Movie Monday: Epic

The 2013 animated film Epic, by Blue Sky Studios, is loosely based on the children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce. Why the marketing department at Fox choose to go with Epic as the title instead of The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs or just plain Leaf Men is difficult to understand. But alas, most marketing decisions are archiac to those of us who dwell in the land of imagination.

Writer/illustrator William Joyce has authored over fifty children's books, received an Academy Award for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore and three Emmys for Rolie Polie Olie.

Although the Epic film received mixed reviews from the critics, I thought it was absolutely wonderful, crafted with a rare beauty seen in American animation. This little gem, in my opinion does not contain the over stylization of humans and over the top songs, seen in so many animated features these days. The creators did add an annoying pop songsat the end—but at least one can turn the volume down when watching from the luxury of your home or device.

The critics main challenge with this viscerally rich film was that they'd already seen this story, citing Fern Gully and Avatar as examples. I read a few reviews which felt the characters appeared very "plastic-y and doll-like", where as for me they looked so much better than the plasticine-like characters that Disney churns out of their profit driven animation factories.

I was captivated with the depiction of the wee fairy folk in the forest, particularly the leaf men and their arch nemesis, a Boggan named Mandrake. The lighting of the scenes, character textures and costumes, and the fantastical depiction of nature in all her glory, including decay. Perhaps the critics are correct, this is a story that we've heard told over and over again, but humans are dense, slow moving creatures who need to hear things over and over again, particularly when the subtleties of nature are competing various forms of technology and an onslaught of loud, gore driven media.

The Eyes of the Unicorn Auction

Ten years ago, my husband Greg Spalenka, illustrated his first children’s picture book “The Eyes of the Unicorn.” In celebration of its 10th Anniversary he has decided to do a one of kind auction that I thought I would share with all of you.

“The Eyes of the Unicorn,” is an enchanting, magical tale of a girl’s love, a hunt for a unicorn and the transformation of her friends heart. It was written by Teresa Bateman, and published in 2007 by Holiday House in New York. When Greg was commissioned to create the illustrations the goal was to bring a cinematic flavor to the book which was unique in the children’s market at the time, yet keep a classical foundation. The book found its audience, but it is now out of print.

This auction is an opportunity to own the evolution of the book’s imagery, and more! Go HERE to read more at Greg's blog and see the offerings or directly to bid HERE. The auction ends Sunday, Nov. 5, at 7:00 PM, PST.

We have decided to offer a percentage of the sale to a charity that works toward saving endangered Unicorns, but have not found one. For example the World Wildlife Organization doesn't have Unicorns on their list, go figure! ;-)

What would the scent of Unicorn be comprised of? I'm thinking sweet notes of flowers with woods, vanilla, honey, a bit of balsam and botanical musk. For the magical aspect we would need to make a special tincture or infusion that I will need to ponder. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on notes and also for the name. I'll be getting to work on this right away and offering a first edition bottle to the lucky winner.

The Book of Dust

Back in late 2006 or so I had a very simple website that I had put together myself using my newly acquired color palette. The intention of the website was to start an online presence and have some visibility for when I attended my first Sniffapalooza event in February 2007.

The spark of creating "perfume" came when I attended a class with John Steele in Malibu. At the time I was mainly making aromatherapy blends and a few products like herbal salves and salt scrubs. Most of my clients included friends and students of the aromatherapy classes at the Massage School of Santa Monica.

The first perfumes I began constructing were basically aromatherapy blends called "perfumes", as I studied the craft they became much more complex and required a different way of thinking and working with the essences. My very first perfumes were: Q (originally called Quercus), Lyra, Aurora and Sierra. Vespertina arrived in the Summer of 2007 for the San Diego Comic Con followed by Vera introduced at the Ojai Lavender Festival in June 2008.

Todays post is about Lyra, whose story began as a custom perfume for my daughter Eve. This morning Eve sent me this note from The New York Times Instagram page about Phillip Pullman and a continuation to the trilogy His Dark Materials.

"After 17 years, Lyra is back. Lyra Silvertongue, Lyra Belacqua, but really just Lyra: she’s one of those characters in literature — Pip, Emma, Lolita — who’s on first-name terms with her public. After nearly 2 decades, the author of the trilogy “His Dark Materials” is continuing her story. “La Belle Sauvage,” the first volume of Philip Pullman’s next trilogy, “The Book of Dust,” will be published on October 19. The period before publication is a skittish time, particularly when readers’ expectations have had so long to ferment. When @nytmag’s Sophie Elmhirst visited Pullman at his home in September, he said he wasn’t exactly nervous, “but I just don’t know what the reaction will be.” The British author has written 35 books, but Lyra stands out among his protagonists. Over the 3 books — “Northern Lights” (“The Golden Compass” in the U.S.), “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass” — she embarks on a multiverse-crossing quest that becomes a battle against the dark forces of a totalitarian religious government. For a man whose novels are restless, Pullman leads a relatively static life. Every day from roughly 10 until 1, he sits at his desk at home in Oxford and produces 3 pages, longhand. He has written 3 pages a day ever since he started writing. Habit, he’s fond of saying, has written far more books than talent."

