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I participated in a mini opera art show to benefit a local opera guild. It was a lot of fun! This is one of the pieces I contributed: Turandot, from the opera Turandot; some of you may remember the WIP version of this from past WIP Wednesdays <3
Turandotâs outfit and hair is based on the Baoshan tomb frescoes from the Liao Dynasty, dating to the 10-11th centuries. The color palette and use of gold leaf is also inspired by the frescoes; despite being 1000 or 1100 years old, the colors are still vibrant, and the gold still visible on the walls! The uncolored version of this piece will be available for purchase in the new edition of my opera coloring book, âManga and Mozart,â available in Fall 2023.
Born into slavery, Dorothy Thomas (1756â1846) bought her own freedom, liberated her family, and built a vast business empire.
Dorothy steps forward
First known as Dorothy Kirwan, she was born in the Leeward Islands in 1756. Her mother had been the property of the Kirwan family, an influential local dynasty. Dorothyâs father was white and likely one of the Kirwan men.
By 1780, Dorothy had three childrenâElizabeth, Catherina, and Edwardâeach with a different father. In 1784, she was purchased and brought to Dominica by William Foden, a planter and estate manager. Surprisingly, although the transaction had been made in Fodenâs name, it was Dorothy who had supplied the money for her own purchase. After Fodenâs death, Dorothy oversaw the execution of his will, insisting on receiving a formal deed of manumission.
Not only did she secure her own freedom, but she also obtained that of several family members, including her children William, Charlotte, and Nan, her son Edward, and a woman likely to have been her grandmother.
Nanâs father, Joseph Thomas, would become a lasting presence in Dorothyâs life. The two lived together as husband and wife, and although Dorothy later insisted on being called Mrs. Thomas, their union was probably never formalized.
Business beginnings
In 1787, Dorothy and Joseph moved to Grenada. The bustling port of St. George offered many business opportunities. Because she was not legally recognized as Josephâs wife under English law, Dorothy had full control over her money and her enterprises.
By 1793, she was doing better financially than Joseph. Undeterred by her successive pregnancies, she established a thriving business. Judging from her later ventures, she was probably engaged in hucksteringâemploying enslaved women to sell goods door to door and on plantations. She likely owned at least one shop and possibly a hotel in St. George as well.
Dorothy turned her attention once again to her family, determined to free them. Over the next sixteen years, she arranged the manumission of her two eldest daughters, as well as several relatives, including her mother and sister.
The queen of Demerara
After Josephâs death in 1799, Dorothy moved to Barbados. Records from this period of her life are scarce, but after the British takeover of Demerara, she relocated there and began building what would become her business empire.
In Demerara, Dorothy ran hotels or boarding houses and employed hucksters. By 1808, she had moved to an affluent district where she owned several lots. A shrewd networker, she cultivated strong mercantile connections, and by 1817 she had opened a fine dining restaurant.
Because her ventures were not exposed to losses from shipping convoys or French privateers, her fortune continued to grow. Dorothy became a local celebrity. Nicknamed âthe Queen of Demerara,â she was considered the wealthiest person in the colony. She secured advantageous marriages for her daughters and provided for their families.
Though illiterate throughout her life, Dorothy understood the value of education. She paid for her grandchildren to attend an elite private school in Britainâan investment that ensured her familyâs continued success.
Her influence in the colony was undeniable. In 1820, she obtained justice for the death of her slave Sally, ensuring punishment for the four men responsible. Dorothy herself owned many slaves until the end of her life. She was not known for leniencyâthere is no record of her manumitting any of her slaves, and she always ensured the recovery of any who tried to escape.
A long reign
Dorothy remained remarkably active, traveling frequently between Demerara, Britain, and Grenada to manage her properties. She boasted of having met King George IV. Though the story is difficult to confirm, it is possible she met Prince William Henry, the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV.
She also successfully petitioned for the abolition of a discriminatory tax imposed on free women of color like herself.
Throughout her later years, Dorothy continued to assert her status and wealth. She strode through the streets in extravagant dress, accompanied by slaves carrying a box of gold coins, dispensing both advice and patronage.
She lived to an advanced age, surviving a yellow fever epidemic that claimed several of her children, and remained mentally sharp to the end. Before her death in 1846, she carefully dictated her will, ensuring the distribution of her vast fortune and estates.
Her life inspired the novel Island Queen by Vanessa Riley.
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Further reading:
Barker Matthew Henry, Â The Victory: Or, The Ward Room Mess
Bell Carole V., "A New Novel Gives Wings â and a Megaphone â to a Complex Woman"
Candlin Kit, Pybus Cassandra, Enterprising Women, Gender, Race, and Power in the Revolutionary Atlantic
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Taming of the Shrew but as one of those Hallmark "country boy meets city girl and teaches her simple living" movies. Leans heavily into the "psychological horror disguised as a romcom" aspect of the play that's often performed by having things just be ever so slightly...off about the small town in, like, New England she's moved to.
