{"id":6089,"date":"2013-02-18T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6089"},"modified":"2013-02-19T09:18:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T17:18:11","slug":"artists-take-a-crack-at-carroll-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/02\/18\/artists-take-a-crack-at-carroll-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists take a crack at Carroll classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those looking for a journey down the rabbit hole, the upcoming show at the Fifty Fifty Arts Collective is sure to scratch that adventurous itch. Curiouser: Contemporary Responses to Alice in Wonderland <\/i>is a collection of works from over 15 BC artists that explores some the iconic imagery found in Lewis Carroll\u2019s famous stories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
One of Carollyne Yardley\u2019s pieces from Curiouser, paying homage to a classic story (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Laurie Luck, curator at the Fifty Fifty, found inspiration to curate the show not only in her love of the books, but also in her personal ties to where Carroll did his writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find Oxford to be exceedingly romantic. I was born there and we lived there for a year when I was a baby,\u201d says Luck. \u201cWhenever I\u2019ve been back, it\u2019s amazing just being around the college in that sort of patina of academia, with the ascending staircases that disappear into nowhere. It\u2019s just such a rich environment that I like to transport myself back there.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came to getting artists to participate in the show, Luck found Victoria to be a rich resource for the style she was after.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was starting to see some really interesting work, especially with some of the illustrators in town, lots of surreal artwork,\u201d she says. \u201cThe show is a nice combination of media: photography, sculpture, jewelry, printmaking, painting, film. They all take from different levels of the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local artist Tara Williamson jumped at the chance to join some of the greats with an Alice<\/i>-themed creation of her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many phenomenal artists throughout time have done work for Alice in Wonderland<\/i>,\u201d says Williamson. \u201cI can\u2019t really touch [English book illustrator] Arthur Rackham\u2019s version, but it is fun to reinterpret such a classic piece of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

While re-imagining whimsical scenes may seem like fun and games, Williamson found there to be obstacles in the creative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI re-read Alice in Wonderland<\/i> and I found that challenging,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s because the language is so archaic and there\u2019s a lot of repetition. Alice says the same thing over and over through the entire book. She is almost the worst protagonist ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

In re-reading the Victorian classic, Williamson found the richness of imagery presented a challenge of its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as the protagonist is annoying, the imagery in the book is really unique and weird, so I was having a hard time deciding on what part of the book I wanted to adapt,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to fall into the trap of doing a stereotypical Disney representation of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While they might not share the same love of the Alice character, Luck and Williamson agree that the world that Carroll created so long ago has an undeniable staying power.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe books have been translated into 47 different languages and I suppose that\u2019s just a testament to how original they are and how much these characters stand out,\u201d says Luck. \u201cThe very vivid imagery that you get from them is what\u2019s really powerful about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiouser: Contemporary Responses to Alice in Wonderland
\n<\/i>February 22 to March 17
\nThe Fifty Fifty Arts Collective (2516 Douglas Ave.)
\nthefiftyfifty.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those looking for a journey down the rabbit hole, the upcoming show at the Fifty Fifty Arts Collective is sure to scratch that adventurous itch. Curiouser: Contemporary Responses to Alice in Wonderland is a collection of works from over 15 BC artists that explores some the iconic imagery found in Lewis Carroll\u2019s famous stories. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-6-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6089"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6225,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6089\/revisions\/6225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}