Eve and I absolutely adored the trilogy The Golden Compass and are thrilled that Mr. Pullman is continuing the story of Lyra. In fact, I'm going to get the audio versions of the first book and start the series once more.

Greg was a concept designer on the film version, although they ended up cutting most of his work when the producers choose to alter the story. One of my favorite characters in the book was Lee Scoresby, the Texan aëronaut with his dæmon named Hester. Sam Elliot did such a fine job of interpreting Lee in the film.

I'm happy to share that I have ample amounts of Lyra in all three formats here with me. I've slowly been adding perfumes to the website, Lyra is on the top of the list now that this recent development with the story has presented itself.

Read more about Lyra here at the journal.

Photo of Phillip Pullman by Nadav Kander for The New York Times
Classical painting: Music by Thomas Ralph Spence
Perfume photos ©RoxanaVilla

Visions from the Mind's Eye in Thousand Oaks

Greg will be doing a presentation and signing of The Art of Greg Spalenka, Visions from the Mind's Eye at the Thousands Oaks library tomorrow, Saturday.

Learn about his professional art career in publishing and film. Hear what it takes to create illustrations for the most prestigious publishers on the planet, and designing for the film industry.  Copies of the book will be for sale.

Happy Independence Day!

I'm sort of taking the day off, it's Independence Day here in the US after all, not that a major holiday would influence a perpetual artist. Day, night, linear time doesn't much affect those living in the creative realm except for perhaps getting to the post office with packages before they close.

I started the morning with some gardening including the daily task of gathering the pikake blossoms and putting them into the ongoing tincture. Since there were too many spent flowers in the potion, before adding the new batch, I filtered it and removed the clear, skeletal looking posies. One of the new tasks I've added to the process of filtration is that afterward I will run water through the spent florets that are sitting in the strainer and drink the potion. It's a delicious, refreshing potion with the notes of jasmine sambac and adds a nice addition to the ongoing ritual.

Besides lounging and enjoying the freedom of it, my main agenda today is reading  more of "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness. I've been curious about this novel since it came out and a facebook friend mentioned it to me. Then, in January while enjoying the medieval dye garden at Highland Hall Waldorf School, the book came up in a conversation with one of the faculty members. I had brought up the film "Only Lovers Left Alive" which led to a discussion about vampires and the book. It wasn't until a few days ago that I finally took a moment to have the book transferred to my local library and I started reading it.

The alchemical symbols on the cover immediately intrigued me, followed by the first paragraph with the main character, Dr, Diana Bishop, gathering leather-bound manuscripts from Oxford's Bodleian Library.

I'm not very far into the novel as I type this, but, I've already noticed that the author has a great use of scent in her writing which has added yet another level of appreciation for me. I'm in heaven and hyper conscious of that impending moment when you realize how depressing it will be once you have finished a great book. Luckily this is a trilogy, so the anticipated point of gloom can be let go for awhile.

More soon, in the meantime, the prevailing scent for Independence Day seems to be "smoke" emanating from all the barbeques here in the wooded hills. This evening the note will have an added slightly metallic aspect from the firework festivities down in the valley.

Downtown Adventure

Yesterday my daughter Eve turned twenty two (gulp!), so we headed into downtown Los Angeles for some fun. First we went to Shareen, a vintage women's clothing store where no boys are allowed, on North Spring Street.

"Shareen Downtown is the creative center of a secret society of women who love to be at the cutting edge of fashion trends. It is a 7,000 sq. ft. “no boys allowed” fashion wonderland. Its sister store in NY is a haven tucked away in a cozy apartment in Chelsea." 

The majority of items offered are bridal with an eclectic mix of 50's - 80's dresses, some of Shareens own designs and a section which is not for sale titled design inspiration.

From there our adventure moved onto Chinatown, which doesn't quite compare to the one in San Francisco. How favorite places were the herbal shops, which regrettably didn't want all their cool jars photographed.

The area felt a bit like an abandoned theme park, perhaps because it was Tuesday afternoon or its just lost its luster over the years.

Next stop was The Last Bookstore on South Spring Street in the heart of downtown. This is a treasure, in terms of eye candy, which I was not familiar with.

