Hearty Recommendations:
Brian Froud's World of Faerie
by Brenda Sutton
[Our thanks go to Robert Gould for providing the images in this review, all of which are copyright Brian Froud, World of Froud, and used by permission]
Brian Froud's World of Faerie
An Imaginosis Book published by Insight Editions, an imprint of Palace Press, International
178 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-933784-13-4
Publication: October 2007
Forward by Dr. Ari Berk
Perhaps this happens all the time now, but Brian Froud's World of Faerie is the first book I've ever known with its own trailer. Appropriately, this tremendous art collection releases just before for Samhain, one of the times when faeries go traveling. The work spans Froud's thirty-year career as an artist, giving examples from many of the books and venues he has illustrated. It also includes many images that have never before been published.
Opening this massive volume is like lifting the lid on a magic box — all sorts of amazing things come pouring out. Inside you will find an intimate view of the artist's work space. You can glimpse in a small way the experience of Brian's equally talented wife, fantasy doll and puppet sculptor Wendy Froud, who explains what it's like to live with an artist who is noticed by faeries. Brian "wanders aimlessly through the house ... trailing black clouds of despondency as he searches for his lost creativity." Her explanation for these regular spates of befuddlement is that the faeries steal it.
"... I can feel the tension building as the faeries wait and watch Brian work. The intensity of his process, the absolute concentration he focuses on paint and board winds them up like the clockwork spring in a tin toy, until they can no longer hold in their curiosity, and with a burst of uncontrolled energy grab his creativity and run away to poke it and prod it, once again leaving Brian bereft and adrift ... convinced that this time it has gone for good."
The book also contains several miniature books embedded in the larger volume like nested dolls. There is one illustrating Peter & Wendy, another on the alchemical process of transformation and its symbols as they relate to the muses, and still another on the Green Woman & Phyllomantic Man and the foliate faeries who rustle in the brushy woodlands.
The other surprise treat in this book is a poster of Neil Gaiman's poem, Instructions, which gives valuable advice to any who encounter the inhabitants of faerie. The entire poem and the accompanying illustrations for it by both Brian and Wendy Froud are, in my opinion, worth the entire cost of the book. I intend to have mine framed and prominently placed in my study for the wisdom it provides. This is a well-hidden treasure, though. I searched the book through a couple of times before I found it, and I knew what I was looking for — tricksey, it is.
Here is just a sample:
Trust the wolves, but do not tell them
where you are going.
The river will be crossed by the ferry.
The ferryman will take you.
(The answer to his question is this: If he hands the oar to the passenger,
he will be free to leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)
Brian has spent many years studying the faeries and learning the lessons that they have to teach — like manners. He thanks and acknowledges from the beginning the debt he owes to Arthur Rackham, the artist from the early twentieth century who also spent his life attempting to capture that which is elusive and often invisible. He says of Rackham "... most of all, it was his juxtaposition of the grotesque and the beautiful that intrigued me. But it was his sinewy, organic line, which spoke of the certainty that human kind and nature were seamlessly bonded, that really inspired me."
Brian has surrounded himself with inspired beauty in his home and family, in his friends and colleagues, and in the landscape of the Devon countryside wherein reside his beloved and well-respected faerie folk. It's been said that those who sleep on a faerie mound arise either mad or poets. That definition should be expanded to include musicians, story-tellers and artists, too, for I'd be willing to bet that under the foundation of the Froud's country house there dwells a faerie kingdom. The portal may have started out no larger than a mushroom ring, but it has grown over thirty years, fertilized and husbanded by the gifted artists who paint and sculpt faeries as they sees 'em.
If you are looking for the cutsey caricatures that litter card shops and gift stores, then move along — this book is not the book you are looking for. If, however, you understand the darker, dangerous, and seductive shadows of the unfamiliar faerie land, you will value this book and pass it down as an education for your children and your children's children. Don't enter the Dark Forest unprepared. The creatures Froud shows us who inhabit it are lichen-covered and prickly, smelling of loam and sometimes blood.
"The Queen of the Bad Faeries has many names. Right now, she wishes to be known as the morrigan, triple-aspected patroness of war and destruction. She engenders violence and rage, frenzy and insanity in battle. Her wings shadow the minds of many in this world right now. In the past, ancient Irish warriors joined sexually with her to gain favour in battle. Protective armour had to be removed in acknowledgement of male vulnerability and the supreme power of the Feminine in matters of life, death, and destiny. The paradox of Faerie is that because she brings destruction, she conversely has sway over fertility, sovereignty of land, and healing.
"The Queen of Shadows reveals the madness of certainty and how destructive the rigid grip of "being right" can become. This much at least, I have learnt in communion with Faerie. As we move through life we are making a journey both physical and spiritual, and although sometimes benign winds blow us towards enlightenment, often impending storms hold us in darkness and confusion. We seek clarity and light in the darkness, but there are dangers here when there are no shadows of doubts. When dogmas and fundamental fanaticisms of all persuasions take inflexible hold, we demonized anything or anybody not like us. In Faerie there is always the fluid coexistence of opposites that dance in ever-shifting yet balancing harmony. Perhaps she is not bad, but beautiful and strong, holding up a mirror, allowing us to face up to the delusional light of our polarized certainties."
