Faeries at Krab Jab

I've had better Saturdays. Nothing too earth-shattering, really. Some days you're just forced to face the fact that your society, for the most part, doesn't choose to accommodate or acknowledge people who are built like you. Today, for some reason, that realization felt like more of a knife-twist than usual.

Well, screw it. I've got better ways to occupy my time. The lovely and talented Tara has kindly invited me to Krab Jab Studio in Georgetown for the opener of a show she's curated, centered around the subject of fairies and fae, and considering my status as a laundry faerie there's no way I can decline such an offer.

So off to Georgetown I go, braving the oncoming snow because I am a Tough Swede and I can handle it.

If you're not familiar with Georgetown, it's a neighborhood in the south end of Seattle. Once upon a time it was an industrial area, and most of the buildings still have a vaguely 19th-century factory feel. (Hi, little silver Hyundai!)

The basements of these buildings are almost Dickensian with their old brickwork.

This particular basement hallway is an odd mix of century-old brick and brand-new office space.

Georgetown looks attractively picturesque in the wet snow. But that's not why I'm here.

THIS is why I'm here. Krab Jab Studio is hosting "Faerie II: A Group Show in Contemporary Faerie Art," which I understand will be running through February 27 -- so if you didn't get to visit the opener tonight, hotfoot it down to Georgetown before the end of the month! (It's freeeee...)

And here are a few groupings from the show.

Brian Froud! Some work from the '70s, very reminiscent of the work he did for Jim Henson in The Dark Crystal.

In every little nook there were groupings of candles and containers of sweets (labeled "Goblin Fruit").

A trio of faeries by Gary Lippincott.

And a shadowboxed, mixed-media skeletal bird-creature by Isaac Stuart.

Also an intricate doll by Wendy Froud.

Some personal favorites from the show:

"Snow Fae"...

and "One For Sorrow, Two For Mirth" (aka Crow Girls) by the talented Tara.

"Sweet Mandolin" by Jean-Baptiste Monge.

"How To Fall In Love with a Mermaid" by Charles Vess.

"The Scrying Tree" by Allen Williams.

I was mentioning to Tara tonight that the images I'm most drawn to are not always the most visually striking, but the ones which suggest a story -- the ones that make you ask, "What happens next?"

And of course, Tara is ever the gracious hostess, so this party had a spread. Fruit, cheese, berry-and-sage infused water, all sorts of delicious goodies.

Including these. Don't think you like mushrooms? Think again. These look-alikes were made of meringue, glued together with chocolate and dusted with cocoa powder. They looked amazingly like the real thing. (Thank you, Tara's friend who made these! They were both beautiful and delicious.)

After a few hours of circulating, talking to guests and yakking the ear off gallery owner Julie Baroh, I decided I'd done enough damage and headed for home. This normally 20-minute drive took the better part of an hour to accomplish thanks to quite a bit of snow on the roads, but it was fine -- I took my time, gave myself enough room to brake in case of trouble ahead, and generally handled icy road conditions just fine. Because, as mentioned earlier, Tough Swede.

It occurred to me tonight, especially after the little knife-twisting I experienced earlier in the day, that images of the fae come in all sizes and shapes, from beautiful to grotesque -- and every one manages to retain a certain appeal. If it's true of them, it ought to be just as true of human beings -- even the ones who don't fit the standard societal template of attractiveness.

So. There. THPHBPBT.