« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
March 27, 2006
Thank you from Charles Vess
I just wanted to thank you all for a splendid time last week. Karen and I were left feeling as if we were floating on golden clouds of good will by Saturday evening. The enormous amount of work that you all put into the apparently smooth organization of the conference was evident to all as well as appreciated by those of us who could sneak quick glances behind the current to see mad dashes and last minute rescues by all of you and your cohorts. Bravo!
There was a great deal of work involved with preparing for my two presentations but seeing those images cast large was a delight. I am always happy to share my accumulated knowledge on and about those artists that I love and it seemed as if they did indeed strike the proper response with many of the attendees.
I look forward to attending in the years to come as it has always been a pleasure sharing the tropical temps and accumulated knowledge of your presenters and attendees.
Best regards,
Charles
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)
Thank you from M. Thomas Inge
I had an altogether splendid time and was treated like the proverbial prince. I was amply rewarded by all the kind and thoughtful attention. Perhaps you heard about the remarkable thing that happened too. Charles Vess made a birthday present to me at the banquet of the original art for his version of "Snow White" drawn for the BIG BOOK OF GRIMM TALES. This is something he holds dear and had promised never to let go, but my expressed admiration for it overcame his reluctance. When I reminded him that he had promised never to sell it, he replied, "Well I didn't sell it, did I?" It will remain a part of my collection to be donated Virginia Commonwealth University, so it will be preserved for others to enjoy after I have gone. Charles has visitation rights, of course, any time.
Don Palumbo and his sons (both remarkable artists themselves) were most attentive, and we all had a grand time. I don't know who suggested me for the honor of being your guest scholar, but I am awfully glad they did. It was one of the signal moments of my career.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
Even the trip home couldn't spoil ICFA for me
Like a lot of ICFA-goers, I stay an extra day or so after the conference to unwind and avoid the Spring Break / cruise ship passengers grabbing all the Sunday flights out. It's a lovely way to end the conference, spending an afternoon shopping at Oakwood Plaza (a 20 minute walk from the hotel) or by the pool without the guilt of skipping a session, then having dinner with others who don't have to rush back.
This year, sadly, staying an extra day meant I got caught in the 'snow event' that delayed flights into and out of Denver, so instead of getting home on Monday night, I ended up sleeping (if you can call it that) on the floor of Denver International Airport. But even this horrific experience could not spoil what was a wonderful conference.
It began as it always does for me, on Tuesday evening with a quick dinner with friends before diving into the behind-the-scenes madness that hopefully most attendees don't see. Wednesday morning means stuffing flyers into registration folders; Wednesday afternoon I always hang out at the registration desk with Membership & Registration Co-ordinator Katy Hatfield, meeting and greeting probably half of the attendees in a matter of hours. Katy has things running so smoothly at the desk that the meeting and greeting part gets squeezed into seconds. Then it's the board meeting and then the opening night reception. This year saw the first (and definitely not the last, given the response) Newcomer Meet-Up sponsored by the Student Caucus, which allowed newbies to the conference to get to know each other and long time attendees in a smaller, cozier space before heading off to the crush in the Regatta.
On Thursday, after watching the first of Charles Vess' presentation of beautiful images in the ballroom, I hosted an author reading with the lovely Patricia McKillip, the gracious Stephen R. Donaldson, and the engaging Timothy J. Anderson (who hails from just up the highway from me). Then I caught a fascinating panel on Outsider Art with Guest of Honor Charles Vess, Liz Hand (whose book Mortal Love features characters who create such art), Peter Straub, and Andy and Sydney Duncan whose tales of local examples of outsider art were amusing and weirdly compelling. After the Business Meeting I was free to run away for dinner with Jeri Zulli (not making it back in time for the evening programming).
On Friday I had to miss the SF Theory Roundtable because I was participating in a panel on visuals in fandom organized by Eden Lackner. A couple of participants were missing, sadly, but Barb Lucas and Amy Hale had a lot of insights (and images) to share, and we had to field some great questions and observations from the audience. We could have gone on a lot longer, I'm sure. After that I went to the session on fan fiction featuring Eden, Barb, and Robin Reid (IAFA's new 2VP) chaired by Sharon Emmerichs. Cool papers, and I'm sorry I had to duck out before the question period.
