An Interview with Artist Thalia Took
Thalia Took lives in Massachusetts
in a 250-year old colonial with her two cats. She went to the Rhode
Island School of Design and has a degree in illustration from there. The
Goddess Oracle Deck artwork was completed mostly in the space of one year.
Thalia’s images often grace
Parallel Perspective’s Goddess-of-the-Month/KultureNotes page.
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PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
How did you first express your
artistic nature?
THALIA TOOK
The way most little kids do, with
scribbley crayon drawings. My mom is an artist as well,
and so both my brother and I were
encouraged to draw from a very young age, and
my mom would find projects for us to do--there are cabinets in her kitchen that
still have
paintings by my brother and me on the insides of the doors. She would
take our drawings
and then make something else with
them, like embroidered pillows, wall hangings, or painted
dolls. I'm not sure what she
told my brother but she always told me I was an artist.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
One of the aspects of your art
that I like is that--while capturing the various
deities’ power [i.e. concentrated intelligent energy], they also convey a
childlike quality.
Did you have any particular
artists who inspired you?
I've got plenty of artists who
inspire me, such as all the usual
Pre-Raphaelites sorts like Rossetti, Waterhouse, and Burne-Jones for his
densely symbolic compositions, as well as some of the more obscure ones like
Eleanor Fortesque-Brickdale and Evelyn Pickering de Morgan. I also really
like Remedios Varo and Richard Dadd, whose work is just amazing. I've had a
terrible time unlearning what I learnt at RISD, where we were taught to
consciously work out the meanings and ideas behind the piece before ever
actually drawing anything; not only does that relegate the artwork itself to an
afterthought, but it also means the work itself is too self-conscious to be
magical. I first started painting the Goddesses as a series purely for
myself, and I tried very hard not to think about what I was doing,
concept-wise, and to just let them be. I think that's probably why they
both "capture the Deity's power" as you say, and also why they have
that childlike quality, because was just letting them come and not forcing them
to conform to the way art "should" be done, or what I thought someone
else might like to see. It is interesting to me that they did sort of revert to
that kind of little kid big eyed drawing style--I'm not sure what that says
about me psychologically.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
If it's not too personal to ask,
when did you first
become aware of The Goddess?
THALIA TOOK
I really don't know. I grew
up in a very non religious household, so it
wasn't a matter of switching allegiance as it were or needing some kind of
Deity in my life;
I think I've always done art of Goddesses, even if I didn't know it at the
time--when I was really
little I was always drawing princesses, and even at RISD I was trying to paint
faery tales.
It took me a while to figure out that the thing I was looking for in those
kinds of art was the
divine feminine. So I guess the answer is always, and only within the
last decade.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
Do you have like a top film or 2
that you especially related to? Why?
Well, I have a thing for
tricksters, which means I adore Harpo Marx: he was so strong and so solid and
so old that he was simply a force of nature. He was also deeply kind and
compassionate and didn't know how not to be himself. He had a very
healthy way of seeing the world, and I highly (highly!) recommend his
autobiography.
I also love Doctor Who and grew up watching it during my formative years, which
I sometimes think was a major factor in my personality development! That
show's teachings are to be steady in your eccentricity, think for yourself and
never take anything too seriously, and above all do not believe in authority.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
Same question, but applicable to
music.
THALIA TOOK
I can not get enough of Andy
Partridge; his stuff has nice Pagan-like lyrics and damned good boy
energy, which is very rare in this society. Not to mention that in a lot
of his songs you can
just hear him grinning. I also love Tori Amos, who seems to be taking a
Goddess turn lately,
especially her latest, _The Beekeeper. I had just finished reading Marija
Gimbutas when I first
heard the title track and all I could think was that it was about the old European
Bee Goddess of
Death and Rebirth.
Oh and Weird Al, who is a great force for good in this world, and whose
music has been known to
stop suicide (I am not making that up). Silliness is healing, and man is
his stuff cheesy.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
How do you see the relationship
between art & society?
THALIA TOOK
That's a question for those
self-conscious artists who are going about their art in that
deliberate thinking fashion I was talking about. Art + Society? I
don't know and I don't care.
I just do what I do.
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
What advice would you give to a
young artist if they asked how best to
earn a living at their craft?
Advice? I really don't
know. I just know what worked for me: I sort of fell into this
online/internet stuff after quitting the animation job in Boston that I hated.
I have an online shop with CafePress (an on-demand printer) and pretty much all
I do is upload art and they do the rest, taking the orders and handling the
printing and shipping, and I just get a check. I'm free to make art when and
how I want, and since I only draw Deities these days I have to let the
inspiration come when it wants to.
And because I have my entire body of work up at my online gallery, publishers
find me rather than my finding them, which is marvelous for a lazy hermit
personality like mine. Back in the day (yeah what, all of 15 years ago?)
you had to send samples out, which was pretty hit or miss even if you thought
the company wanted your type of work, and if they were interested you then had
to go in and try to talk someone into using it. That's a full-time job right
there, and one that I find very draining.
I am so thankful for this Internet thing…
PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES
Andy Warhol said that in pop
culture everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. I never really
understood what he was saying, but with the "Reality Shows" I think I
have a glimmer of what he
meant. If the international spotlight were on you what message would you like
to convey to the
world today?
THALIA
TOOK
That sounds like about a quarter
of an hour too much fame for me, thank you, so realistically my
only message at that time would probably be, "Leave me the f*ck
alone!"
My advice for the whole entire world? As if they'd listen, but I'd
say: Stop. Look around you.
Get out of yourself; get outside of what you're used to doing, and look.
If you really look at
world and the way things are done, you will sooner or later see the tragic
absurdity of so very
much of it. When you can see that, you can stop contributing to it.
And then you can actually do
something beneficial.
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Updated 06/07