A Year Later: Retrospective. Create to Destroy.

The alchemy of the process...

About a year ago today the fundraiser for Words of Traitors kicked off. A year later, it’s been released as a book, an ebook, and some of the pieces have been featured in numerous art shows across Philadelphia. Moving on to new projects in the same general world over the next year. Many thanks to the artists that collaborated with me on this one, and of course to the contributors to the Indiegogo campaign, who helped me defray the costs of producing a project like this.

But I have a bit more to share here then just the usual back-patting and congratulations for making it past the finish line without dying or whatever. With a project like this you're really talking about 40-50 hours a week for five or six months to get it from concept to first edition. Definitely a labor of love. Why do it? I am forced to wonder what the meaning behind all of this is, when all is said and done. Beyond the narratives, beyond the art and brass tacks, what's the meaning and the message? I can't say I've found anything definitive, but I haven't found nothing, either. It isn't about me and it isn't about the characters in the stories. It's about all of you -- and the distance we create between one another in the midst of all these "communication tools" that we have at our disposal. It's a bit about signal to noise but not about marketing--

Listen up. Seriously. Maybe these videos convince you to check out the final book (or eBook, if you can't cover a full color illustrated book). It's the most meaningful way that I think I enter the world, so I hope so. But just as importantly -- maybe more importantly -- I hope it inspires you to realize that there's nothing standing between you and your own creative muse, so long as you are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to get from here to there. We don't do it to get famous, we don't do it to get rich -- those goals are perfectly delusional -- we do it because we have no other choice. But sometimes we need a little push from someone else to remind us that it's time, right now, to stop thinking about it and start doing it. 

It's not about identity branding, it's not about con-vincing anyone of anything. It's about listening to your dreams, listening to your fears, to your history, to your losses, and engaging with them. It's about finding your weak spots and splitting them wide open. It's about being crazy enough to not only do that -- but to share the results with the world. Being genuine has been something I've been willing to sacrifice anything for. I'm certainly not giving that up for the approval of strangers. And yet we make these things to be heard. We don't create them to lock them up in a box. The process transforms us, but the detritus at the end of the process is what gets transformed by the audience from lead back to gold.

Time to destroy and create. I expect to be hearing about your projects shortly, yeah?

One final thing... While running the fundraiser, I made a habit of updating everyone every few days with a video. At first it was the usual stuff, details and updates. But when you're babbling in front of a camera without a real plan, sometimes you'll find yourself saying the darndest things. In a way making these videos really helped inform me as well in terms of what the hell this thing was all about. It becomes a sort of weird feedback mechanism. Looking back, I think some of these may actually be of some use to others that are willing to slog it out against all the challenges that face "indie production," from the bare bones financial ones to the common creative ones to the physical hurdles -- you start to discover that the challenges themselves can even inform the narrative.  There's more, but I think I've typed enough words here. I hope some of these videos are useful for other artists and writers out there, as they are embarrassing as hell for me but I'm plenty willing to get past that so long as some of you are likely to get something from it:

Upcoming Art Show: MARVEL

Philadelphia, April 25th, come to a MASSIVE art show and club event featuring many artists including yours truly. The Words of Traitors pieces will all be present, along with never before seen concept art and unique material.

ORDER YOUR TICKETS THROUGH THIS LINK for presale rate.

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

Words of Traitors (trailer 1)

ORDER THE BOOK NOW

A full color illustrated book available now from http://www.mythosmedia.net -

Hope and faith, sex and death, excess and deprivation, loss. An illustrated collection of treacherous memories. These dark modern fairy tales will stick with you long after you've put the book down.

"Beautiful!" -David Mack, (Kabuki, Daredevil, Dexter.) Full color art by an international collection of artists.

Trailer 1:
Editorial: James Curcio.
Art: James Curcio. Alexey Andreev.
Music: Scott Landes.

Words of Traitors art show release

From the Gold Standard mail list:

"Come out and join us for our first art gallery opening of 2013! This exciting exhibit will run from Monday, January 14th throughout the month of February with the opening night also being the release party for the beautiful book The Words of Traitors: 7 Lives in Transition. Transmedia artist and Author James Curcio put together a creatively diverse, international team of artists, and collaborated with them in illustrating a collection of short stories with a common theme and singular vision that is hauntingly beautiful. 

Each story was written as part of the overall creative process with visual pieces inspiring the narrative. Many of these pieces are dioramas constructed from a wide array of material enveloping one in a visually stimulating journey into the subconscious. 

Complimentary cheese and wine available at the opening which runs from 5 PM until 8 PM. Copies of books will be on sale with the opportunity to have your booked signed and listen to some excerpts read by James. This work features many other innovative artists including Philadelphia-based painter and muralist James Dupree, Bethany Shorb, Laurie Lipton, S. Jenx, Alexey Andreev, and many more.  

We hope to see you there!"

Not in Philadelphia? Pick up a copy of the book here. (Available in full color hardcopy or digitally.)

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

Words of Traitors, digital files unleashed to the lucky few

This past week we sent out a link to the web resolution version of Words of Traitors to those that helped it come into being. (Final stats: 118 full color pages, over 90 illustrations, 7 short stories, more late nights than I can count.)

