There are five 11 x 17 prints available for sale for $25 each. (Click the image to enlarge.)

Gilded Cage
by Cris Fisher

Heavy, black onyx beads and roses, spangled with Czech crystal in tones of iron, royal blue, and a hint of gold to set off the brass bees and bright gold colored lock set with white rhinestones. 14.5 to 15 inches long, depending on how twisted you are.

Based On:

“To Set Before the King” by Genevieve Valentine

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

“Let’s see how you look,” he says, pulls up a chair in the doorway so she can’t run out.

The mother had beautiful things, and the racks behind the governess sag with the silk and satin dresses the mother wore only once and couldn’t throw away. One is the dark blue of the night sky sewn with silver, one is the bright gold of the sun, one shines like a diamond.

When she shakes her head he says, “Come on, you took the boots she gave you. She’s not coming back for these. Let’s pick something nice.”

She feels as if his hands were on her, but he sits in his chair while she pulls the blue dress from the hangar, slides it over her naked bones. She trembles so much that he has to pull up the zipper himself.

He turns her to face the mirror.

“That’s better,” he says, moves the chair aside, closes them in.

---

After the children are asleep, the governess goes to her room and sees the dress of gold laid out on her bed, unzipped and waiting for her. The lining is embroidered with bees (from the mother’s name–the dress was made for her).

She looks out the window as if she could signal someone, but it’s night out, and the window might as well be painted over black.

She puts on the dress and goes to his room.

“Very good,” he says, and she feels like her mouth has been stuffed with cotton and no light will ever reach her.

When he zips the dress closed, she can feel the bees spring to life inside the dress, a thousand tiny stings.

---

A gilded cage is still a thorny prison, and meat is meat.

Cris Fisher

What He Said
by Mia Nutick

Ceramic pendant, pink wash on pink and silver.

Based On:
“On the Pleasures of Not Belonging” by Henry Jenkins (Introduction to Interfictions 2)

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

Chimera Fancies are wearable poetry made of old recycled fairy tale books made into new art, my own chosen interstitial art form. For this auction I used an ARC of Interfictions 2, so the text on these pieces is both taken from and inspired by the stories themselves.

“What He Said” is taken from the introduction to Interfictions 2 by Henry Jenkins, “On the Pleasures of Not Belonging”. Jenkins discusses what interstitiality means to him and to others so beautifully here, I wanted to make something to capture this idea. As he said, “Write. Appropriate. Remix. Transform.” Let’s all not belong together.

Mia Nutick

All Valentines are One Valentine
by Amanda Leetch

Mixed media art made with molded vegetable tanned leather, paper wasp’s nest and art papers, set in a distressed wooden box.

Based On:
“Valentines” by Shira Lipkin

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

Everyone asks me the same question: How did you end up making masks?

Let me tell you:

I have a strong background in theater, and ended up spending a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties working building props, masks, puppets, and scenery pieces for a local childrens theater. I’ve made a bison head with five foot long horns, giant bugs and an elephant the size of a pony… and as much as I loved making art on such a grand scale, my favorite has always been masks.

In 2007, I got married and my husband and I had a masquerade wedding. When buying our masks, I was awed by the work that was available out there- from the elegant fantasy work in leather to the traditional papier mache masks of the Venetian masters. It was then that I decided that was the permanent direction I wanted to take my art.

I started making my own papier mache masks with a decidedly muppet-esque flair. Then I was contacted by a poi spinner who needed a mask with some very odd specifications, the biggest one being that he needed it to be fireproof.

I had always wanted an excuse to try working with molded leather, so I was excited for the opportunity to try it, and once I put my hands to the leather I knew for sure I had found my medium.

Amanda Leetch

Valentines
by Kythryne Aisling

Choker-style necklace in silver wire with glass, Swarovski crystal, and metal beads, with a glass bottle containing fragments of the story recorded in multiple mediums.

Based On:
“Valentines” by Shira Lipkin

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

Shira Lipkin and I collaborated on this project, working together to record the story in as many different forms as possible: audio on cassette tape and CD, video on DVD, handwritten on parchment, computer printed on paper. I then shattered the disks, tore the paper, and cut the tape into small fragments and used one fragment from each medium in this piece, to reflect the story’s theme of data loss and recovery.

Kythryne Aisling

A Chain of Memories
by Jonaya Kemper

18-inch-long wraparound charm necklace. Done on white painted and patinaed vintage chain, with copper and silver colored rings that attach various new, vintage and found charms. Charms include actual silver, pewter and glass.

