Reading, Reading, Reading

This semester thus far has been occupied with a great deal of reading, which I have discovered seems to be my norm when beginning a new semester. I have been reading:

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Uncanny - Sigmund Freud
The Sandman - E.T.A. Hoffmann
Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond - Bynum, Caroline Walker
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abject - Julia Kristeva

Until yesterday the readings I have been doing seemed interesting but separate, suddenly after two days of consecutive and extensive reading things started to converge. It is becoming clear that I am interested in Perceptions of Reality. A Short list/very brief examples of some connections found thus far . . .

Freud's Uncanny - Individuals may perceive the uncanny based on their own experiences/personality/perceptions.

The Sandman - The uncertainty the reader feels between what is reality and what is a fabrication in the mind of the main character.

Wonderful Blood - In Blood based miracles such as in Wilsnack (one of the most famous cult sites in Europe due to three miraculous hosts which survived a devastating fire and appeared to have the blood of Christ on them) it is difficult to prove such miracles, which raises questions of wether the miracle ever took place, can it ever be proven, or if it took place in the mind of the man who saw it.

I am slowly making my way through Powers of Horror and will perhaps find if it to ties in to ideas surrounding perceptions of reality.

I recently re-watched my favorite movie The Shining and as always was struck by the inside angles of the Overlook Hotel. In a print created in undergrad I played with the image of a fictional room in slightly distorted head on perspective. I began to make several of these drawings as "backgrounds" or "stages," places for future action to take place. In creating the same background over and over again (through drawing not print) I am exploring (however loosely) ideas associated with Freud's uncanny - the idea of the double or doppelgänger as well as the idea of a spontaneous return to the same location through different means.

These are in very beginning stages as I intend to cut out the painted shapes from the Mylar. I am wondering as always do they need more. I feel that they are missing the layer of drawn cartoon, or perhaps that the room needs more detail or to be painted. . . .

En experiment possibly too referential or simplistic or even too close to my earlier work. 

The following images were created on the new paper discussed in my last post which is made out of stone. I find them interesting and like that I have the potential to draw right into them or cut them out. However I miss being able to turn them over and see a new dimension on the other side.