It is both ironic and appropriate that I should make my debut here at Faezine in the Autumn- my most favorite time of year! - and with a piece that, though not by any means my first sculpture, is the one piece that symbolizes completely and literally- among many other things- the very image I have always used to embody my own return to the world of art- and thus for me the World of the Enchanted- after what was a long and empty hiatus.

When asked about my involvement with art- and thus mythic themed subjects- and when I started it all, first I have to say that art and the enchanted have always been a part of my life and that both were due to the early and profound influence of my mother and my great grandmother. Indeed, since I was old enough to control my motor functions enough to hold pen, pencil, and paint brush, or to mold clay with my hands and a toothpick, and thus bring to life those very things that were already living in my head I had done so nearly every day. However, I have to immediately follow that up by relating to the inquirer that I left that world behind for a very long time, fully intending never to return, and I stayed away from writing and my art for a little over ten years. It was solely due to my wife that I ever returned at all- and I often refer to my return to art and my own enchanted worlds as a "giant" having been awakened from a long and fitful slumber... and the giant would never again be put back to rest. My own beloved wife Tina woke this giant from his fitful and nightmare haunted slumber- for she was and is the eternal lovely maiden from all the oldest of tales who deals with such enchanted beings to bring about a new and brighter tomorrow come to life... to my own life. So, when I was asked if I might not consider writing a piece about what went into the creation of Elias the Valley Strider, I immediately saw it as being the right place to begin, for not every story has its beginning at the start of the tale...

I should state at this point before everyone stops reading- if indeed, dear reader, you have not already done so- that when I speak of what "...went into the creation..." of nearly all my works it is really more about the telling of a tale- for it is through my sculptures and illustrations that I choose to tell my tales. It is less about my techniques and a long list of materials and so-on and more about the many worlds that live within my own mind and how they have come to the light of our waking world through my own hands.

The piece of which I speak- or as I prefer to say, the "being", for when I speak of each piece I do, it is often easier for me to refer to them as the entities that they are rather than as inanimate objects, for they are to me, quite alive - is entitled "Elias the Valley Strider". This fellow had been in my mind since my return to the world of art nearly ten years ago. Many tales and ideas went into the final version of what was to become Elias. First and foremost was the previously stated tale of my rebirth as an artist and story-teller. However, there was also simply a growing desire in my mind to bring out to our world those beings that I have always seen as being the most ancient of the Ancients and who are truly every bit as much a part of the world known collectively as "Faerie", a world that I have never seen as being solely populated by diminutive winged beings, but rather by a bewildering diversity of creatures. In ancient Greek and Nordic myths it is always the giants who are spoken of as the "first ones" and this has always intrigued and fascinated me. I simply was not seeing enough of giants being represented in this most recent renaissance of the mythic, and it is ironic that as I was thinking this and upon my completion of Elias that the much- revered Master Ari Berk released his wonderful treatise on giants, and thus it seems that the Iron Web remains unbroken.

Another tale that profoundly effected the genetic makeup of Elias was a tale that came to me from a "vision", if you will, related to me by a very close friend and much respected fellow artist and fellow amateur "Elficologist". (This latter word being a term I first encountered in the book The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries, and was, to my knowledge coined by its author, Pierre Dubois, and that I felt perfectly described the vocation and obsession under which people such as myself might be labeled therewith.) In this particular conversation, my dear friend was telling me of one particular being among the many "beings" she "sensed" and felt to be present throughout the spirit-haunted landscape and terrain wherein she lived in her part of the United States, and this one struck me most of the many others of which I'd been told. This particular "spirit" she described to me as inhabiting a somewhat "heavy feeling" and dark valley. It was a heavily wooded and lonely place and my friend described this place as having an air of awe and even foreboding, due she felt, to this creature she could sense just at the edge of mortal vision. She described what she "saw" in her mind's eye as a being of terribly immense size and it was clear to her that he it was who presided over this valley. I immediately had a very vivid image come into my own mind of a great giant striding the valley- a ghostly specter of a thing from the old times, something like the old tales of the "Wendigo". I recalled many of the old tales of some giants being so immense that when they "went to sleep" they would became part of the landscape the very geography of the place, and would often become sites whereupon humans would even build habitations. The vision became more solid and cohesive over the next year or so, and though I ceased one day to hear from her, this creature's presence and his image continued to haunt me. Finally a chance presented itself for me to justify spending a great deal of time and effort in bringing to fruition at long last this fellow: Elias the Valley Strider. I included with the final image of Elias the following shortened description:

"The giant has just awakened from a century's long sleep and is moving from his resting place where he has become part of the landscape and geography. On his back are the trees and the shrubs that have grown there over the years along with the ruins of human habitations that have been built thereon long ago- castle-like structures and ruined edifices, all from a bygone era like the giant himself.

