heard say this - but I don't really like music. I mean I LIKE music alright, but I never work to it. It's too repetitive and chaotic. It's too controlling and emotional.

I prefer to listen to audio books actually. When I paint, I try as hard as I can to distract my conscious mind and let my subconscious auto pilot take over. Books are a great way to really engage and follow a plot or story line. They take over. You are the character. The story kidnaps you.

Music is a very "self" media. It's all about feelings or memories. I have some very dark places that I don't care to dwell on. They are done and it's over and I don't want that darkness to creep into my work. There is most certainly an "offness" in all my pieces, but it’s a personal commandment for me that I don't dabble in the self-pityingly morbid.

More than anything, I just get bored of hearing a pop star sing about herself. More than one song and I'm done. Let’s go somewhere. Let’s have an adventure.

It was a sad realization for a condemned bibliophile like myself when I realized that my two passions – reading and painting – directly conflicted each other. They both require your eyes and total focus. Then (sneaky me) I discovered the audio book loop-hole ^_^

When we were little, my parents read aloud to me and my sisters almost every night. We would beg to be read the same books over and over. It got to the point where they would try to play tricks on us and change what our beloved heroes said, and immediately four little pairs of eyes would fly up and four little voices would cry “No! THAT’S not what he says!”

To this day, I still just love having someone read to me.

My pieces are about stories and so that's what I immerse myself in. Crime novels, historical fiction. Mysteries, fantasy, dystopian fiction. I love it.

The books I listen to don’t really affect or influence my work. They're just an escape.

Here's a list of a few of my favorite audio books to date (listen to them over and over! The library loves me ^-^)

Lolita – Narrated by Jeremy Irons (my absolute favie!)

Blood Canticle – by Anne Rice - Narrated by David Pittu

Blackwood Farm– by Anne Rice - Narrated by David Pittu

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – by Gregory Maguire - Narrated by Jenny Sterlin

Wicked – by Gregory Maguire - Narrated by John McDonough

Birth of Venus- by Sarah Dunant – Narrated by Jenny Sterlin

Interpretation of Murder – by Jed Rubenfeld - Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

Hunger Games – by Suzanne Collins - Narrated by Carolyn McCormick

Catching Fire – by Suzanne Collins - Narrated by Carolyn McCormick

Coraline – by Neil Gaiman – Narrated by the Author

Neverwhere – by Neil Gaiman – Narrated by the Author

I LOVE the Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple murder mysteries by Agatha Christie

Xoxoxoxo

Mab

Cameo Creation

I am not a jewelry wearing kind of girl. I never have been. My ears were have never been pierced. Even when I was little, Playing Pretty Pretty Princess with my sisters- I always wanted the BLACK ring.

So. Why do I paint cameos? Why do I now as an adult, make jewelry?

I wanted to find a way to paint original pieces that real people could afford.

When I started showing, I had so many sweet people love my creations, but I spend hundreds of hours on my bigger pieces. I wanted to find a way to paint my little girls (without mass producing) in a price range that anyone could reach.

I also love to take my toys with me. Everywhere. And I have imaginary friends. They come with me too.

When I paint I fall in love. I really truly do. I go to run errands and walk out the door with a painting under my arm. I strap her into the passenger seat and we would go.

Painting cameos is a happy medium.

There is an utterly magical element in wearing something with it’s own little soul and personality. I’m serious. Take it from a girl who never even wears necklaces.

When I wear one of the girls, I find myself periodically throughout the day just placing my hand over her. Just to feel her there. Just to know she’s there. It’s not like wearing a little chain and bauble that you forget. She’s the only one in the world. I feel so pretty.

That’s why I do it. Because every girl should feel that special. Like she can have something beautiful and unique to wear. Something that no other girl can have. Something real.

I’m not a jewelry wearing kind of girl. But sometimes, I make an exception.

Coming from Studio Mab in November

The Fairytale Collection

“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.”

-Oscar Wilde

There is no reason to not wear beautiful art. There is no reason to not love beautiful stories. There is a fairytale in all of us.

There is no reason your neck can't be a gallery.

Each piece is unique. There will only be one. In most cases each piece involves vintage charms and one of a kind findings that can not be reproduced.

The Fairytale Collection includes pieces inspired by the stories of

Hansel and Gretel

Goldilocks

Little Red Riding Hood

Alice in Wonderland

The Wizard of Oz

Beauty and the Beast

Snow White

The Frog Princess

The Little Mermaid

Cinderella

Rapunzel

Sleeping Beauty

The Princess and the Pea

Jack and the Beanstalk

Peter and the Wolf

and others

These pieces and more will be available on http://www.etsy.com/shop/mabgraves 11-13-2010

These Walls of my Soul...

The strangest feeling. This Limbo lostness. My walls are empty.

For the past 7 moths, the walls of my studio have been filling floor to ceiling with my soul.

I come home every night and paint. Six, ten, twelve hours.

Time is meaningless when it is meaningless.

Last week, we emptied my walls to take all my work to a studio to be photographed.

Call it preoccupation, call it denial, but I had not even contemplated the fact that when I took these paintings down from my walls, they would not be coming back.

I have been living these beautiful months, in a cave of the creatures and faces of my mind.

And they were there. Every time I looked up or turned my head.

Watching me.

