Yana Moskaluk

I'm not one for colour, but this incredible artist from St. Petersburg deserves reknown. This first one was a birthday gift and how I found out about her work.

http://yanamoskaluk.com/

Devil's Night

Chillaxin with the bunny-kins.

© 2011 S. Camille Crawford

Consider this my official entry for Octoberween-palooza-ganza.

Bazaar of the Bizarre

I was at the Bazaar of the Bizarre this past weekend where I met Pamela Williams, Justin Erickson, Goulish Gary, Liisa Ladouceur, and Vincent Marcone.

Here are a few goodies I discovered:

Encyclopedia Gothica by Liisa Ladouceur is, well, an encyclopedia of gothic things,

with illustrations by Gary Pullin (also known as Goulish Gary),

This is the poster he designed for Liisa's book launch which featured one of his drawings from the book.

Auxiliary Magazine is a fashion magazine based out of Buffalo, NY. It features alternative fashion, music, and lifestyle. It is available online and in print.

You can read the current issue online for free here.

Plastik Wrap, Auxiliary Magazine's Canadian pundit, features alternative fashion with sleek avant-garde (their words) styles and plenty of darkly delicious (my words) outfits, like this Gateway dress from the PlastikARMY e-boutique

Vincent Marcone, with his creative empire of My Pet Skeleton, was also there. I even bought a print from him.

Pamela Williams does some fine dark art photography of cemetary sculpture. Her work has been featured on the covers of Timothy Finley's book, "Dust to Dust", Margaret Laurence's "Stone Angel", and Carole Corbeil's "In the Wings".

This image of the child leaning on the skull is from her book Death Divine, and is one of my favourites (title unknown as I don't yet have the book). Its available in soft cover for $25 and hardcover special edition for $85.

Bunner's is a 100% vegan & gluten free bakery. I wanted so badly to eat their chocolate fudge cupcakes... >_<;;;

The Bazaar of the Bizarre is a bi-annual marketplace that takes place in Toronto Canada.

Please note: Aside from Auxiliary Magazine, all vendors/artists featured here are from Toronto and surrounding areas!

November Fire

First of all, these are not my designs; they are designs I found and liked at November Fire, a dark art t-shirt and accessory printing place. Second they are awesome; I am inspired.

This Gullinbursti Shirt, is a Norse themed design based on the story of the dwarves Eitri and Brokkr being goaded by Loki into making a gift for Freyr which turned out to be a boar that could fly and had bristles of hair that glowed in the dark:



Another Norse themed design which is causing me to become ecstatic, featuring Thor's goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr:



There's even Geri and Freki, Odin's wolves:



Or a sombre dance macabre ensemble called The Orchestra of Death:



Dead Men Tell No Tales is just one of the slogans you can get printed on a wristband.



All this and more can be found at November Fire.

Hel, I say wear it!

By The Way

I designed a Persona for Firefox, which is sort of like a skin for the browser that spices up the look of it. It's called Viking Grey and looks a little like this depending on your operating system:

If you use Firefox and would like to give it a try you can find it here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/viking-grey/

While I was doing the Viking Grey design I was working on another from an old Celtic design but I couldn't get it to look good in the tiny space at the top of the browser, but I really like it and will use it for something someday.

I can't really take credit for the design, as it was originally adapted from The Book of Kells, so feel free to use it elsewhere if you'd like.

Brigid's New Heathen Moon

Hailz to the Goddess Brigid and her gifts of fire and poetry.

I've been working all day on this tribute image and in the middle of it I read an eloquent, simple and complete description of Heathenism from the BBC article Heathenry that may very well change my life.

First of all, every aspect from the high regard placed on the worship of ancestors and taking personal responsibility or the other ethics of Wyrd to the values of honesty, forthrightness, ethical obligation, frith and the lack of emphasis placed on magic and the strong sense of polytheism came together for the first time and I got shivers down my spine. These are my personal values and virtues also. Nowhere have I seen a reprint of them in their entirety in an external place, let alone belonging to a visible, established and welcoming community.