Based On:
“Valentines” by Shira Lipkin

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

Upon reading Valentines, I wondered what it would be like to have to carry and write your entire life. I translated that feeling into a charm necklace which can actually serve as a necklace, belt, or even a bracelet depending on how you wrap it. I wanted to make a piece that was functional, beautiful and useful. Something that the new owner would be able to add to with their own story as well as the story of the heroine. One of my favorite parts about this necklace is the message bottles. Ways to carry slips of paper and notes. These bottles can be left as is, or filled with your own memories. A lot of these charms were found objects in and around Hollywood, CA.

Jonaya Kemper

Berry Moon
by Pam Noles

Wrap skirt with quilted panel. Cotton, cotton/poly blend, satin. The skirt can fit three size ranges. Comes with a spool of purple thread so the winner can make their own button hole for the tie (or the artist will create one for you — see this post for details).

Based On:

“Berry Moon” by Camilla Bruce

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

I picked Bruce’s story because it was fabulously vivid, demanding and strange.

Pam Noles

Pam posted her progress in making this piece to her blog:

• Raw Materials – Interfictions 2 Auction
• This Is What 446 One Inch Hexagons Looks Like
• This Is How 446 One-Inch Hexagons Are Turned Into 40 Flowers
• Creating Stage 2 Hexes
• Assembling The Block
• Bossy Ladies
• Don’t Yell At Me For Boring You With Sewing Posts. Blame The Amish Of My Childhood, Like I Do.
• The Next-To-Last Sewing Post About The “Berry Moon” Skirt
• The Completed Piece

Child-Empress of Mars
by Laramie Sasseville

A bookmark of wired gauze ribbon, seed beads, round and faceted agates, freshwater pearls, fish, flower, insect, and bird beads. The finished piece is approximately 16” long.

Based On:
“The Child-Empress of Mars” by Theodora Goss

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

To me, bookmarks are magic! They mark the place where the world of the story intersects the world in which we live, the place where the world of words meets the world of the senses. To me, this place is marvelous and magical and very, very cool. This is what I get passionate about. The magic place should be honored, celebrated, made a focus of attention.

These Jewelmark bookmarks are greatly varied in form and style; each is a unique work of art, with a character of its own. Some are simpler and more serviceable for daily use, some are lavish and better suited for use with books of special significance: favorite reference books, the family Bible, a classic volume of historic significance. Some styles are suitable to serve also as jewelry for the reader as well as for the book.

Starting with a wired gauze ribbon, I doubled it and sewed the lengths together so that the design from one side shows mistily through to the other, and I used a wandering crewel-stitch to secure the pieces together. To further the impression of heavy mists described in the story, I made lots of feathery structures with tiny translucent white seed beads and gold, garnet, & translucent-gold beads. One of the things I liked most about the story that inspired the piece was the way it had of making alien things seem oddly familiar. So, hidden among the ‘mists’ are a lot of odd little things: round and faceted agates, freshwater pearls, fish, flower, insect, and bird beads of various sorts.

Laramie Sasseville

Valentines Jewelry Set
by Sarah B. Evans

Black glass beads and white shell beads with black glazed cursive script — excerpts from the story — with black and clear seed bead dividers and on the necklace, a black/white/silver dichroic glass pendant.

Based On:
“Valentines” by Shira Lipkin

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

These shell beads I hunted down just for this story — I wanted something paperlike as well as just a nice bead, something that could be written on. The writing, glazed black ink (well-baked and safe for nearly anything you could do to it, this writing will not fade from memory) are excerpts from the story, of the narrator’s own musings: “movements a careful ballet of hot espresso and soup and witty banter” strung around the necklace, and “leather-bound journals with elegant heavy pens” around the wrist. The pendant is for Valentine(s): what image does his name inspire if not a heart? The black beads I chose for their resemblance to stray blots of ink, scattered from hasty scribblings.

Sarah B. Evans

The Quiz
by Ashly Nagrant

A small hand-bound journal with collage cover (images taken from advertising materials) and “Which is worse?” on the back on hand-stained paper.

Based On:
“The Quiz” by Eilis O’Neal

This auction has ended. Thanks to everyone who bid. Please check the front page for more auctions, going on through the first week of December, 2009.

When I first read “The Quiz” it seemed like, eerily enough, the piece picked me rather than me picking the piece. The story didn’t even feel like something I would write, rather it was something about me. So perhaps it was because I over-identified with the work that I choose to go with a journal. I get a twitch in my fingers and checking account every time I come across another journal I find attractive, but why not? After all, it’s somewhere to write down your thoughts, you secrets and, if need be, the Answers.

Ashly Nagrant