Tag: Indie

Brazen Folk Horror Check in

Beltane rolled in with storms, humidity, hot and cold fronts colliding, fires, droughts, floods, and even a sinkhole! Literal and metaphorical …

Brazen Folk Horror Check in

Blip

I met you before
You wore another face
Another body 
Same eyes that sparkle and die instantaneously
Warm love and cold hate fight to dominate 
The soul fractured as hammered bones and rusted nails
I’m drawn to broken things; my reckless heart hurts with the need to lessen the pain.
Abandoned, I’m magnetised, hypnotised, bewitched
With everything to lose and nothing to gain
I’ll stab myself with all your broken pieces
You don’t notice the blood
You offer life and death in one smooth blink 
Crimson reflections are of your face and hate
You play at more than you can give
Loveless devil of the dying heart
Your air is a replica 
Like a vacuum in the presence
My mouth is dry
I can’t think straight.
There’s dewdrops on the blades and never Enough to quench 
You’re never enough
I’m always left dying of drouth
Chasing the desert for a spring 
I’ve known you before
I see how this plays out
Blood pools around my feet
You stand before me with a cool glass of water
A mirage of “I don’t lie.”
The “don’t” is silent
Your glass beyond reach of my parched lips—with those eyes of love-hate bemused.
It’s a filter
A lame game 
I crave your touch like air
My skin is screaming
And I’ll die without it
All lies, and I made them
The drops of poisoned water
From a loveless lover
And you’ll fast forget my name
Player Boy and Cowboy—just the same
They love themselves and their toys
Fed from temporary validations
The ego always needs another hit
Obsessively compulsively dismiss and onto the next
Nothing sticks
Just a posed picture 
There’s nothing else inside
Built up from superficial shit
Station your play
This time, I’ll stay away.

Another Old Building

What a building.

I walked by this building daily for several years. It was in use then. Recently, I’ve been walking that old route that takes me through Elmbank Street and even on a bright day, it’s chilling to see it like this. This building is another stunning piece of architecture designed by 19th-century architect Charles Wilson. I’ve written a little about him before, in that he also designed (among many other landmarks around Glasgow) the entrance to Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis, which formed the stage for my urban horror short, City of the Dead.

This building was originally the home of a private school, Glasgow Academy, from 1846. When The Academy moved to the west of the city, it then housed The High School (the oldest school in Glasgow, established in 1460) until 1976. It has since been used as council offices and by the police and is now empty. The most recent proposal I read was that it’s under bid to undergo a 20 million pound transformation into a hotel and wedding venue. Hopefully, this old piece of history will get its new lease of life in the city. It’s sad to see it looking so abandoned amidst the changing dynamics as modern steel beams and glass-faced builds tower around her.

Art or Blood

When I become entangled viewing a piece of art, enraptured by the skilful technique and inspired by the story being depicted, through the palate, the stroke of the instrument, the shapes, the words, I don’t much consider the artist—at least not at first.

If art speaks to me, at that moment, that’s all that matters.

I cannot get on board with this peculiar demand for so-called diversity by being selective of the artists’ personal attributes before viewing the art. Let art speak up for itself. Separate the creation from the creator, just for a bit. An artist’s nationality, sex, sexuality, gender, health, colour, heritage, politics, experiences, age, family and all else has nothing to do with the viewer unless they choose to share it.

The demand for artists to expose themselves so consumers can feel good about being selectively diverse should stop. And no, I’m not what ‘they’ think I am either—as a writer and artist, I could expose and exploit personal details for targeted diversity marketing, as too many seem to do at this strange juncture. But, not everything is for sale. I don’t offer my body and who I am for vultures to peck to the bone. I’m not for sale; my books and art are.

Want to diversify the art being consumed?

Step outside your comfort genres, go to an exhibit ‘just because’, grab a book because you’ve never heard of the author or publisher, or because the cover’s texture made you want to run your hands all over it, or because it had that ‘read me’ smell.

Enjoy the art without baying for the artists’ blood.

Brazen Interviews

Natasha and Ruthann were recently interviewed by the divine voice of The Dark Mind Podcast, Vincent Midgard. This was Natasha’s first time meeting …

Brazen Interviews

A Brazen Package

To celebrate our fantastically supportive #Brazenreaders and the launch of #bebrazen this month, Brazen Folk Horror is doing a surprise giveaway! …

A Brazen Package

The Delevan Diaries

Desperate for book II? Preorder the eBook here. To secure your co-signed softcover or hardcover now, email us at brazenfolkhorror@gmail.com with your…

The Delevan Diaries

Art Inspires Art: Incesticide

I was asked recently about the cover for Incesticide: Collected Horror, so I’m sharing a wee bit about it here.

Music is a massive part of my life, inspiring me when I work. It helps me find grounding when the the Earth has fallen from my feet, and I can’t find anything else to tether onto. Art is a wonderful way of distracting us from pain or helping us face and conquer the demons taking up space. The title was chosen in homage to Nirvana — I am a huge grunge fan, and it is one of my comfort-food genres, so it felt natural to fall into that.

The artwork followed the title. What’s more grunge, punk and indie than doing it all myself? I love to paint too. I guess the creative streak is profoundly ingrained in my wheelhouse, even when I suppressed those urges in years gone by. I took this idea and continued my homage to the title. I didn’t overthink it and just went with the flow, inspired by and creating my spin on Kurt Cobain’s cover art for Nirvana’s Incesticide.

Dandelions (dandelion wishes) are my favourite flower. The invasive weed wields healing properties. Her seed is carried in the sweep of a breeze, and she’ll resist suppression, taking deep root wherever seeds land. She’ll bloom through cracks in the concrete — nature dominating and cleaning the disaster of man. I replaced Kurt’s poppies with dandelion seed heads. Though this element is scarcely visible on the Incesticide: Collected Horror book cover, as the figures took central focus on the wraps.

Those two forms: I switched the small figure to the opposite arm and painted them with only a loose nod to Cobain’s originals. I fleshed out my forms but maintained a skeletal accent to the larger figure. For the small child figure, I wanted to recreate that mannequin/doll base but with a dance that quietly echoed the larger one. I think they quickly transformed into ‘mother’ and ‘child’ when painting them, more so when I stepped back and saw a ghost of my daughter’s face in that child form. My ‘koala baby’. With that, it made sense that’s where my paintbrush went. That revelation then paints more sense onto the wide-eyed, dishevelled ‘mother’. The art for Incesticide became personal. Perhaps a bit of a mirror to PND. A little horror of life that has nothing to do with the collection’s contents.

As well as the Ts and Hoodies on my Etsy, prints of the Incesticide artwork are available if you find me skulking in the shadows with my books and other entwined wares at some cool events this year.

The Gothic Market

#BeBrazen Saturday

Last week we shared some insight into one of our most loved characters, The Threnody. The character who haunted Ruthann’s dreams, demanding to be …

#BeBrazen Saturday