Rachel H. White

Mom and I were discussing this idea we've had for a "spiritual" book about Darkness.  I think I've mentioned in blogging before that I wanted to find out why dark things are so attractive to me and so many others.  I've always thought that "dark" does not necessarily equal "evil" and I want to define spiritual Darkness as separate from anything negative.  We decided that a good place to start building our defining ideas was with archetypes (if you want to know more about archetypes look up Carl Jung, and I also reccomend Character Design Studio  by Chris Patmore and 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt).  We narrowed down to 7 archetypes: the Miser, the Seeker, the Helper, the Expert, the Ruler, the Mentor, and the Trickster.  I won't go into the others here, but the important one is the Trickster.  Now each person has all these archetypes within them but tends to be acting as just one or another at any given time.  The Trickster is the one that lies within the darker, inner side of yourself.  Many people fear their dark side, but others are fascinated by it.  If one can get over their fear and move into the inner, Trickster personality, then one has the ability to look outward again, and see themselves as who they truly are, and to see the world in a totally different way.  Some might argue that "Trickster" is not a good entity, but I chose that title because it's not associated with evil either.  The Trickster is not about good and evil but about a balance between the two.  I like to use the metaphor (especially when people use the word "light" to refer to things good and positive) that if you were in a place where there is all light and no shadow then you would be just as blind as if you were in a lightless room.  Having seen the world in both the Light and the Darkness, one can balance those points of view and live more effectively and more happily.

Well, that's our theory anyway, and obviously it's not completely hashed out yet.

I have worked on my painting several days this week and it is looking marvelous!  I hope to have it done soon.  I am currently working on the final details in my hair and hands and face and some of the shadows need smoothing.  I am most concerned about the phoenix right now as it still looks like paint daubs instead of fire and/or feathers.  I'm still wondering if I should do some sketches with colored pencil to come up with a design for the feathers or if I should just start painting on it and see what happens.

I mentioned last blog a job opportunity with Tech.  I decided not to apply.  Really and truly, the money and environment might be nice, but it would be stressful changing jobs and I don't want to do design work and working full time at Tech will not boost my freelance illustration business because I would have even less time and energy to work.  Who knows, maybe one of my buddies from the Graphic Design program at WU will get the job and we'll get in touch and hang out sometime.

I'm also continuing to watch Smallville (when the discs come in which one didn't today  damnned cliffhanger season finalies!).  I didn't mention before that I'd like to write a story for a graphic novel about what would happen if something terrible happened to Clark Kent that made him horribly depressed, and so he became the bad guy and Lex Luthor was the good guy.  I did some research on Wikipedia and found out this was not a new idea, but the execution of my version of the idea is quite different.  I'm thinking more of something Batman fans would like rather than hardcore Superman fans (ie: something dark, of course).  I picture a Metropolis where an insane superhuman destroys parts of the city and attacks its citizens seemingly at random, and has been doing so for several years, so that parts of the city are nothing but piles of rubble and the people live in fear.  The papers, even the Daily Planet, do not report on the superhuman, who I am calling The Invincible Man, for fear of their offices being attacked, but instead an underground newspaper publishes the stories.  And the one man doing his best to protect the city is Lex Luthor, former millionaire turned private detective.  But secretly, Lex is also protecting his friend Clark, hoping that he'll eventually get over his depression and be able to use his powers for good, or at least have as normal a life as possible.  I'm seeing very "film noir" kinds of imagery.  The characters would be heavily based on the Smallville series, as this story would be a kind of tangent that split off somewhere in the middle of the series (not sure when yet, that's why I'm still watching...well one of the reasons  I know "reason's got nothin' ta do with it."), and their faces and such would be modeled after the actors, their movements and speech patterns after the way the actors portray them in the series.  I would make references to the known Superman stories, but in ways that make them ironic and often frightening, but mostly I would build from the series and my own ideas about the world and the characters.  It would be really cool if I could get DC or better yet Vertigo interested in publishing it.

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