Where the Wild Things Are

Naturally after the Secret Garden Party I had to revisit Where The Wild Things Are as it brings together all of my ideas and memories from the summer. 

 

This has a real nostalgic pull on my heart strings as I was read this book as a child and me and my brother would play at being max and the beasts! It has since been developed into a feature length film by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers that I am also a huge fan of. 

The front cover of the book. 

The basic outline of the story is of A young boy named Max has an active imagination, and he throws tantrums if others don't go along with what he wants. Following an incident with Claire (his sister) and her friends and his Mother paying more attention to her boyfriend than to him - max throws a tantrum and is sent to his bedroom by his mother. He runs away from home wearing his wolf costume at the time. Max not only runs away physically, but runs toward a world in his imagination. This world, an ocean away, is inhabited by large wild beasts, including one named Carol who is much like Max himself in temperament. Instead of eating Max like they normally would, the wild things befriend Max as he is not scared of them and he proclaims himself a king who can magically solve all their problems. He gets caught up in all of the beasts separate issues but also manages to make them have fun and gets them to dance by declaring that the wild rumpus has begun. He eventually misses home and realises that he can't save the beasts from being upset and angry. He realises that sometimes people do things they don't mean and that people are complicated so he decides to leave the beasts and go home. When he gets home he finds his mum has left his dinner by his bed and its still hot so she does still love him.  

I love this story as it is simply about childhood innocence and how children aren't adults and do confuse their emotions and don't yet understand how other people feel or why they do things. 

Im going to do a few posts about this as I'm fascinated by the story and the imagery involved in the book and film.

p.s. Im thinking of using the front cover as the colour palette for a autumn/winter collection what does every one think? Maybe too bright or too green?

Scandinavian Folklore

Going back to the nightmare theme I discovered the Scandinavian heritage is riddled with tales of folklore including Trolls, witches and mystical nymphs and elves. I first discovered this topic when I was looking into nightmares and Brothers Grimm.


These tales are told to children to show them that anything is possible and to ignite their imagination. They are scary tales and some children do have nightmares from these but again they are told to them to prepare them for the real world and the dangers in the outside world. 

I was struck by the beautiful imagery that accomponies these tales and the play on beauty and ugly. I was particularly interested in the Trolls and the human animal cross over and the tales of outsmarting the Trolls.

A Troll counting his fortune, John Bauer
http://www.themeshack.net/2008downloads/200812/1228/patches/JohnBauerArt-wallpaper.jpg

The tales of Trolls show that money can buy you happiness as the Trolls are very rich but very unhappy and that they are mesmerised by beauty as they are so scary looking. Young Scandinavian children understand the concept of Trolls and are scared of them as they often steal children in the tales, and a way to teach children to brush their teeth is to tell them to get rid of the very small "tooth trolls" that otherwise will make holes in their teeth. (Torbjørn Egner's "Karius og Baktus").

The Huldra was supposed to be an breath taking beauty, often naked woman, inhabitant of the deep of the forests. John Bauer. http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiBxTV9iIDyVAdefw7epZtfO8cf8N7foDDuf84EW_7yHbpQ8YCOF1cxTcQNQ

John Bauer
http://www.artsycraftsy.com/bauer/jb_queen.jpg

The illustartor John Bauer is prevalent in the illustration of the folklore tales the and his work had a lot of elements of Gustav Klimt's paintings within it, they were painting at the same time and I wonder if Bauer was influenced by Klimt's colour schemes and style. 

Klimt's "Forces of Evil"
http://www.iklimt.com/

Trolls transfixed on the Huldra, John Bauer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bauer_1915.jpg

Here you can see the similarity between the subject matter and some of the patterns between Bauer and Klimt's work. I would like to use these creatures as a starting point to create my own folk tale. Im thinking of creating my own creatures with their own personalities to design clothes around, maybe to use each personality of the creatures as a basis for designs. Im thinking of looking into traditional folklore clothing to compliment this?