Magic Monday: World of Froud

Good morning, Maeby Hazel!

After I became mildly obsessed with watching Labyrinth, I did what I usually do with little obsessions, and I branched out. What I mean by that is that I like to take the main focus and filter it through all these different lenses. So, for instance, with another of my obsessions, The Cure, I found it necessary to dig into Robert Smith's childhood, his personal life, the band's pop-culture references, and on and on. Or, another example, I became fascinated for a few years with China's Communist history, which led to a lot of Cultural Revolution and Mao study (my favorite book on the topic is this one, even though it's controversial).

So, with Labyrinth, it became all about Brian Froud, whose artwork was the inspiration for the film. I don't even know how I came upon his book, Faeries, but as you can see, it still sits, well-loved, upon my living room bookshelf.

I look forward to making fairy wreaths with you, MH!

It wasn't the precious flower fairies that intrigued me, as much as the mischievous pixies. In the world of fairy (as in the "real" one), "pretty" isn't an indicator of kindness. My take on pretty:

"every kitten figures out how to get down . . . "

It was more the drawings that looked like this one that compelled me to forever love Froud:

In high school, I had a close-knit group of girlfriends, and we considered it part of our mission to spread the fairy gospel. Some of my best memories are of camping by various rivers, and walking out into the twilight to try and catch some fairies at play. Or staying the night at Weasle's (her name at the time), and building fairy wreaths with rose and wild garlic and dancing under the light of the full moon. Even some of our acting adventures were fae-guided. We did two productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, one in which I played Robin Starveling (I think . . . it was the bit part, at any rate), and a second, for an Albuquerque drama festival, in which I played the coveted Puck. Acting is not my forte, MH, but belonging to such a group of whimsical friends who also believed in make-believe . . . it made a lot of high school bearable.

I've limited my "collection" to a small Fairy Corner, in a futile attempt to reduce suspicions that I might be a little off my rocker.

And so, I still love Froud. His wife, Wendy makes the most beautiful figures. I've never considered myself a person who has a collector mentality, but even having a very small copy of one of her fairy figures makes me a little giddy. And their son, Toby (who played Toby in Labyrinth), is in the family game, too, creating art and living as a part-time fairy. The whole family is getting ready for an exhibition in New York, with a book release, for Trolls. 

Ack! How cool would that be, to meet the whole Froud family?!??! Well, even without the meet-and-greet (since we've already scheduled our own meet-and-greet for at least a couple weeks prior), we'll eventually get the book and pour over the juicy troll drawings.