Anyone looking over the program will have noticed by now that I don't seem to have made it to early morning sessions this year, and I didn't break that pattern on Saturday (more well rested, less well informed than in previous years). I did get to a late morning session on Ancient Myth and More Modern Fantasy, particularly enjoying Bev Friend's exploration of the Icarus myth in poetry and images. Charles Vess' second presentation on Saturday afternoon was just as lovely and intriguing as his first, this time going beyond the work of other artists that have had an influence on his own art to a fascinating look at how some of his works have been created from initial sketches to complete works. I had to leave a little before the end to get to my own session (one of those lovely Saturday afternoon events where the panelists almost outnumbered the audience; that's what happens when you're scheduled opposite a session on the Guest of Honor's work; I would have been there myself if I could have been). For the last session of the conference, I went to Jeri Zulli's session to hear her paper on the role of community in the formation of the double in Jekyll and Hyde and Dorian Gray (Puddn'head Wilson was supposed to be in there too, but something's gotta give in 20 minutes). The session worked particularly well, with another paper on Jekyll and Hyde, and one on Salem's Lot. Really great question period on this session.
And then, the banquet. I really love the closing banquet, from the crowded pre-banquet reception marked by flashbulbs and hugs and uniformed waitpersons circulating with trays of teeny hot dogs and crab puffs, through the lovely meal and the speeches (really, I love the speeches), to the post-banquet reception in Regatta and the goodbye tour / hugfest around the pool and in the parking lot and in the lobby.
Seriously, I love the speeches. A lot of awards were presented this year, and one common feature of all of the acceptance speeches was the affection and appreciation of all of the winners for the association and its members. Carl Boehm, who received a Stephen R. Donaldson award at Friday's Guest Scholar luncheon in thanks for his yeoman work over the past decade, set the tone in thanking everyone he's ever worked with at ICFA, giving credit to everyone else for the hard work he was being honored for. Rick Wilber also received a Donaldson Award for all of his work organizing the Asimov's (now Dell Magazines) award over the years. Chuck Nelson, IAFA's longest-serving Division Head, was honored for everything he's done behind the scenes to make the conference a success. Add in the lovely speeches from Guest Scholar M. Thomas Inge, Grad Student Paper Award winner Darja Malcolm-Clarke, Dell Magazine winner Megan Sinoff, and Joe Hill, this year's Crawford Award winner, and I was just suffused with fellowship and good feelings.
Next year we'll be gathering together again at the Wyndham (will it still be called Wyndham? Who knows?) with Guest of Honor Geoff Ryman, Guest Scholar Marina Warner, and Special Guest Writer Melissa Scott. I am already looking forward to seeing all of you there and doing the opening hello hugfest.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2006
Links of Interest Related to the Conference Theme
From Kelly Searsmith:
The Fantastic in Outsider Art Panel Follow-Up
At ICFA-27’s Fantastic in Outsider Art panel (session 36), Gary K. Wolfe and Peter Straub mentioned the work of Henry Darger (1892-1972), who was then unknown to many of us present. Since returning home, I’ve been reading about Darger around the web, and want to share some resources with others. I’ve also collected some Outsider Art resources, some new and some that I’ve long enjoyed.
These are prefaced with the Emily Dickinson poem I attempted to quote at the session’s Q & A, as I made the case for Dickinson’s counting as an outsider writer in her time:
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.
_____
Darger Resources:
Sara Ayer’s excellent Henry Darger Page serves as a good first stop.
Chicago’s Carl Hammer Gallery currently has an extensive online display of Darger’s art, to accompany an installation. An approximate chronology of Darger’s life, and a short essay entitled REALMS OF THE UNREAL by Stephen Prokopoff, are available there as well.
General Outsider Art Resources:
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.
The American Visionary Art Museum gives a fine site for online exploration.
In the UK, Henry Boxer Gallery does similar work (an online artist list is provided).
_____
More Outsider Art in Other Media:
Two media of outsider art I especially love, but which we did not discuss in detail, are architecture (sometimes called “extreme homes”) and automobiles (also known as “art cars”).
The extreme homes that would count as outsider art (rather than as insider architectural experiment) are those that are, of course, hand built by untrained, impassioned, and often eccentric folks who just have to manifest the vision in their heads. I especially like these media because the home and car are American icons for masculine success and family values (the home at least, and cars of a certain, sensible kind). So, how subversive of these outsider artists to give such status symbols their own spin.