This is what I had in mind for the plot:
Kate is a no-nonsense, hardworking office worker at a financial company in Manhattan. She has a comfy apartment, but that somehow isn't enough for her. Not to mention that she's in a rocky relationship with her city boyfriend Derek. Then her family, who lives in a quaint town in the Berkshires (or maybe the Quiet Corner of Connecticut) invite her over for a visit. If it's on Christmas, it's the annual lighting of the Christmas tree and the Christmas pageant. If it's going to be anything else, it's the harvest festival. Soon she packs her bags and travels to the quaint New England town of Seven Pines, a charming, rustic little town with a little secret (imagine Bedford Falls meets Summerisle). There, while trying to settle into life in a small town, she has a little meet-cute with Peter (our Petruchio), seemingly a kind, gentle man who teaches her the way of life around here, sharing folksy aphorisms from his family, and teaching her how to whittle wooden sculptures. But, over time, he starts to control her in many subtle, insidious ways. There's always some kind of delay or obstacle when she wants to get back to her apartment: bad weather, staying a bit too long for lunch, even her car breaks down but the local mechanic isn't there to help. Outside help is limited, since cell service is spotty around here, and Peter's one of those "live in the moment" guys. Peter starts gaslighting Kate, whittling her into the perfect woman-shaped trophy for him to have. Soon, the big event happens, the mayor gives a little speech about the spirit of the town or whatever holiday it celebrates, everyone celebrates with a big dance at the pavilion.
Eventually, of course, Kate agrees to settle with Peter, she breaks it off with Derek, and they get married. At their wedding party, Kate gives a speech about a wife's submission to her husband, and how the simpler ways of living are best, calling for a return to the olden days.
All of this, in keeping with the original spirit of the Shakespeare play, turns out to be a movie a young present-day couple decides to watch out of boredom in a hotel room, after a long day of unpacking luggage, much like Christopher Sly's play which turns out to be Taming of the Shrew. Once the movie-within-the-movie ends, the couple are just as baffled and deflated as we are after seeing our female protagonist get gaslit into submission to her quite obviously sleazy country lover. I imagine the man of the couple just goes "What the hell was that?"
It's all shot like an ordinary romcom with warm tones, expansive scenes of the town and nature, we linger on Kate and Peter a little too long for comfort, but there's something ever so slightly off about it. Think, for example, a French movie from 1989 called Baxter, which uses all these warm tones and pleasant scenery, but it's very curated, very sterile.
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Zennyo RyĆ«Ć by Hasegawa TĆhaku (1539 â March 19, 1610).
Ishikawa Nanao Art Museum.
Zennyo RyĆ«Ć (âDragon Queen Zennyoâ) is a rain-bringing dragon deity in Japanese Buddhism, also known as the eight-year-old dragon girl and SeiryĆ« Gongen. She is described as the wise, compassionate daughter of the dragon king Shagara, enlightened from a young age through her devotion to the Lotus Sutra. In the sutraâs famous episode, she proves that even a young girl can attain buddhahood instantlyâdefying beliefs that women could not achieve enlightenmentâby transforming, perfecting the path, and becoming a buddha before all present.
In Japan, she is closely associated with the monk KĆ«kai and is worshiped at temples such as Shinsenen and KongĆbu-ji, as well as at DaigĆji in KyĆto under the name SeiryĆ« Gongen.
Her most famous legend dates to 824, during a severe drought under Emperor Junna. After rival prayers failed to bring rain, KĆ«kai invoked Zennyo. She appeared as a great serpent crowned with a golden snake and entered a pond at Shinsenen. The skies darkened, and rain fell across Japan for three days, ending the drought and affirming her power as a dragon bodhisattva and protector.
FAIRY TALE ART SERIES | L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' | PART 1
"Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmerâs wife."
I'm really excited to start sharing the follow-up to my previous fairy tale designs with Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid. I went back and read through the entirety of L Frank Baum's novel, and followed pretty closely to physical descriptions he described, but still left a lot to my own imagination and personal tastes.
To start off the series of designs, here is my own interpretation of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. I stuck to Baum's visual description of the pair - their colors sapped by Kansas living, in contrast to Dorothy. I originally kept her out of this image, but decided to include her to show the visual difference between them and her.
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When I was a child, not more than seven or so, I woke to the sound of something crawling down the alley behind our house.
We didnât have a garden, just a small yard attached to out back âpart of a row of identical, old coal-houses.
The buildings are all attached together, and our yard led into a small street, and on the other side of that were another series of yards and equally identical, attached houses. Thereâs a lot of buildings like that around here, built as one-on-one-down housing for mine workers back in the late 1800s. Theyâve been modernised and divided up in the decades since, but from the outside they still look the same. Right down to the stains on the lower brick walls, from the time when all the world was made of coke and coaldust. That stuff is engrained.
Iâd gone to bed early, without dinner. Not sure why now, but I think I was probably being a spiteful little brat for some reason and ran upstairs to hide. When I woke, still fully clothed right down to my training shoes, curled up in my blankets and clutching my pillow, it had long gone dark and my stomach was roiling.
