OK, group, so here’s another case where I have to openly talk about the evil world of “DRUGS!” Ooh… sounds so sensational when we say it that way… something BIG pharma, politicians and exploitation documentary makers (and NOT the divine type of exploitation of the cinema) know all too well. Rather than referring to marijuana as a plant medicine and DMT and Ayahuasca as a plant teacher, we use the word “drugs” to shut down dialog and vilify… but enough of that rant. This page was partially inspired by the one (of 15 or so) DMT trips that went bad, though I get more specific on that later. In the trip, the floor under my bare feet became quite menacing, so here I mixed that with a scene from the original Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Mermaid.” Note how Mara’s feet are enjoying trodding upon mushrooms, that soon turn into vile polyps, then eyeballs.

Below is the passage from “The Little Mermaid,” which seems to me to emphasize if not somewhat eroticize her bare breasts.

“Beyond this stood her house, in the centre of a strange forest, in which all the trees and flowers were polypi, half animals and half plants; they looked like serpents with a hundred heads growing out of the ground. The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top. All that could be reached in the sea they seized upon, and held fast, so that it never escaped from their clutches. The little mermaid was so alarmed at what she saw, that she stood still, and her heart beat with fear, and she was very nearly turning back; but she thought of the prince, and of the human soul for which she longed, and her courage returned. She fastened her long flowing hair round her head, so that the polypi might not seize hold of it. She laid her hands together across her bosom, and then she darted forward as a fish shoots through the water, between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which were stretched out on each side of her.”

Edmund Dulac Little Mermaid

Were these hallucinations, the physical reality of this space? Does it matter, isn’t all maya, all illusion? Anything that is real to us in a moment is the reality we know.

While in the panels below I reached for a balance between the old world I loved (Gollum from the Rankin Bass Hobbit), and what is to me the new world of stylistic abstraction and the raw looseness I am chasing. First with the old world I know, I recall in the Hobbit cartoon just how magnificent the anatomy of the Gollum was… those fabulous hands!

To be honest, I have to confess that the Rankin Bass Hobbit had more of an influence on me, my mind, my art, the velocity of my life, than anything up to that time, and perhaps anything after, potentially including the earth-shattering influence of Star Wars. What that Hobbit did for me was first introduce me to fantasy of the highest order! And, more importantly, if you look carefully at the backgrounds and the lines, the entire design of the movie was based on the work of an artist who, many years down the road, was to become the biggest influence on my art and style, Arthur Rackham. Seriously, look at Rackham, then watch the Hobbit and tell me you don’t see it!

And, though I say somewhat new territory for me, the abstraction and stylization, as is still my path, it is based on the work of a master. Though I was not looking at this image, Klimt was very much in mind.

Gustav Klimt
Judith I, 1901

But what is coming on the next page is not merely a return to the reality of erotic texture that was always a part of my Mara work, but most definitely pushed many steps further than I had been capable of all those years ago… but that, will have to wait until we get to page 9.

If you love what you are seeing, please note that I am creating these pages with a return of NOTHING, so I am seeking patrons. Monthly patronage would really help this project come along, and my patrons get all manner of cool exclusives: https://www.patreon.com/barefootjustine