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

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.

Let's Start a Revolution.

Okay. I think you are smart. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

I think you may even be a bit brilliant.

I don't think you really need to see blood, or knives, or penises to get the message.

For centuries, good art has always been a bit shocking. Even the Great Masters got the ol' eyebrow from time to time.

The problem? As our society becomes more and more desensitized, our art becomes more and more vulgar. While it may be amusing now and then, so often beauty is replaced by creepiness and that's a hard thing to have living on your wall. And face it; if we continue to include organs, fetuses, and killer Barbies in our art, eventually no one will take us seriously.

Let's start a revolution.

Let's make things beautiful. Let's keep it subtle. Adopt irony. Let's make it about the mood, not the blood. I think we would be surprised at how many people still get the message.

For me? The greatest compliment is when someone comes up to me and tells me there is something slightly creepy about my painting but they just can't put their finger on it. My job is done.

From the desk of Mab....

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...