Different Experiences of Reality
I recently went on a trip to Hay-on-Wye in Wales. It’s a small town on the border of England, and it’s known for having a lot of book shops. Most of the shops sell second hand along side new releases, and I left with some really beautiful reference and fiction books.
One of my favourite books was ‘Phenomena, A Book of Wonders’. It talks about how paranormal stories have been told by humans throughout our history and across the globe - how could they not be real? The book includes stories of werewolves, human glow worms and a whole lot more.
The book includes both seen and unseen stories of the weird, making careful attention to note that one person having a psychological experience is no less real than a group of people having a physical one - the experience is just that - it’s an experience, a person lives it in some way.
“we are interested in the enigmatic range of phenomena whose existence lies somewhere between the ‘hard’ reality of nuts and bolts, bricks and mortar and the psychological reality of dreams.”
The book has inspired me to reinterpret the stories of the strange encounters as news articles and create editorial style illustrations for some of them. I’m looking forwards to reading more of the book, and seeing what drawings come of it. Stay tuned!
If you’d like to commission me for editorial illustration, please reach out.