_____
Examples of Outsider Architecture:
Leonard Knight’s Salvation Mountain in Nilund, California
Edward Leedskalnin’s Coral Castle of Homestead Florida (not far south of Ft Lauderdale): (with a moving story about Ed’s motivation for the project)
Earl Young’s Mushroom House in Charlevoix, Michigan
Howard Solomon’s Homemade Castle in Ona, Florida
Mary Lou Gulley’s Mystery Castle of Phoenix Arizona(with a particularly moving story about why her father may have built it)
Links to Art Car Examples:
Fairy Tale Studies and Fictions
Attending the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts always inspires me, especially to the return of a subject of central and lasting interest: fairy-tale studies and new fairy tale art. In honor of this renewed burst of inspiration, I'm sharing a list of good starter resources in this area:
Professional Contacts and Contexts
Scholarly Journals
Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies (published by Wayne State University Press)
The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts (focuses on international and interdisciplinary treatments of the fantastic in the arts; housed at Idaho State University)
Extrapolation (housed at University of Texas at Brownsville; focuses on popular, contemporary fantasy and sci fi criticism)
Folklore (international journal of folklore and folkloristics)
Journal of the American Folklore Society (book reviews available online)
The Journal of Popular Culture (published by Blackwell; bi-monthly)
Organizations
Mythic Imagination Institute (with annual Mythic Journeys Convention); for the Mythic Passages newsletter, see here
The Mythopoeic Society (also holds an annual convention; prints Mythlore, Mythprint, and Mythic Circle; and runs the Mythopoeic Press)
Endicott Studios (with an online journal in the mythic arts), the creation of Terri Windling
SurLaLune fairy tale pages (with an introduction to fairy tale studies, discussion board, list of fairy tale authors, online store, and electronic texts of selected annotated tales), the creation of Heidi Anne Heiner
The Folklore Society (based in London; awards the annual Katharine Briggs Folklore Award)
The American Folklore Society (which publishes a journal under its name)
Academic Discussion Lists
The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (based in the USA)
Fantastic: Fantasy and Science Fiction Research Network (based in Australia)
New Fairy Tale Fiction and Popular Columns
Realms of Fantasy (with its famous, and very good, Folkroots column)
The Fairy Tale Review (Kate Bernheimer’s new contemporary literary fairy tale annual, with an outstanding Board of Directors to recommend it, in addition to her own presence as editor)
Cabinet des Fees (online and soon to be in print literary review of fairy tale fiction – you go Helen!)
Mytholog (quarterly review publishing mythic and folkloric poetry and fiction, essays, and illustration)
The Mythic Circle (review of The Mythopoeic Society, publishing poetry and fiction)
Ellen Datlow (editor of many fairy-tale oriented and friendly fantasy anthologies)
Electronic Traditional Tales Archives
Grimms’ Tales (all 209, but rough copy)
D.L. Ashliman’s Folktexts (folk and mythology, with a special section on Germanic sagas and legends)
Rick Walton’s Folk and Fairytales library
Les contes de Madame d’Aulnoy (twelve, en Francais)
University of Maryland (includes selected texts of Hans Christian Andersen, Arabian Nights, Grimm, Tom Thumb, Irish Fairy Tales, and Lang)
Other Electronic Resources
Irish Literature, Mythology, Folklore and Drama (created by the web editor of the Luminarium, Anniina Jokinen)
Mythology Web (which bills itself as is the premier spot on the web for information about folklore, myths and legends)
Bibliography of Folktale Motif Indexes (Sith Thompson's multi-volume compilation is the standard reference)
Posted by ChrissieMains at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)
Pics from Stacie Hanes
Stacie Hanes has kindly sent a few pics from the conference:
Margaret McBride and her conference vest
Posted by ChrissieMains at 06:18 PM | Comments (0)
ICFA 2006 Awards Banquet: Grad Student Paper Award
The 2006 award for the best graduate student paper presented at the conference went to Darja Malcolm-Clarke, Indiana University, for her paper titled ”Subversive Metropolis: The Grotesque Body in the Phantasmic Urban
Landscape.”
The award comes with a cheque for $250 and publication in JFA. This year's committee was Neil Easterbrook, Jeffrey Weinstock, and Christine Mains (last year's winner), and co-ordinated by 2VP Brian Attebery.
Darja's acceptance speech was far more articulate than that of last year's winner.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
JFA and ICFA2006 papers
JFA Editor Bill Senior is looking for submissions to an upcoming conference-themed issue of the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts.
If your conference presentation is publication-ready or could be made ready for publication with a little time and effort, consider submitting it to Bill at wsenior AT broward DOT edu.
And of course JFA is always accepting submissions of articles and book reviews.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2006
Changes to Poolside
Some of you may remember that during the recent hurricane season, lucky Fort Lauderdale was a landfall location. Bill Senior assures us that the hotel is looking good, but regular attendees of the conference will notice a few changes.
Among those changes is the poolside area; aside from missing several trees and shrubs, a lot of the patio furniture has gone missing, and, unfortunately, the poolside bar is no longer regularly open. This is a decision made by the new owners of the hotel.
