The Story Cabinet Update

We thought we'd show you a bit more about The Story Cabinet because it's been a while since we did! 

Many of us are involved in this project but, typically, we don't want show you everything at once, so today we are going to focus only on the work of one Fabula artist. This is the work of Katherine Perret who is a photographer. 

Last time she was at Hove Museum Katherine used her time to try layering some of her images, using photography and drawing of trees representing a forest. 

Putting them in the window allowed the light to shine through the tracing paper to show up the layers. The idea for the Story Cabinet is that we will use lighting behind or in the cabinet to achieve a similar affect. 

As a photographer this project has pushed Katherine right out of her comfort zone and has forced her into experimenting using traditional photography and mixing it with other media, different papers and drawing. The idea is that Katherine's work will fit around some of the more character-based work in the group and add background and atmosphere to the project as a whole.

The Story Cabinet project is based around fairytales and myths but instead of basing her research around a specific fairytale, interestingly, Katie has decided to investigate them as a whole. She began to see the Forest as a character in itself as it is used in many fairytales/myths from around the world, ie. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Rama and Sita, Baba Yaga even traditional stories like Robin Hood and Wind in the Willows.

She is interested in the differing aspects of this 'character'. The Enchanted Forest, the refuge or sanctuary verses the Deep Dark Wood that is full of evil spirits and things that want to get you.

   "Entering the Dark Forest is a threshold symbol: the soul entering the perils of the unknown; the realm of death; the secrets of nature, or the spiritual world which man must penetrate to find meaning." 

                      An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, J C Cooper. 

Well, that's the update!  We hope that you will come down to Hove Museum to see for yourself what we are doing. The next time that Fabula will be at Hove Museum on residency (thanks to The Royal Pavilion & Museums) will be in September and we will post the date in advance here. See you soon!

Katherine Perret is is a photographer with a passion for the use of analogue film. Her work is often set in the garden or the wider landscape in which she finds herself. She has a BA in Photographic Art and an MA in Sequential design/Illustration from The University of Brighton where she became interested in book design. Her final MA piece was a photographic exploration of 'place' culminating in four hand bound books. Fundamentally her work is about the quiet act of looking and perceiving, observing the usually unobserved spaces. Capturing the light of this space on the negative and weaving these images together to form narratives. 

To see more of Katherine's work please go to www.fabulacollective.com

EXPOSE! - illustrated word by Louise Dennis

After playing around with different ways to light some cardboard trees I had made I then took the results into Photoshop and made this image. It's up to you to decide whether the character is burying something or digging something up!

You can see more of my work at www.fabulacollective.com

Drawings Inspired by a Tiny Train at Hove Museum

In the Toy Trek game upstairs in the Wizard's Attic at Hove Museum, there is a tinplate steam train in a glass cabinet commemorating the coming of the railways to Brighton in 1841. It is dwarfed by playing cards and framed by an oval window in the display about a metre off the ground. It is easily overlooked and it tells of a time when Brighton was opening up to the world. 

During residency at Hove Museum, Fabula member Penelope Chong has spent many hours drawing this tiny object literally from the different viewpoints of an adult, a child and a toddler. 

The act of drawing is an act of scrutiny and this close examination has helped her to reflect on the different lives of objects. As a toy this was made to be played with: Stories of the passengers - the driver and the stoker  too - could be imagined as they were glimpsed through the carriage windows. It bears the fingerprints of ‘giants’ - the children that played with it. Now it sits behind glass as a museum piece, telling a different story.

The toy casts a dramatic shadow that Penelope has incorporated into her drawings. She says she was straining to see the detail in the train because of the size of it and the lighting conditions. This was a reminder to her of the passing of time and that her sight is deteriorating as she gets older. An interest in shadows and scars: ephemeral versus permanent is a recurring theme in Penelope’s own work and perhaps that is why this small toy train held her interest and why she dealt with it in this particular way. 

We thought you would find it interesting to see Penelope's sensitive drawings and to hear some of the thoughts bought about by the process of drawing a small toy train.  Next time you're at Hove Museum why not have a close look in The Wizard's Attic and see if you can see the little train? Maybe you'll see it a different way and bring your own story to it.

Penelope is a Brighton-based artist who is just as likely to pick up a scalpel or needle as a pencil or paintbrush, and enjoys working in a range of media and on a variety of surfaces, including live plants. She studied Fine Art Printmaking at Brighton University gaining a First Class Hons degree and she is midway through the MA in Sequential Design/Illustration. See more of Penelope's work at www.fabulacollective.com

Artists from Fabula will be in residency again at Hove Museum on Monday 29th August - do come down and see what we are doing. 

Word of Month REPEAT - by Somin Ahn and some exciting news!

To illustrate the word REPEAT, Somin Ahn made this charming narrative in which a yellow square keeps repeating and a cat plays with it. The story is based on the concept of relativity.

Somin says she got her inspiration when she was cat-sitting for two months with a cat called Cookie. She enjoyed watching his daily routines such as looking through the windows, chasing bees and other typical cat behaviours. The relationship between the square and the cat makes the narrative: A square changes into a drawer that a cat jumps on, a square of sunshine that keeps him warm and a box that he likes the most.

Somin has now made this story into a picture book and the great news is that this book is soon to be published. 

This isn't the only book by Somin - her first published picture book 'One Minute', also explores the concept of relativity. The story follows a young girl facing a variety of experiences that last one minute and explores how the sense of time differs depending on the circumstances. 

We're delighted to tell you that Korean and American children will soon be able to read 'One Minute' as it will be released on Friday August 12th in Korea and on November 15th in the USA as well. Congratulations Somin!

Somin's books are being published by Corraini Edizioni, an Italian publisher that won the Bologna Prize for the Best Children's Book Publisher in Europe in 2014.

'One Minute' is a truly lovely picture book and if you'd like to find out a bit more about it or to purchase a copy please follow the links below

http://www.corraini.com/en/catalogo/scheda_libro/1246/One-minute 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Minute-Somin-Ahn/dp/145215564X

There is a chance to see more of Somin's work at www.fabulacollective.com and at our exciting exhibition at Hove Museum from Dec 2016 - March 2017 (for more information please read previous posts by clicking below on the label 'Hove Museum').

SILENCE! - by Jay Eunji Lee and some great news!

Here is another illustrative interpretation of the word SILENCE as part of our word project. This one, by Jay Eunji Lee, is a little sequence that tells a story. 

Jay usually exhibits with us but as she will not be taking part in our next exhibition in Hove Museum in December (see previous posts for further information) we thought it would be a good opportunity to tell you a bit about her work and show some of it here.

Jay's first picture book - 'The Way to Outer Space' is about a girl's journey to another planet and it includes three different craft activities to encourage children to use their imagination. 

We'd like to congratulate Jay because her picture book was published by Hansol Soobook in Korea last month and is due to be published in the UK today by Oxford University Press - Fantastic!

To see more examples of Jay's work please go to www.fabula.collective.com or www.jaypicturebook.com