#Art & fiction

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Hang

“All of the frames in this museum are merely stringent tradition, a mirage that plagues me in its constancy,” sniffed the gallerist eying the carved wood and gilt. No matter how many times she had said it aloud now, the gallerist had yet to encounter a like mind. After all, most people were culturally conditioned regard frames as a mere device in service to what really mattered: the delicacy, the pretty visions made by mixing powdered jewels in oil and swishing them about to mimic light and shadow and magnificent life rendered on a smooth piece of wood or copper. Most often they were portraits of those that were and now were nevermore.

Everyone remembers the cake that’s here and gone, nobody gives notice to the plate, unless it is filthy or cracked.

The gallerist thumbed the pendant at her collar, a small silver capsule that housed a gilded splinter; it was what remained of a work by Wm. Goodricke.

One day, she would find another frame by Wm. Goodricke, that bastard.

Ages ago, those that crossed the ocean did so with portraits of their loved ones. Since passage was prohibitively expensive for a whole family, there was one chosen to safeguard their surname, and then paintings were made and frames were carved. It wasn’t a cheap bit of magic at all, but it saved room and feeding. Shipwrecks and fire were fervently discussed. Children were calmed with cakes laced with laudanum. The painter worked their oils in a bid for the most realistic rendering down to the wife’s wry smile and the son’s plaid coat. When the painting was complete, the framer bound them so as to constrain their comings and goings… unframed portraits would awaken whenever they so chose, but a ship was not the place to reawaken. The one trusted family member carried them aboard, silent, careful.

On the new shores the frames were split and a family could spring forth groggy– but whole– from a painting to begin a new life away from what troubled them.

For many, this was a blessing.

But even the most benign of tools are found to be weapons by those that figure out how to wield them thusly.

The fearful Jack Westbury, known around The Ditches as Hollow-Eyed Jack, was eventually captured. The justice sentenced him to be painted, and so a rather glum-looking forest scene was painted, and Jack was placed behind a particularly crooked and particularly dead tree. The framer that bound the painting even signed his work: Wm. Goodricke. Many rejoiced. It was a punishment that required little of the taxpayers’ or crown’s money, and was not as distasteful as the crowd-pleasing tortures; surely, this was a kinder way to mete out justice.

More grotesque cases were found to be fit for The Painting, and eventually there were enough to fill out a gallery. Wallpapered in damask with tasseled curtains, this jail held no danger of stench or violence, and so many paid coin to witness not only the criminals themselves, but also to wonder at the skills of the artists and to see the rare but celebrated frame-breaking and freeing of those who had served their time. Most gallery-goers nibbled on thyme cakes and sipped ginger fizzes while guessing at crimes.

One-by-one more galleries were added, and people like the dishonest baker (guilty of padding his breadloaves with sawdust) found themselves hanging in gold among the crowds’ hush. Many took pleasure in the portrait of a rather ugly dog that nipped at people’s heels, relieved they could stroll Cotton Lane without being chased after. A father who had sent their eight-year-old son off with a tin of tea and a kiss in the morning had found his son the next day in the galleries, staring blankly from a lovely lake scene, for the crime of approaching the queen’s swans. The guards sternly reminded him that there were to be no outbursts in the gallery, lest he wanted to stand the same shore as little Henry.

Among the cruel jokes, there arose mutterings about justice, about liberty. A plan was enacted under the belief that cruelty of the system would not reach for the gloved hands of a group of lovely young women.

So, the gallerist and what she would come to think of as her sisters protested. They too, were hanged, bound by a frame crafted by the magic of Wm. Goodricke.

It was then that the public realized a wrong word, might cause them to spend more time in the galleries than they meant to, and so the galleries became vacant. Without the public funding, they closed. A fire took the records, and the nobles – eager to own the rare, the curious – exchanged anonymous money for paintings. Hollow-Eyed Jack was said to reside above the fireplace at a castle in Luxembourg. The baker was spotted at an auction.

Over decades, some frames cracked. Some were simply removed for cleaning or in exchange for something more fashionable, and those that were painted were set blinking out into a world that they knew nothing of. But they were free.

Through luck, the gallerist had found and freed the boy only three years ago. She helped him to learn the ways of the new world, even though she herself was stumbled daily by things that the modern folk found commonplace. And now she spent too many weekends of her young one-hundred-and-twenty year life searching for what might remain of her sisters in little shamble shops and museums and estate sales so that she might do them justice.

[braxiatel]

I honestly and truly believe all good AUs should be a little “”””ooc”””” in the sense that good characterisation involves understanding that changes a characters backstory and circumstances will have an effect on how they respond to the world around them

Good characterisation isn’t about creating a perfect 1:1 canon replica it’s about understanding why a character is different in your work and about grounding the changes you do deliberately choose to make in canon character traits

[kumanikanna]

So I've binged this manga, and here's my one and only contribution to this fandom.

[beepboopappreciation]

Is this anything

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i am an observer, but not by choice.’

[text id: my fist has always been clenched around the handle of an invisible suitcase. / i am always ready to leave. / there is not a single room in this world where i belong.]

[aberrantcreature]

The secret wish is to write a fanfic that someone loves so much they make fan art of it, or to create a drawing that someone creates an entire fic based off of it.

[cr1nge-culture]

one of the best fics i've ever read, one that had me addicted to my phone and crying, wasn't even prose. it was a huge, casual, bullet-pointed outline with every detail of an au that the author never got around to writing in full. and it was amazing.

let this be a message to all you who want to write but can't do it "normally": write it! someone out there will eat it up. whether that be poetry, tiny drabbles, or bullet pointed list: your work is always worth it. your art (yes, art!) will alway deserve to have its moment in the spotlight. why? because you made it. even if it wasn't done in a traditional matter, it came from your brain and your creativity and that is amazing.

♡

[srpayt0n]

I HAVE to post this here too...y'all selfshippers are so strong and real, tysm....

[sillystringpony]

THE AUTISM SISTERS!!!!!!!!

no text ver below :3

interactions hugely appreciated <333333

MY KO-FI <3

[browsethestacks]

Arthouse Muppets

Art by Bruce McCorkindale

[rainbowhitter]

Today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday.

[queenoftheantz]

There's a trend on twitter to draw different countries version of Miku... so......Swedish Miku... the idea possessed me until I realised my vision

[ink-the-artist]

mage

[tazaryoot]

Flowers

[vetyr]

HEAVENBREAKER

Commissioned illustration for Sara Wolf's (Insta: @ authorsarawolf; Twitter: @ Sara_Wolf1) upcoming book, Heavenbreaker! Thanks so much for being an awesome client <3

If you'd like to reach out with questions about a commission, email silverthegold@gmail.com 🫵