My name is Gee Currie, and in
my time at LREI, my long-standing interest in medieval history has been enriched by classes like Dante’s Inferno and Disease in History. I’m not sure exactly what about the time period fascinates me – perhaps it’s the art and imagery, maybe the complex politics of various times and places, maybe a morbid interest in the disasters like the plague that wrought havoc upon society. Medieval history and art have been interests of mine almost as long as I can remember, but more recently, elements of them have found their way into my own artistic creations, my writing, and the books I choose to read. I’ve done recent art projects at LREI such as drawing Hans Holbein-style danse macabre skeletons and illustrating my Dungeons and Dragons character in the style of a medieval Gothic manuscript. Through my own extracurricular exploration of medieval art, I have developed an interest in illuminated manuscripts, particularly Irish and Anglo-Saxon ones from the early medieval period, or about 500-1000 CE, such as the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Mac Durnan Gospels.
While researching medieval art, I stumbled upon the world of bestiaries, anecdotal and allegorical books on animals, both real and mythical. When it comes to art, some of my favorite subjects are monsters and supernatural beings, so it only seemed natural to combine that with my interest in art and art history. As an artist myself, I am inspired by the storytelling element of art and its ability to convey emotion and narrative, and bestiaries in particular do an excellent job of doing so. Most bestiaries are from the 10th-13th century and are from an exclusively western European perspective, but I want to apply the traditions of the bestiary to American folklore.
Throughout Senior Project, I will make a bestiary-style book of American folklore creatures and figures. My subjects will range from contemporary cryptids like the Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to centuries-old figures such as La Llorona of the American Southwest and the Wendigo of the forests of the northern midwest and Canada. The art will draw inspiration from early medieval Irish and Anglo-Saxon artworks and manuscripts like the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, and the Mac Durnan Gospels. I am going to incorporate stylistic elements like interlace knotwork patterns, two dimensional-style composition, and traditional color schemes like green, brown, orange, red, and gold. The illustrations will depict the folk figure or creature and parts of their stories and history in the borders, margins, and background. I will incorporate medieval style marginalia and borders on the pages and include decorated and historiated initials at the beginning of each page of text. Most medieval manuscripts were written on parchment or vellum made from animal hide, while I will use paper. They were drawn in handmade inks mixed from natural materials, but I will use watercolors, markers, pens, and India ink. I am going to write, illustrate and hand-write profiles on each of the folk characters detailing their origins, behaviors, and lore. The writing portion for each folk figure or creature will be based on the allegorical bestiary tradition. I also hope to bind the pages into an actual book using traditional bookbinding techniques.
For the service component of my project, I will work as a moderator for Queering the Map where I will monitor the web site, approve posts, and filter out unwelcome, hateful, and spam content. Queering the Map is an online project meant to tie LGBTQ+ experiences to places and document queer people’s stories from across the globe.
