Stories From The Stone House - Tumblr Posts

In this video, I read "The Beast That Ate Dreams," with the video showing details from the print She Was Blinded By Her Will. The print is one of five works included in Stories From the Stone House, a print folio with letterpress-printed title page, created in 2010 and editioned in 2018.

The full text of the tale read in this video, and the complete Stories from the Stone House folio, are part of an online presentation of my work by UPFOR from January 18 through March 17, 2021. Please visit http://bit.ly/birdsong-stories​ to experience the online viewing room.

For more information about this work, the series it belongs to, or other works by me, please visit my website at http://www.heatherleebirdsong.com​. A transcript is available on request.

The Eater of Stones (She Ate the Stones Until She Starved)

In this video, I read “The Eater of Stones” with footage of the print She Ate the Stones Until She Starved, one of five prints from my Stories from the Stone House series. (The captions are auto-generated, but surprisingly accurate.)

I’m not sure I felt the sadness of this story until I watched this video through. During the creative process, with writing and drawing both, I experience a state of remove. I’m not sure if it’s a kind of intellectualizing or dissociating, or something else entirely. I, like many artists, often feel I don’t understand what I’ve made until I can sit back from it for a bit.

Anyway, Rapunzel and other “maiden in the tower” fairy tale types, hungry ghosts, maladaptive coping, Nabokov’s Lolita, the nesting habits of swallows, and personal experiences (mine and others’) are all influences here. The story and print are about how easy it is to feel lonely and unloved when one is isolated, physically or in spirit. The theme feels timely as we approach one year from the beginning (for many) of lockdowns and quarantine, but it is the story that changed the least from when I first began them in 2010. Are you metaphorically eating stones? I think there are times during this last year when I have caught myself doing so. Please spit them out and reach beyond your tower, if so; it helps. And to my dear friends, especially my partner, who have been there for me when I have: thank you.

Through March 17, 2021, you can see all five prints from the folio (which comprise a single work), and read all five related narratives in UPFOR’s online viewing room of my work at http://bit.ly/birdsong-stories.