Well I said I was working on a Christmas piece, though I suppose this might come as a surprise to those who weren’t expect it.

The wonderful thing about Christmas is that, despite what the fundamentalist nutjobs and the Republican party want you to think, it’s truly a multicultural holiday. In fact, almost nothing we associate with Christmas today has anything to do with Christianity, except for the name. The winter solstice has, of course, been important since the first civilizations arose, but our Christmas season of greenery, lights, and feasting, and the concept of “eat drink and be merry,” come from a Roman winter festival Saturnalia. The idea of a god-son born in midwinter comes from the later Roman holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invitci, the birthday of the unconquered son. Sun worship in the form of the infant-god-incarnate motif was very popular in the later empire, and many of the customs of Christmas come from the celebration of Mithras’ birthday. Other traditions, like gift-giving, christmas trees and wreaths, and traditional foods come from Northern European pagan religions (even our word “Yule” was the name of the Germanic winter solstice festival). We always hear that Jesus was born in the spring, during the Roman census, but the early Catholic church wanted to eliminate these pagan traditions, and so set up Christmas on the 25th as a way to subvert these native customs. However, even with the loss of their original meanings, the traditions carried as Christmas was popularized in Victorian England, and then later in the US. Even Santa Claus has a very diverse origin. He is a blend of Father Christmas, an English character whose origin and outfit go all the way back to Roman Saturn, and Sinterklaas, a Dutch character who evolved out of the much earlier story of Saint Nicholas. These two folk figures were merged together in the US in the 19th century, and the character Santa Claus was born. Later the Coca Cola image of Santa Claus, combined with the short stories of Washing Irving and Clement Clarke Moore cemented the American commercialized concept of Santa Claus in our hearts and minds. The Christmas Card was started in 1875, and the rest is history.

And that’s why I say the Republicans and the so-called “traditionalists” can shove it up their turducken when they complain about the commercialization of Christmas and the “War on Christmas” and other bullhonkey like that. Christmas was never a very important or big holiday in the church until the 19th century, when it became commercialized. Its origin has less to do with Jesus than it does with pagan bacchanal, and the true meaning of Christmas is whatever you want it to be, because there is so much tradition wrapped up into it that no one culture can claim ownership of the holiday. (And most of the popular Christmas songs were written by Jews, so they get a piece of the pie, too!)

Anyway enough of my little history lesson. I wanted to show you the painting. Remember the Dutch Sinterklaas who is half of the origin of our Santa Claus? Well he didn’t travel alone. In most of Europe, Saint Nicholas had one or more companions who traveled with him, helping him out. In some cultures, they are based on the original stories of Nicholas of Myra (who, by the way, was from Turkey), like the French Père Fouettard. In some, they are medieval additions to the already mythologized tale, like Knecht Ruprecht, or the Dutch Zwarte Piet. In others, they are remnants of the pagan past — former gods who were either demonized or diminutized when Christianity took over — like the German Belsnickel, the Austrian Klaubauf, Swiss Schmutzli, and others: Rumpelklas, Hans Muff, Bellzebub, Drapp, Bartel, Cert and Andel, Hanstrapp… and the list goes on and on beyond that. This painting is of one of the more well-known Christmas monsters: Krampus.

There’s a decent article in Wikipedia about Krampus, but in short, he’s a scary monster that “birches” the bad kids, while Santa gives them presents (makes you wish for coal instead, doesn’t it?). I find Krampus pretty interesting, because (as you’ll see on the Wikipedia page) he survived the Christianization of the solstice fairly well, and lived on in festivals and even Christmas cards and illustrations. Boy, I would love to get a Krampus card one year…

So here is my Christmas Krampus/Krampus Kard/Merry Krampmass? All I know is if I were raised in the Alps, I would probably not look forward to Christmas nearly as much as I do now.

So be good for goodness sake!

Back in the summer and early fall, if you remember, I was doing a lot of work with an RPG company, Nevermet Press. Their first PDF was published this month, and my artwork is on the cover! I also designed a good chunk of the PDF layout as well. Click on the image below to go to the Nevermet Press page for the product.

Nevermet Press Issue 1: The Desire

If you haven’t heard about NMP, it’s a RPG blog that creates community content non-specific to any game system. Kind of drag-and-drop game ideas. The Desire is the product of a number of writers and artists working together, everyone creating their own content based on a central theme — in this case, a villain named The Desire. The cool thing about the project is that, unlike a lot of RPG products that present a linear script with a beginning, middle, and end — severely limiting the GM’s ability to modify the adventure — NMP’s articles develop locations, encounters, items, and characters around a central concept. As a game master, I think it’s a refreshing take on the “modular” concept of game modules, and is easier to plug in to an existing game. Finally, as each writer and artist presents their own vision which stems from the original article, there’s a wider variety of stories to tell. Just like if 10 artists painted the same scene, you’d still get 10 different paintings. (Admittedly, I’m biased because I worked on the project.)

I mentioned the other day that I was doing an illustration for Fukui Shimbun’s New Year’s edition. They do a bunch of children’s stories and illustrations by local artists and authors, and I was lucky enough to be asked to do one of them. The title of my story is 「眠れない夜に」”Nemurenai Yoru Ni.”

The story is about a girl named Miki who can’t sleep so she starts to count sheep. However, all the sheep have come down with influenza, so she can’t count them. Instead she goes to a magic dream world and is transformed in a sheep herself. She offers to help the sheep by helping another young girl fall asleep, so in sheep form, she rides a shooting star to another house. The other sleepless girl turned out to be her classmate, whom she had gotten into a fight with earlier that day. The girl couldn’t sleep because she was upset about fighting with Miki. So sheep-Miki told her it was okay, and in the end everything worked out.

In any case, it’s a simple but cute story. And I hope my illustration goes well with it.

Nemurenai Yoru Ni

This portrait is a bit less ukiyoe-looking and more contemporary than the others I did this month, but it still retains a bit of a woodblock print feel to it; more of a contemporary bijin-ga than an editorial or illustrative piece, I suppose. This one is just a straight portrait, with no meaning behind it, but it was fun to do. Despite not being so old-Japan-looking, it does retain a lot of elements from bijin-ga, such as the cherry blossoms, and simplicity. In case you’re wondering, that’s Philadelphia in the background.

It was done for an old friend, who I promised years ago I would do a portrait for, and after a computer problem last year wiped out her original portait as it was about 95% done, I finally repainted it.

There are a bunch of cherry blossoms along the Schuylkill River in Philly, and they’re a common subject in my paintings. This one isn’t part of the 100 Famous Views of Philadelphia, but I suppose it’s related.

Here’s my next ukiyoe portrait. This one is called Kabukimono, which is kind of a play on meaning. It’s written using an archaic kanji, 傾, which basically meant a person who sees the world a little differently than ordinary people; someone who, when faces with two paths, chooses the harder one and creates miracles in order to succeed. Eventually the word came to be written with different kanji, 歌舞伎, the kabuki style of theater which most folks are familiar with.

There’s a bit of the pretentious artist in me peaking through in this piece as well; I’m trying to say that business and theater are similar to each other. You have to put on a costume, a different face, you have to act really well, and if you don’t keep in character, your audience will lose interest in you. I guess the big difference is that in theater the costumes are much better… which is probably why theater is fun and business is not. Anyway, there you have it.