Not from hunger. From something else.
I remember focussing on my gut for a second. Dad always said to trust it, but I never knew what he meant by that until then. It felt like a jar of marbles was jammed between my ribs, occasionally turning over and over in a rhythm that even my sleepy brain could figure out.
It was footsteps. Or something like them. The sort of footsteps youâd expect if an entire stampede of creatures were somehow walking in synch.
There were footsteps in the alleyway outside.
Dead silent footsteps, sure. But they were there.
My bed was below the window, directly looking out into the alley. I heard the clatter of a plastic wastebin, but otherwise it was silent.
I wasnât exactly the brightest child. Or adult, for that matter, but when I was a kid, I didnât have the good sense god gave a rat. If it werenât for the feeling of rattling marbles in my gut, maybe I wouldnât have known to look out of the window.
Fuck those marbles, to be honest. Fuck them for making me crawl up, past the pillows and the glass of orange juice mam had left on my bedside table. Through the curtains, to gaze out into the street.
You didnât get a lot of light in my room, which looked right out into the alleyway, no streetlights. One curtain was already open for me to peer through. I remember that I looked out into a pitch-black sky with nothing beyond. Nothing in sight, not a sound except for the rhythmic marble-rumble in my chest. The world was empty for the several long moments it took my eyes to adjust and realise what was making the silent footsteps.
All of them.
All of their hundreds and hundreds of bodies.
They moved the way I always imagined ghosts would. Or maybe I imagine ghosts that way now because of them. There mightâve been a rough shape of a humanoid somewhere in the middle of all that darkness, and you could see that shape, if you focussed on one of them for long enough. Everything else about them was just⊠branches.
Even now I donât have the words for it. Branches isnât right really, nor is filaments or cords or spidersâ webs. But they were many, and they were slow and careful, crawling their way across the walls and fences that made up peopleâs backyards, like Wellâs Red-Weed in the colour of ink. A crowd of not-quite-people filling the alleyway like a slow, dark tide of molasses.
Every now and then they found a rubbish bin and rummaged around inside of it with their countless thready fingers. Then theyâd leave. They crawled across the walls and cobbled slabs, absorbing the tattered rubbish people poured into the streets. It was still silent, except for the way in which it wasnât. I felt, rather than heard, something almost like faint laughter and muffled words, the sort of banter Iâd hear coming from people returning from the pub late at night.
Like the ghost-creatures were speaking to one another in words I wasnât supposed to know.
They were passing my house, a silent procession of movement and endless hands, the rattling marble sensation in my chest ever constant, when I saw what was behind them.
The lumpy shape that followed seemed to suck the light from the world. Imagine tar and dirt given form, a golem-like construct of endless, rolling earth, subsumed in smoke. Colossally huge, filling the whole alley and seeping over into peopleâs yards, knocking over plant pots. A cat yowled somewhere and was cut off, like someone had plunged it into water. I gelt me breath until I heard it hissing, escaping into the night.
And somehow, that comforted me. The neighbours wouldnât be looking for their cat tomorrow.
The hugest form had no face⊠no body, really. No form of propulsion but the spindly threads underneath, like those coming from its followers, seeming to drag it silently forward. It was the source of the marble-rattling, I know, but I couldnât see feet. I could barely make out anything but the blackness, like my eyes didnât want to see what it might be beneath the dark.
You know, looking back, it reminds me, weirdly, of the rubbish collectors? I know that sounds laughable. It does to me, too. But thatâs what it reminded me of: the deep disruption of the people who would drive their huge vehicles down that very alleyway at ungodly hours. Right down to the sound it finally did make, the loud, gut piercing shriek that turned the gut-marbles into fine dust inside of me. Like a sound designed specifically to break bone. Or to wake up people that needed to be awoken.
Nobody did. So far as Iâm aware I was the only person who looked out my window that night.
The followers reacted to the sound the way the dustbin men would, too, scattering forward into the alley, bodies crawling across fences and signposts, dipping into drains, like insects trying to escape a downpour.
I got a clue to what they were doing when they reached the older parts of the street.
Some of the houses, you see, still had the old walls. Most of them had been replaced with newer painted brick of wooden slats, but some people still had the bones of the world before: The walls from a century back which had small, wooden slatted doors in them. Coal hatches. From back when we actually used our chimneys. The source of the stains around the bottom of every wall in the street, even now, fifty years later. I remember my dad telling me about helping his grandmother shovel coal that the company left on the ground into the hatch. These were the same hatches some of the⊠creatures crawled into and never came out. Like birds finding their nests.
The windows were closed, but I could still smell something. Like the burning coke in my nannaâs old fireplace. And even though their not-faces turned towards me frequently, I donât think they saw me.
And then it was gone.
I woke up to daylight, with a glass of orange juice soaked into my carpet, and the feeling of a long-gone history aching in my bones.
For a week, the collection will stay with the authors' names anonymous to allow guessing games.
If your work is part of the collection, don't forget to change the published date to today's date so it shows up at the top of the list of Baldur's Gate works.
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