Housed on the ground floor of the Spring Arts Tower, the 20,000 square foot space offers new and used books, vinyl records and graphic novels.

On the huge mezzanine level, visible from the ground floor of the bookstore, the splendor continues with a visual cacophony including the Gather yarn shop, the Labyrinth Above the Last Bookstore and the Spring Arts Collective gallery shops.

I had spotted the mezzanine level but didn't quite get my interest sparked until I saw word YARN and heard two guys talking about the upstairs. As I ascended the stairs it became clear that up here was where the adventure truly begins! Not only is there the yarn shop Gather, but there little artist studios, displays and as mentioned previously a few labyrinths of books. 

I definitely had the impression of falling down a rabbit hole. The bookstore is auspiciously close to the Bradbury Building, where Blade Runner was filmed, thus the final, climatic scene with the replicants amongst antiquated imagery was vivid in my mind as I wondered about. 

As we walked back to the car, just as it had turned dark and all the night creatures of downtown were emerging, we couldn't quite help thinking that the area is ripe for storytellers and character sketches.

Next on our adventure was Little Toyko, where we stopped into the Weller Court to go to the Kinokuniya Bookstore and the Marukai Japanese supermarket for provisions. From there we headed west to Abbot Kinney in Venice for dinner at Gjelina, which was spectacular to say the least!

Mind Blowing

The two versions of Greg's art book arrived at our doorstep last week. This caught us quite off guard as we didn't know that Titan was going to send these to him. Both of them are beautiful, and to our extreme release the images and the metallic inks printed exquisitely!

Here are a few photos to enjoy and inspire you to order you very own copy from Greg at this link. The book will formally debut at the greatest gathering for popular art culture in America, the zoo known as the San Diego Comic Convention opening next week.

If you find yourself at the event Greg will be at table EE-23 in Artist Alley. The book will be for sale at the Titan Books Booth located in the Exhibit Hall at 5537, Greg will be signing on Saturday, July 26th at 3pm.

Order Your Art of Greg Spalenka Book

The Greg Spalenka book is now at the printer! Above is a pictorial sampling to give each of you a feel for the pages in the book. Greg is now taking a limited number of pre-order for the three editions of the book here.

Visions from the Minds Eye update

As you may recall, I had asked you all to chime in to find out which of Greg's images you liked best for the cover of his upcoming book. Well, it turns out he gets to use BOTH as well as a third cover for the boxed set.

Visions From the Minds Eye

For the past year my husband, Greg Spalenka, has been working on a retrospective book of his artwork that is being published by Titan. Together with his buddy Jeff they have designed the entire book which was just submitted to the publisher in England this week.

They have created two alternate covers and are looking to fans of Greg's art to help decide which one to use. If you feel inspired please head over to the Spalenka Eye and vote for your favorite. The book will launch at the San Diego Comic Con this summer.

Everything is Connected

I finished reading A Song of Fire and Ice, the first book of the Game of Thrones series and enjoyed it very much, although not as much as I am enjoying Cloud Atlas. I've found that the David Mitchell novel addresses so many contemporary issues and has female characters I can relate to more intimately. 

In one of the six nested stories in the novel Cloud Atlas we meet our potential dystopic future where the corporation has finally achieved control. As Obama seriously considers moving forward with the Keystone XL pipeline, supporting big oil, I can feel ourselves inching toward the future described in the book. Meanwhile the EU fragrance regulators want to further there list of banned natural materials from the palette of perfumers. I smell a corporate chemical rat.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that we use Credo as our cell phone provider because of their progressive values but am conflicted because I want an I-phone and they don't offer service for the I-phone. His response was, "We are all just ants, supporting Credo over ATT makes no difference." Well, I refuse to entertain that limiting belief system and counter with what transpired here in the woodland with saving seven oaks.

Although the corporation appears to be making great strides I'm holding out for humans to wake up to what is in their best interest. I'm just about finished with the Cloud Atlas novel, next stop will be Mutant Message Down Under and seeing Cloud Atlas once more this time by way of a BluRay disc.

Portable Magic

Sweet, little book necklace lockets featuring the iconic bee have just arrived in my shop. These are handmade by Lori using archival prints that I send her. The base locket is made here in America by a family owned manufacturer. I had Lori add 16 and 20 inch rolo chains to them.

"Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind."
~James Russell Lowell

When you open them there are two recesses to add you favorite photos, artwork and or a tiny love note for your beloved.

"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."
~ William Hazlitt

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
~Stephen King

Speaking of books, Martha the knitter of our crochet pouches for our natural perfume, has just created the most beautiful bookmarks. I can't decide which is my favorite, perhaps this one featuring an oak leaf and acorn.