This piece is meant on the surface to simply be a mythical piece representing one of the more popular creatures from the times of legend: a great giant of old. Upon his back is a symbol of humanity from the mists of myth in the form of old castle ruins- a symbol of knights and legends. But beyond the obvious image of a great "valley strider" of a giant is a representation of the notion of a "living" and even conscious Earth. This piece- this being- is meant to show us that the Earth is by no means static, despite seeming to be so by our own frantic and fast-paced mortal standards of measuring time. The very ground we stand upon and the air we breathe can and will change drastically and right before our very eyes, and our lives carried along with the changes... to be destroyed or ride perilously upon the back of this upheaval."

Often times people think that such work as "fantasy" themed art and stories have nothing to say at all other than to just be eye-candy or flights of fancy and entertainment... and they would be quite wrong. Even I sometimes fail to see what the work- what the creatures- are really telling me, even the stories sometimes seem to be somewhat pointless at first. Perhaps we have all forgotten? And then, at least for myself, as I begin to explain the sculpture or the story to someone else, or to myself, or step back to look at the being who has come to life via my hands and my eyes, something of the truth of what it really is and what it is saying comes out... and I am always a bit taken aback by how much more there was to it all.

It was always the case with these tales from ancient times, there was always a bit more to them than just a tale to tell by the ancient firelight. These tales of giants and fauns, of the dark Unseelie Court riding the storm swept winds of the far Scottish highlands or the unpredictable habits of mad Babba Yaga... one misses the point at one's own peril! That was really the point and the tale of Elias and that was the nature of this great being that my friend "saw" striding like some dark wall-cloud of a phantom across this far away wooded valley... When I forgot the true point of the fairy tales by ceasing to create, I had to learn the hard way by years of emptiness and unhappiness, but when I returned and saw what my own tale was telling me and once again learned to live in harmony with the "nature" of things and my own nature...  the light shone again, and the giant awoke and I learned to ride along with him to see all that there was and is to see along the way. This latter tale was what Elias had to say to me... And so, all this is what truly went into the creation of this piece... this entity.

By Kevin Buntin

From the Hedge

"My name is Kevin Buntin, and I currently reside within the wilds of Troy, Ohio, with my beautiful wife, one very eccentric cat, and many, many Wee Folk and miscellaneous magical beings packed away in my mind. Art has always been a part of my life, quite literally. I was drawing Viking ships teeming with warriors on "Goldenrod" notebook paper and modeling mummies, Frankenstein monsters- and various other creatures that not too many other people were seeing- every day. Back then I worked in Plasticine clay and had done so as early as my first day of elementary school. As my creatures came to life in my hands, so too, did their respective tales unfold in my mind as they told who they were.

     I see all these creatures quite vividly and they do live- not just in my head, but elsewhere. And it is through my tales and my art that I bring these teeming masses to life. However, even though I did my art and told my tales for a very long time, there came a day when I left it all behind. For another long period of time- nearly twelve years- I did just about anything but create... and I was not a happy man. All was gray... And then I met a lovely lady who shone like the sun and she did say, "So... what do you want to do?" And I could no longer remember what that was!!!!!  However, it finally came back to me that once upon a very long time ago, I had wanted to be 'an artist'.

     And now here I am once again, on the path I was meant to be: making...dolls...? Well, I'm doing art at any rate and I currently do so full time.  I often see myself as really more of a storyteller than an artist or sculptor; it's just that I do so via both written word and the sculptural media. I have many creatures clamoring for release from my mind- all queued up within... and it is a very long line, and they will likely outlast me and the time I have to bring them out to the mortal world."

 

Kevin has been a member of Enchanted Folk since October 2007

members.enchantedfolk.com/kevinbuntin

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