The board has arranged for a poolside bar with food on Saturday afternoon. During the week, the Keys Bar in the lobby will be open early afternoon and throughout the evening.
The opening reception will include the usual cash bar as will the Saturday evening banquet. After the banquet, the hotel is sponsoring a dessert reception with cash bar in the Regatta room.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2006
Getting to the Hotel
Those of you new to the conference might be wondering how you get from the airport to the hotel. Thankfully, the hotel is only a few minutes away from the airport; if you have a window seat on the plane, you might be able to see the distinctive yellow building from the end of the runway.
If you want to take a cab to the hotel, it should only cost about five dollars. There's also a free hotel shuttle, which might take a little longer (sometimes it's very prompt, sometimes not so much).
When you're in the baggage claims area of the airport terminals, turn your back on the carousel and you'll see a bank of phones, with numbered ads for hotels, rent-a-car places, and cab companies. The phones also list the hotel names on a little plaque next to the phone, if you don't feel like looking at all the ads to find the right number for our hotel. You're looking for the Wyndham Fort Lauderdale Airport Hotel; once you have the number, pick up the phone and dial, and you'll be connected to the hotel desk.
Ask for the shuttle, and you'll be connected to the guy outside the hotel who handles the shuttle vans. You'll be asked what terminal you're in (or what airline you've arrived on) and will then be given directions for leaving the terminal and finding the shuttle stand (they have signposts with 'hotel' on them). Then you can watch cars, cabs, and various vans whiz on by while you wait for the Wyndham van to pick you up.
The drive to the hotel is only a few minutes long, and the shuttle is air-conditioned. You might not think you'll appreciate that at this moment, but a few minutes outside the airport terminal and you definitely will.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Congratulations to our Future Guests
We're all focused on ICFA-27, but let's look ahead for a moment to ICFA-28 next year.
The theme will be "Gender and Sexuality in the Fantastic." Our Guest of Honor will be Geoff Ryman, our Guest Scholar will be Marina Warner, and Special Guest Writer will be Melissa Scott.
Geoff Ryman's novel Air (2005) has just won the Tiptree Award, while Marina Warner, who was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005, will be granted a Degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa by The University of Oxford later this year. Congratulations to both of them.
Next week, while we're celebrating the contributions to the field of the fantastic by our wonderful guests Charles Vess, M. Thomas Inge, and Kathleen Ann Goonan, take a few minutes during coffee or paddling your feet in the pool to think about what you'd like to see at next year's conference. You'll find proposal forms in your registration package, and a drop-off box for submitting those forms at the registration desk.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
What to do on Wednesday
Regular attendees at the conference will notice that we've done something a little different with Wednesday this year.
As usual, there is a set of paper sessions on Wednesday afternoon, beginning a little later than usual, from 5-6. This first collection of papers gets the conference off to a wonderful start, with titles including "The Unappreciated Monster, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Zombie" and "For All Your Happily Ever Afters: Fairy Tale Pastiche and Fantasy Plots." Check out the program on the web for a full listing.
What's different is that we have an opening ceremony, featuring a special panel on this year's theme, preceding the first paper session. From 3-3:30, refreshments will be available in the Ballroom Foyer, and at 3:30, after opening remarks from Vice President Farah Mendlesohn, Jeff VanderMeer will host "The Visual Arts in the Fantastic" with participants Judith Clute, Joe Haldeman, Guest Scholar M. Thomas Inge, and our Guest of Honor Charles Vess.
The Opening Reception will be held, as usual, at 8:30 in Regatta (the small building across the parking circle from the hotel entrance, for those of you new to the conference). And if you are new, or if you want to introduce yourself to some of our new attendees, the Student Caucus is hosting a Meet-up for Newcomers at 8:00 in Atlantic. If you're new and not sure of the hotel layout, there's a map in the back of the program book; if you arrived after the close of registration, check the board next to the registration desk on the second floor or check with the hotel staff for directions.
Registration will open at noon, and stay open until 8:00 on Wednesday. The bookroom will also open at noon and close at 6:00, if you want to get in a little book shopping (and pick up a T-shirt) before things get really busy.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2006
Coming to the Conference from Overseas?
Farah Mendlesohn advises:
I've just been informed that immigration are getting stickier. Make sure you have the *full address* of the hotel for your immigration form.
Wyndham Ft Lauderdale Airport Hotel
1870 Griffin Road
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33004-2214
United States
Phone: 954-920-3300
Posted by ChrissieMains at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)