Ah, and more book inspiration, here is a sweet animated short created by illustrator William Joyce titled "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore", enjoy!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Photo images of Locket and Bookmark ©Roxana Villa

Quercus Press

I'm a geek, if you haven't noticed. Ben just sent me over this video on Vimeo of a dude out east who reproduced a Websters dictionary from 1898. As a letterpress printer, bookbinder and lover of dingbats I just think this is one of the coolest things in the world....and the name of his press is Quercus! Does it get any better?!

Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

Quercus Press

Scent of the Day: Literarium

I've been assisting my daughter with a presentation for school. She came to me and asked, "Mom, do you have any books on the Philosopher's Stone?" Why yes, I replied, lots. In reality I have many books on alchemy but not necessarily the Philosophers Stone. I also realized that most of the books I have are more image based and not content based, thus the indexing is not very good.

However, one book, I knew would be useful is from Greg's library, it's called The Secret Teaching of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. If my house were on fire and I could only choose one book out of all the bizillion books we own, this would be THE ONE. This is a book I could set with until the end of time. I find it tremendously inspirational, as I do with almost all philosophical books that also contain imagery.

We love books, all types of books, but for the most part art books. If you ever visit our little house in the woods you'll see what I mean. Ideally we need one of those English manors with a separate room with shelves for a library. We're still working on manifesting that one.

Thus, the scent for today will be chosen from the Literarium section of our perfumes. What is that you ask? Ah, well, early on in developing my website I was working with a copy writer. He noticed I had many perfumes influenced by books and suggested I create a series titled Literarium. This series honors the fine art of storytelling and includes two botanical perfumes: Lyra and Vespertina. Since Lyra was our scent of the day yesterday, let's go with Vespertina today.

I took the photo of the land rolls above while in Prague, a truly alchemical city, ©RoxanaVilla.

Fitting the Pieces

I came across a book on Gregs bedside table yesterday. It was given to him by one of his music making buddies. His accolades have put it in the sphere of the Artist's Way, one of my favorites, so my curiosity was peaked from the onset.

Here is a snippet for you....

"In the tricky business of fitting the pieces together, we work from a double point of view, moving deductively from our original inspiration of the whole and inductively from our particular inspirations of detail. Sometimes what is needed is to crudely smash through the confusions and obstacles; sometimes the most delicate, patient, intermittent massaging of the problem. Sometimes it is we ourselves who need to be hit over the head or gently massaged. Sometimes the pieces we love most are the ones that end up on the cutting room floor. They may be some of the first-born images upon which the whole work was built. But when a building is completed, the scaffolding must come down."

~ Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: The Power of Improvisation in Life and the Arts

Meanwhile, I continue to take photos in my mock photo studio...the living room. I am contemplating purchasing a "photo booth" and setting it up the bigger studio. What began as a simple task of photographing perfume bottles has enlarged into a....not monster....invading morning glory vine. With two shops on Etsy one for aromatic art and one for visual art the photographs have come in very handy.

When you don't have super website techy skills, venues like a blog and Etsy are super handy.
It's getting super busy here with orders, so I may not be posting as often...we'll see.

The patchwork tapestry image above has been put together using some of the photographs of the perfume bottles and packaging taken over the last few weeks. Some have been altered are move into the photo-illustrative realm.

Roxana Illuminated Perfume™
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™ on Etsy

Image above, Perfume Tapestry © Roxana Villa,
image at right is the cover of the book mentioned above.

Sensing Organisms

In the nineties, when I created illustrations 24/7, I contributed an image for an article in National Geographic on how plants communicate with each other. Recently I've come to learn about the inherent wisdom in California native plants, including the way they share water with each other and network for the greater good of the community.

In the Science section of todays New York Times there is an article titled "Loyal to Its Roots" regarding the inherent wisdom within plants. The article mentions the California dodder, a plant we've recently noticed on our walks in the Santa Monica Mountains. Being fans of fantastical art forms we invented a story about it being a plant from outer space. Surely when you see its bright, neon orange color, among the other subdued coloring of native plants, one would assume it's a transplant from another planet. Who would have guessed it's a California native! I haven't checked to see if it has an odor.

There is a terrific book that came out in the seventies, briefly mentioned in the NY Times article, called The Secret Life of Plants. A must read for all those devotees of the plant kingdom.

New York Times Article: Loyal to Its Roots
California dodder
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™

The illustration above is not the one used in Nationa Geographic, that one I can't seem to find a scan of. The image above was a cover of a Business magazine ©Roxana Villa.