There are also several faerie stories in this book, and Brian explains the symbols and talismans woven into every image like that of Briar Rose, the Queen of the Golden Bough, and especially Alice's journey down the rabbit hole. Look at Wonderland though Brian Froud's eyes and see visions of the Red Queen, the psychopompic rabbit, and Alice as you've never seen them before. There are so many different versions of Alice here, from the usual pinnafored school girl, to the transformed giantess all stretched and barely able to see her toes. Let your eyes wander from little girl Alice's blue striped stockings to intoxicated Alice crouched like a faerie frog on ecstasy. These pictures will move in your mind for every future telling of this story.
Some of the finest drawings are those for Froud's examination of Neverland. His images of Peter dash away the feminine stereotype that's dogged the lad like the stitched on shadows of Mary Martin and Mary Lou Retton. Froud's Peter is a boy's boy, a man's boy, all freckles and wild red hair and teeth he hasn't yet grown into and (gods willing) never will. His portraits of Tinkerbell do what all good portraits of faeries should — they give you many views of her volatile personality. Sure, she's mischievous and playful, but she's also intense and fierce. I would not want her as my foe! And Froud's impressions of Hook? Well, they look something like our friend William Todd Jones were he to ever take up captaining a pirate ship.
One of the really wonderful foundations of this book is Froud's willingness to share, not only his friendships with the residents of Faerie, but his methods of incorporating magic into every portrait. Many of these stunningly beautiful drawings are accompanied by insightful text, and underneath that text shows a watermark, an encircled geometric star shape which points like a treasure map to the important lines and symbols that complete the image's structure. I will never look at art in the same blank way again, but will forever more seek out Froud's magic lesson. Thank you, Brian!
Brenda Sutton is the publisher of Mythic Passages, Operations Director, Corporate Secretary, and Office Administrator for Mythic Imagination Institute. She is an award-winning singer/songwriter with the internationally reknown band Three Weird Sisters. She works in a support and consultant capacity for the non-profit music organization Interfilk, and maintains their website. She is freelance writer whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines. She is also the mother of five, grandmother of two.
Brian "wanders aimlessly through the house ... trailing black clouds of despondency as he searches for his lost creativity." Her explanation for these regular spates of befuddlement is that the faeries steal it.
The other surprise treat in this book is a poster of 
Brian has surrounded himself with inspired beauty in his home and family, in his friends and colleagues, and in the landscape of the Devon countryside wherein reside his beloved and well-respected faerie folk. It's been said that those who sleep on a faerie mound arise either mad or poets. That definition should be expanded to include musicians, story-tellers and artists, too, for I'd be willing to bet that under the foundation of the Froud's country house there dwells a faerie kingdom. The portal may have started out no larger than a mushroom ring, but it has grown over thirty years, fertilized and husbanded by the gifted artists who paint and sculpt faeries as they sees 'em.
"The Queen of the Bad Faeries has many names. Right now, she wishes to be known as the morrigan, triple-aspected patroness of war and destruction. She engenders violence and rage, frenzy and insanity in battle. Her wings shadow the minds of many in this world right now. In the past, ancient Irish warriors joined sexually with her to gain favour in battle. Protective armour had to be removed in acknowledgement of male vulnerability and the supreme power of the Feminine in matters of life, death, and destiny. The paradox of Faerie is that because she brings destruction, she conversely has sway over fertility, sovereignty of land, and healing.
There are also several faerie stories in this book, and Brian explains the symbols and talismans woven into every image like that of Briar Rose, the Queen of the Golden Bough, and especially Alice's journey down the rabbit hole. Look at Wonderland though Brian Froud's eyes and see visions of the Red Queen, the psychopompic rabbit, and Alice as you've never seen them before. There are so many different versions of Alice here, from the usual pinnafored school girl, to the transformed giantess all stretched and barely able to see her toes. Let your eyes wander from little girl Alice's blue striped stockings to intoxicated Alice crouched like a faerie frog on ecstasy. These pictures will move in your mind for every future telling of this story.
Some of the finest drawings are those for Froud's examination of Neverland. His images of Peter dash away the feminine stereotype that's dogged the lad like the stitched on shadows of Mary Martin and Mary Lou Retton. Froud's Peter is a boy's boy, a man's boy, all freckles and wild red hair and teeth he hasn't yet grown into and (gods willing) never will. His portraits of Tinkerbell do what all good portraits of faeries should — they give you many views of her volatile personality. Sure, she's mischievous and playful, but she's also intense and fierce. I would not want her as my foe! And Froud's impressions of Hook? Well, they look something like our friend William Todd Jones were he to ever take up captaining a pirate ship.
Brenda Sutton is the publisher of Mythic Passages, Operations Director, Corporate Secretary, and Office Administrator for Mythic Imagination Institute. She is an award-winning singer/songwriter with the internationally reknown band