You may remember that I’ve done some illustration work for the online fiction magazine Fictive Dream. I love working for editor Laura Black and I also love being involved in the world of short fiction in this way. I’ve found the process of reading a story and turning it to something visual to be really satisfying in a way I can’t quite describe – there’s the challenge of “seeing” what the words say and then conveying it that I love.
Recently Laura asked me if I would illustrate an upcoming story for the magazine, Repast, by Len Kunz. Given the world situation at the moment, I admitted to a lack of an ability to focus, and doing an illustration that would do justice to a story was just beyond me.
However, I had an idea – maybe I could search my archives and see if anything might fill the bill. I have literally thousands of images of my artworks dating back twenty years. Surely there might be something there to work from.
Contrary to usual practice, I did not want to read the story itself, feeling that doing so would cause me to restrict the possibilities and overlook something that might work. Therefore, I asked her for a general idea of what she was looking for. It worked out well – I was able to come up with a variety of images of wildly differing subjects.
Take a look at some of the candidates:
As you can see, there is quite a variety. Among the group are an altered digital photo (of my stove); a collage from the early 2000’s; and a selection of mail art postcards painted on ad cards in acrylics.
I sent Laura the selection and she made her decision. I made some adjustments so that it would fit the size requirements.
Now it’s up to you:
Go to Fictive Dream and read the story – see which one Laura chose and how it fits the story…
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Now that you’ve viewed the art, here’s more info if you are interested in seeing past works of illustration for Fictive Dream – I’ve given a few links and if you want to know more, search my blog under the topic: Fictive Dream.
And…here are links to the events at the magazine’s site, Fictive Dream.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
Repast by Len Kuntz is a dark story about an abusive father. The repast of the story includes some corn (being eaten by the father) and a plate of ‘paste’ that his daughter is feeding to her little brother. The image that I chose perfectly reflects the yellow of these foods and also the brown of mounds of upturned soil in the garden. I was so pleased when I saw the chosen image in the selection – a great fit with the text. Thank you, Claudia.
I am really happy that this image fit the story as it did. A very nice bit of serendipity. And I think it shows also how an artwork can have meaning in different contexts, aside from just how it looks .
It is amazing how fitting your artwork is for the story. It really could have been created in response to it.
Thank you. I was surprised too, when I read the story (since I didn’t read it before reviewing my artwork for Laura). I think she has a great eye for how an illustration fits with a story.
She made a good choice. That is a creepy story though. (K)
Thank you. I agree. There is a subtle air of things being off balance, skewed, just starting to enter that stage of rot where there is a smell. Yes, creepy.
Amazing artwork!
Thank you, I am glad I was able to make this work out as it did. Because I was not going to be up for something new, I knew that.