The ways we make, remake, and unmake one another through looking, touching, and action; the changes wrought in an observer by the impossible task of claiming no measurable effect upon their subject; the creative urge that molds the creator into a new shape as much as they seem to mold their art: such musings about our interconnectedness and complicity as makers of art had long troubled us when we came up with the idea for Stories of the Eye.
In the process of making art, we change. By art, we mean any number of creative endeavors showcased here including painting, dancing, sewing, sketching, mimicking, trapping, preserving, and the invoking of abyssal gods, to name a few. Understanding the mechanism of change and considering what boundaries we hold around controlling change during the creation of art seems like one key to unlocking the process. (Yes, we like turning things inside out.) And although the original concept was intended to inspire stories oriented more towards relationship and communicative interactions, I think our collective survival through Covid's initial wave of pandemic isolation burned away some of the threads linking us with the outside and resulted in authors telling stories more centered on the inside. The "eye" inverted.
It feels right at this time in history to lean into these more introspective journeys. What better place to find change? Transcendence, even?