Waiting in a cacophony of anticipation for the birth of my next creation.

My new silence echoes.

Harlow and the Raven King

So delayed in updating my posts! Painting 10 hours a day, plus working my lovely day job in children's books.

Here's some snapshots from a couple paintings for my upcoming show, a fairytale series titled "The Adventures of Harlow and the Raven King". It will be this September at Harrison Gallery.

More info and pics to come!

Random Acts of Mabness

Lilith in the Dark Garden

Lilith was created for a show curated by New York artist Richard Saja called Replanting the Garden. All works for the show were directly inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights.

I had an utter blast painting her, and spent two weeks drinking red wine and painting myself into nightly oblivion. I love working on all-consuming pieces like that and suffer severe postpartum painting depression when my work is done. There's always a sense of loss and lostness, when your work is no longer your little, beautiful secret and you have to let it go out into the world. Sharing can be tough.

The show was very successful (Thank you, Richard!) and packed despite stormy winds and rain.

New works now up on http://mabgraves.com/

The Münchhausen Madness

Oh, Münchhausen.

I recently came across a reprinted edition of the 1785 title "The Surprising Adventures of Baron Münchhausen" 1785, by Rudolf Erich Raspe. So wonderful. After about 5 minutes of perusing, I realized two things;

#1. That this was the one of the most ridiculous and fantastical characters I had ever come across. And

#2. That I absolutely must paint him now, now.

So I did. And here he is (first image below). I also included a few of the fantastic illustrations I discovered in my research that inspired the begeezee outta me!

The Baron Münchhausen Escapes Captivity - by Mab Graves

The Baron Charms the Sultan

The Baron Rides a Cannon Ball

Oh, that nose...

Ghosts in my Paint

PAINTING PROCESS

My painting process? I have none. Only twice ever have I sat down with a sketch and said "I'm going to paint this!". It just never works out that way. My paintings are mostly all completely doodles. I just start freehand in paint. No pencils no plans.

I begin ramdomly with an ear, or a shoe and just travel on from there.

They usually turning out to be not at all what I thought they were going to be.

Kind of like children.

Quite often they will at one time or another have creatures and companions that disappear before it's finished. They are hiding in the canvas. I have ghosts in my paint.

A friend once told me I should try stopping once every hour, and take a picture. Then I could play all the shots together and see the evolution.

I'll have to try that on a big piece sometime.

Gray Flowered Wallpaper and Latex Masks

the Super Show

Here are a couple of my latest projects. (above) is a new piece I just finish for my upcoming Super Show. A show devoted to household portraits of Superchildren. From back in the day when gray flowered wallpaper and latex masks were just how they did it. Coming this Fall.

Also, (below) a little Marie Antoinette illustration I just finished for the lovely Erin Huber's upcoming Marie Antoinette party

Marie (bluehaired)

Anonymous Birth

One question I get asked a lot when people see the paintings I'm working on is "Who is she"?. When my darling (Larry) photographs my pieces he'll sit down at his computer to work on the files, and he'll ask "What's her name?"

I never know. My paintings are not my creations. They just Are. They are alive, somewhere inside of me but they are not mine.

They are anonymous births.

Their eyes have stories and histories, but I don't know them. I don't feel that I need to. They are my darling strangers.

I keep a list in my sketchbook of names that I love. Names I find beautiful, or funny or just names that capture me. When I get asked those questions, I'll look in my sketchbook and read down the list and pick a name. One that fits. I never name them till I have to. She's mine, and my soul knows her. I won't attach words to her until someone needs them.

I will spend days and weeks and months on her until she is finished, and then someone will ask me a question. "What is the story behind Camilla?".

I have no idea who they are talking about.

From the Desk of Mab

-The Masochistic Cupcake-

One of my favorite places to go for an inspirational shot in the vein, is a little independent children's bookstore on the 56th and Illinois strip. It's called Kids Ink, and it's nestled right in the corner with the Flying Cupcake.

So. Here's what I do: I start at the corner and get a cup of coffee (black) walk down to the Cupcake shop and get an carrot cake confection (topped with pink icing and a tiny, plastic ballerina) then unleash myself in the bookstore. First stop? The fairy tale section. I always end up sitting on the floor in a corner with a big stack of the latest. My favorite illustrators?

• Gennady Spirin (props to the tops!)
• Adam Rex
• Laurel Long
• K.Y. Craft
• J.Otto Seibold
• Dave McKean
• Dan Yaccarino
• Olga & Andrej Dugina
• Iassen Ghiuselev

CHECK THEM OUT. These talented masterminds rule my universe.

SO. On my last visit, I came across a new picture book called "Cupcake" by Charise Mericle Harper. It's a story about a plain white cupcake whose only desire is to be eaten. Of course all the other cupcakes on the plate have sprinkles so they all get eaten first.

SPOILER ALERT! The cupcake gets eaten in the end.

Anyway, that's when I discovered that cupcakes can be really creepy and masochistic.

I also decided that I should paint a cupcake.

I'm New Here.

Welcome to my blog. I'm new here.

Here's some stuff about me:

When I grow up, I want to be either Miss Marple or Tyler Durden. Can't really decide.

On the one hand, you've got a lot of tea, knitting and crime solving, and on the other you have a toothspitting revolutionary. It's a tough call.

I'm not too concerned yet. I've got time.