To further the wow factor I got some help clarifying the “Folkism vs. Universalism” debate at The Godhi's Hall via The Penzler Scale created by the author of that blog. It is a scale detailing the degree to which an individul Heathen or a group feels those outside of a Northern European racial heritage are welcome within the faith :

A) Necessary: “Everyone in the world should be following this as the One True Faith.”
B) Encouraged: “We should be actively recruiting people of other ethnic backgrounds.”
C) Welcomed: “We needn’t recruit them as such, but they are as welcome as anyone else.”
D) Accepted: “Because of ancestral ties, they might not have as strong a connection to these ways, but that’s their business, and I can accept their participation.”
E) Tolerated: “They’d be better off following their own ancestors’ ways, but we’ll allow them in, reluctantly.”
F) Discouraged: “Those people should be actively discouraged from taking up our ways, and sent seeking their own people’s ways instead. If they really insist, I don’t care — but they aren’t going to be a part of any group I’m in.”
G) Disallowed: “They simply cannot be a part of this faith, ever.”
H) Fought: “They must not be allowed to take up these ways — they are harmful by their very presence and/or should be gotten rid of by whatever means.”

which I'd like to help spread. Now I understand completely the problem.

I've gained such a great understanding today. And fittingly, it is Imbolc AND the new moon, making starting anything new extra special and potent, as today I feel I begin my Heathen journey. That being said, I've been informed that Thorrablót is the Heathen holiday/celebration of spring-coming complimentary to the pagan ritual of Imbolc.

Signature D

This is a logo for a signature I was commissioned to do for an ambient doom metal band.

The Darkling Child Series

This book is the first in a series I hope to continue. It was inspired by both my grandfather and grandson. I wanted to teach my grandson to read and also to teach him about my grandfather, who passed away before he was born. It's called a mouse a cat a bat.

I did finally get it done in time for X-mas. I self-published it and only did 6 copies as it is my first time doing this so I wanted to see how it would turn out before I invested too much money into it. I also ran out of time before my deadline (which was the 22nd) so I didn't get as much variety into the illustrations as I would have liked. But I'm good with it.

Here are a few sample pages:

As this book was specifically dedicated to my grandson, it is not for sale. It was just too expensive to produce. Although, if you are interested I could print you a copy for about $50. But the next one will be more affordable as I'll make a bigger quantity!

Bah Humbug

Watched A Christmas Carol last night on the telly. I love the ghostly references and the complete 'film noir' experience of this film. Never gets old. Given how I feel about X-mas (barely tolerable), I even enjoy the fluff that is in opposition to Ebenezer's darkness. Such innocence and 'goodness' in the face of tiny Tim is hardly believable anyway, so moot, I allow myself enjoyment of this classic.

X-mas pretty makes me want to kill all the happy people who through their ignorance are damning the world to hell. I'm not going to offer an in-depth political or philosophical explanation of this statement at the moment, but if you think about it, I'm sure you'll be able come up with an explanation on your own.

I tolerate X-mas only because it makes my family happy. I DO enjoy spending time with them but I resent that this is the only time of year that that ever happens naturally and gracefully. I know this attitude darkens the atmosphere a little, or perhaps a lot, but that's what I'm about. At least I do it with a smile. And I'll do it again next year.

So here's what I have to say about Christmas on the eve of the big day:

I won't normally post images that are not my own but this is too good for me to pass up. I don't even know who did it but it states exactly how I feel without any words at all!

So if you enjoy Christmas, I wish you the merry best and if you don't I wish you tolerance and perseverance... if I can get through it you probably can too.

Dark Spirituality

It's one of those days I have too much to do I'm so overwhelmed and I'm getting nothing done at all, although I am feeling better.

