Anne Sexton's fairy tales (A1 collages, acrylic, photocopy, coffee, oil, ink)

Project based on Anne Sexton's poems.

The underbelly of fairy tales.

these are research images, sort of like sketchbook work just a2 and loose.

The Twelve dancing princesses

the frog prince

rapunzel

red ridding hood

these are the final images

Rapunzel:

"Many a girl

had an old aunt

who locked her in the study

to keep the boys away.

They would play rummy

or lie on the couch

and touch and touch.

Old breast against young breast... "

The Frog Prince

"Next came the bed.

The silky royal bed.

Ah! The penultimate hour!

There was the pillow

with the princess breathing

and there was the sinuous frog

riding up and down beside her."

Briar Rose (sleeping beauty)

"There was a theft.

That much I am told.

I was abandoned.

That much I know.

I was forced backward.

I was forced forward.

I was passed hand to hand

like a bowl of fruit.

Each night I am nailed into place

and forget who I am.

Daddy?

That's another kind of prison.

It's not the prince at all,

but my father

drunkeningly bends over my bed,

circling the abyss like a shark,

my father thick upon me

like some sleeping jellyfish.

What voyage is this, little girl?"

Twelve Dancing Princesses

"Next came the ball where the shoes did duty.

The princesses danced like taxi girls at Roseland

as if those tickets would run right out.

They were painted in kisses with their secret hair

and though the soldier drank from their cups

they drank down their youth with nary a thought."

These are illustrations for Anne Sexton's twisted fairy tales poems.