Creating mythologies and stories, especially those in which fantastical, supernatural, and other-worldly elements may occur in the scope of the norm, is best understood within the tradition and genre of Mythopoeia, including the theories of those persons that have contributed to it:

     The heart of man is not compound of lies,
     but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
     and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
     man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
     Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
     And keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
     his world-dominion by creative act:
     not his to worship the great Artefact,
     man, sub-creator, the refracted light
     through whom is splintered from a single White
     to many hues, and endlessly combined
     in living shapes that move from mind to mind. 

These lines, taken from Tolkien’s poetic work, Mythopoeia, describe the foundation for the entire genre and thus the premise for these works. By creating these pieces, I am exploring  the necessity of myth-making and story-telling for humanity, especially in contemporary culture, from the mythopoeic perspective. Mythopoeia is meant to “explain what myth-making is and thereby show the ontological status of myths in general.”  Etymologically stemming from the Greek “Mythos,” or myth, combined with “Poiesis,” meaning to create, Mythopoiesis or Mythopoeia gives the idea, according to Frank Weinreich, of creating artistically within the “human ability of sub-creation.”  Man drawing “wisdom from the only Wise,” keeping his “rags of lordship,” and actualizing a “refracted light… splintered from a single White”  all reference a form of imitating the very act by which man, now the artist, was himself created. It is here in the idea of sub-creating that man as a creation himself, within a created world, mimics his Creator.

 

The Necessity of Evil within Story

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     What is the purpose of horror and evil in stories? How do monsters, demons, and villains add to the good, if at all, of tales? The pieces in this series contain my reactions and thoughts to these proposed questions. Most of my research on story telling and myth-making comes from authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, looking to address these questions based on their theories of the necessity of evil. In his work, On Stories, Lewis suggests that nature has it in her to make us want to invent giants, and “only giants will do.” What does Lewis mean by the fact that only “giants” will satisfy this story telling urge? The very fact that the monster/villain could in a sense be viewed as less than human adds to how the reader/viewer relates to the conflict in the story. Dehumanization is one of the most convincing and effective forms of evil within a story. Tolkien’s theories agree and add to this idea of dehumanization and the necessity of evil in a story. Tolkien coined the terms “dyscatastrophe” and “eucatastrophe” to talk about these ideas of evil as building blocks of an effective story. Tolkien’s ideas highlight one of the roles that evil can play in a story, that of adding to and bringing about redemption. The darkness paves the way for redemption to seem as bright as it is. The evil gives truth an even greater platform upon which to shine.
     The pieces that I have created in this series add to these ideas of the necessity of evil within the story. Taking inspiration from Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the pieces form stories about the antagonists. Rather than assigned to Wormwood, each demon/monster created for this series is given a task of tempting, based on the letters that Screwtape writes concerning those patients he aims to draw into ruin. The large-scale portraits within the pages document these horrific creatures. Within the current work, the labyrinth structure/environment details the story of ruin and destruction brought by the Minotaur. The thread guides the viewer through this one way maze.
     The particular topics from Screwtape that are explored in this series are the most effective in rendering this idea of monstrosity because they are ideas and vices that I see constantly reappearing within myself. I can see the monster that sneaks in unawares, and, as Screwtape describes, on “the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”​



​Labyrinth



     That the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth create and retell my own family history and fiction within the most current piece demonstrates the relevancy of mythology as a contemporary art genre. “Ariadne sent for Daedalus and told him he must show her a way to get out of the Labyrinth.”  The mythology of the Labyrinth describes the great artist and architect Daedalus then giving Ariadne a “clue” of a “ball of thread” that she gives to her champion Theseus to defeat the monster in the story, the Minotaur.  The viewer is guided through a retelling of this story in the form of a book installation or what may be better described as a “bookenviron.” The piece links the art forms of visual art and literature by looking to the traditions of mythology and story as a focus. Ariadne and Theseus’ story operates on two levels in this installation: to represent Lois Marshall, my grandmother, who physically struggled to remember through Alzheimer’s, and it represents myself in my own underlying thoughts and journey in reaction to my grandmother’s condition. The bookenviron utilizes an other-worldliness quality of myth while simultaneously exploring the necessity of evil within stories, and more specifically the effectiveness of monstrosity by dehumanization. By demonstrating these qualities, the viewer may engage with the story and the piece itself by allowing the space provided by the pages to guide him or her through the labyrinth.



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Tolkien, J.R.R. "Mythopoeia." 4th ed. In Tree and Leaf, Christopher Tolkien, 85-90. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001.
 

Weinreich, Frank, and Margaret Hiley. "Metaphysics of Myth. The Platonic Ontology of “Mythopoeia“." In Tolkien´s Shorter Works: Proceedings      of the Jena Conference 2007, 325-347. Zurich, Switzerland: Walking Tree Publishers, 2007.

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Lewis, C.S. On Stories and Other Essays on Literature. 2nd ed. Orlando: Harcourt Books, 1982.

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The Screwtape Letters. 3rd ed. New York: HarperOne, 2001. Print.