My thoughts have been on dark spirituality and how much I think about this. I decided to hash through it yesterday and this is what I came up with:

Everything else. That's what I concern myself with. I refer to everything other than what is commonly considered good. I'm not going to say good vs evil because that is primitive juvenile thinking perpetuated by dogma and fiction. I say 'why do people 'want' to be good and try to be good? To do good things to try to be a better person? To be enlightened even?' I've never understood it and I've never understood the concept of wanting to become enlightened so one does not have to return to the realm of human existence. This is pretty much the highest aspiration for all Buddhists. Why wouldn't I want to return to life here on earth? I like it here. In fact I embrace the here and now here and now. I don't know what else there is so I'm not going to bank on it. I like to flirt with the unknown, which should explain my fascination with death, but I actually really like living and being human. I love human things, like emotions. Even the nasty ones... they make me feel alive. No emotion = not alive... this is not cool. Death is cool and I love to peer into its inky blackness and create from it, or just revel, but not for one minute is death on my wish list of 'states' I'd like to be in here and now.
Is this desire to do good to be good yadda yadda yadda a need for some kind of acceptance? Is it buying into the Christian doctrine that we are sinners and must strive to escape a hellish fate? And as for enlightenment, is that the pursuit of escape as well?
Recently I've been wondering why I don't have too many friends. I'm sure it has to do with my lack of presence on the path to goodness. That and/or my unrealizable goal of trying to sink everyone else into the mire of things 'not necessarily good' and to do it for the pure pleasure of it. Meh,.. I'm (semi)alone in my thinking and I'm unfazed by the view others have of me. Evil is a fiction in a polarized mind. I'll just leave that to them and concern myself with everything else.

After reading Nocturnal Witchcraft Magick After Dark by Konstantinos which was suggested to me by the talented bard Christopher Courtley, poet of dark fantasy fiction rendered in the Gothic persuasion (to appease my troubled mind he offered a simple idealogy suggested in Konstantino's book for framing an understanding of dark spirituality which he himself finds useful. I did too. Thank you Christopher.), what struck me most importantly in that book was the idea, and importance placed on connecting to a spiritual dimension outside oneself. I know that in the past I have flirted with the idea of this, but found nothing personally satisfying to connect to. I realized there might be some sort of trend out there having to do with dark spirituality so I typed 'dark paganism' into Google and lo and behold there is an actual book about that written by John J. Coughlin called Out of the Shadows: An Exploration of Dark Paganism and Magick. Well I'm not so interested in magick per se, but the dark paganism part as it pertains to talking care of my spiritual health does interest me. And while we are on the subject of dark spirituality, if you are also interested in this sort of thing have a look at Adventures Of A Spooky Old City Fox, a blog of interest with an open-minded agnostic skeptic (his words) of an author who also writes about these kinds of dark explorations of the spirit, albeit much more articulately and in depth than I do. I'm just a hack in a forest of dark souls intent on destroying themselves with an overdose of denial... oops, I mean goodness.

Lots is happening for me and I've wasted another several hours writing this and finding all the proper links et al so now I'm heading back to my work on the children's book I'm trying to finish before year's end. Working title is Darkling Child. I'm writing and illustrating it. I'll post about it when it's nearer to being finished.

Sepia Stains Tarot

The Sepia Stains Tarot is a steampunk themed tarot deck created by Bethalynne Bajema using photographic submissions from models.

This deck was completed sometime in late 2009 and has since been out of print. However, she will print up a deck especially for you at a price of $65 US. I haven't gotten this deck yet, but I'm adding it to my Wish List.

Bethalynne is now working on a new deck called The Black Ibis. I'm looking forward to this one.

Her other collections of artwork include The Black Cat & Poisoned Tea Society Gloomy Sunday and Bete Noir my favourite. She's also writing a novel and keeps a blog... and quite possibly more. She seems very busy.

Haunted Photography

Images from Simon Marsden's new 2011 calendars,

The Haunted Realm

 

and Poetry of the Dark