Nod

This project focuses on visual world building in a fictional setting of my creation, practicing designing and depicting characters, and exploring visual storytelling, not necessarily using linear narratives. This project is designed to allow me to explore these themes and connect my work with topics of personal interest. The project includes a series of 32 pieces in four chapters, hand bound, and four handmade masks.

Chapter One: Nod

An introduction to the world, which appears every night when the sun goes down.

The curtain of night falls, and shadows grow long.
Away from the harsh light of the sun, shadows knit together once again
The moon may rise then and cut the shadows, carving out places and peoples and boundaries.
Some things escape even the gaze of the moon, however, under the cover of inky night.
As a new moon leaves only the light of distant stars, strange things begin to stir.
Stranger still are the things that don't stir,
Which choose to watch and wait, nestled in holes in the world's fabric.
Description goes hereThis place, enigmatic on the brightest of nights, is possessed of a different kind of life tonight.

Chapter Two: Inhabitance

The inhabitants of the world, in costume

This world's inhabitance are as varied as they appear.
They are true to their nature, as most things here tend to be.
More often than not, they are defined by their devotions.
Some devote themselves to fidelity, family.
Or a fervent love of destruction, a reverent sacrilege,
Or to simple feverish loyalty,
Or to the world itself.
Some illude definition. The allegiance of witches is a flighty thing. Their only loyalty is to the stars and the things beyond them.

Chapter Three: Ritual Night

A celebration under the black moon.

With no moon to cut it and lay it flat, the darkness grows in all directions,
And so her acolytes must keep watch, remembering those days of darkness before her arrival
And remembering the things that turned in the dark, many-toothed and horned.
They travel together, in the warm glow of company,
In droves they huddle together, driving the dark from their homes and towns.
Respect is paid where due, to honor the promise of her return.
There is a wildness in this as well as a reverence. Everyone is a bit more animal when the moon is away.
And so candles are lit, altars are filled, masks are pulled on. With wards and shields at the ready, vigil is held under the black moon.

Chapter Four: Saints & Supremity

Portraits of deities and altars.

A name is as singular as an altar, a tie that binds a higher being to the world.
A name can be a symbol of humility and duty, kept by another.
A name can be like a nest, a many-sided and composite truth, the handiwork of a collector or an architect.
Or a name can be a pretense, a network of mirrors that make an artifice of the true whole hiding beneath.
For one, a name is lost in the shadow of action, since animals do not care for titles.
And for one, a name is naught but words spoken into empty air, meaningless to a being without a singular body.
And for one, a name is forgotten.
Death has countless titles and is known in every language. All are greeted by death at its altar, as inevitably as the sun rises and unmakes this world.