"I stood out there in the cold crying for an hour. My balls felt like they had shriveled and crawled inside my body. Like I should cut an incision along the side of my thigh and shove them inside there and sew it shut, cut holes in my chest and sew my arms inside, then my legs, my whole miserable body stitched into a quivering, quadriplegic abortion. I called her cell a hundred times. I banged on the door, howling senselessly." —“Schoolgirl Blues,” Words of Traitors
Next on the slate is setting it up for print. And then, building buzz to spin off a comic series? If you'd like to help or be involved please get in touch with me.

And if you didn't donate but want a copy, I've decided to open up the limited edition to purchase on Amazon down the line, until we reach 2,000 sold, at which point it will be retired. This will make pushing it to indie bookstores and possibly galleries easier, while at the same time controlling the flow rate.

Thanks again to everyone that contributed either creatively or financially, and much hope that more will share in what we've created. It's the first full-color art book I've worked on that I've been fairly happy with the end results, while at the same time keeping aware of how we can improve in the future.

-J

[Where is the fucking counterculture? Mythos Media.]

Just 2 Days Remain before Limited Editions are Gone.

If you want to donate and receive one of the limited editions of Words of Traitors: 7 Lives In Transition you have until Saturday September 15th to receive one of the limited editions. This will be the only run available to the public for a little while. (Public release will occur when we've found the right gallery for a release party and made some distribution partnerships. Possibly 2013.)

• The limited edition greyscale soft-cover (A4 large format) can be acquired for $25.
• The limited edition full-color soft-cover (A4 large format) can be acquired for $50.
• The limited edition full-color hard-covers (8"x10" large format) are being reduced to $75. 

This is a limited run of a full color art book -- thus the prices. 

All come with a free full color PDF. You must provide your email and mailing address. 

Use this link, if this code doesn't work for you. 

Contact.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Project update: Words of Traitors

Collage in progress. Myself and Alexey Andreev. 

I haven't had time to focus on modern mythology pieces this summer as much, as I have focused my creative energies almost exclusively into The Words of Traitors, an illustrated book - mixed media, which ties into many other past, and I imagine future, modern myths. They at the same time stand on their own, and have plenty of sex and blood to keep things spicy.

Like Bill Hicks used to say, "don't worry. There will be dick jokes in a minute, folks."

It has been an open project to an extent - open to contribution from those who show up, or who chance brings to it as it came into being.

Where is this project at? We are now less than 2 days from the conclusion of the fundraiser. We could still really use your donations, and you could get some limited edition or even unique art as a result. I will work with whatever we raise to cover those limited print runs, and hopefully have a little bit left to put into the next phase of that project which leads to a public release, either through Mythos Media or in partnership with another publisher. I am hoping to organize a gallery show, as there are a ton of images- many of which I have created myself, or collaged from the my own work and the work of others in some cases.

I initially imaged a mostly textual book with 7 images. It has since grown into a true fusion, with over 50 images, and pretty involved page backgrounds.


As of this posting we've raised $1600 (of a hoped $8000, but like I said we will work with whatever I can), and there are 32 hours remaining. Donate.

This book is a ritual. If you don't know what that means I can't speak to it in any way that isn't long-winded. This is no purely intellectual exercise. It is a book, and to literalize that, some of the art is literally made of flesh. The flesh of animals, the flesh and pulp of plants. It has been good to work with my hands again, with material, three dimensional objects that are then digitized, re-contextualized.

I will write a follow up "5 general rules of indie production" or somesuch if there is a demand for it here as a way to return to this site. If it would be helpful to some of you. Respond. Engage. This medium (the net) often seems to risk divorcing us from discourse.

We can speak, but can we listen? 

Do we pay attention, or merely browse through in a half-dream?

It needn't be passive, but it does demand a certain space and respect to accomplish the goal of truly listening, to ourselves, to one another. The creative process simply can't exist without that space, especially the one that we make within ourselves, like a womb that these (bodies) gestate within. I often say that in a way I already am a parent.

I'm not sure if my children are monsters are not, of course.

There is a lot I could say about this project, but I'd much rather you draw your own conclusions. For that, you have to meet it halfway. I'm looking forward to hearing how the limited editions are received.

Be talking to you...

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Heart Art and Meat Ethics

Please support indie art and independent artists. It's how these projects get made. Just 15 days left!

As I mentioned in several of the videos a few posts back on Words of Traitors, one of the primary dioramas that I'm using to stage the art in WoT was based on a hypnogagic state, a half-dream image of a pulsating heart with wires linking to various images and fragments of written text that represent the emotions binding us to the past -- but which also fixate us in time at all. It got me thinking, or feeling, really, a sense of the Bardo. I came out of the state crying, and cried for quite some time before I determined that I should attempt to build something like what I had seen.

It wasn't ever meant to be a statement about food. As a meat eater, I don't see any sense in the ritual and artistic use of organs to be any more wasteful than eating it. But we'll get to that in a minute, because that isn't why I made this thing. It isn't, in other words, what the heart is meant to evoke.

The heart generally symbolizes emotion for some reason or other, though it is especially funny to me when people eat hamburgers but get freaked out by organs. I simply wanted to approach the dream image as directly as I could.

Heart Art - Indie Production 101

Lilith sketch by ... me.

Hard at work on Word of Traitors, as are many of the artists.

Please help support us in getting this material produced. We have a way to go the next 20 days but it can be done if you get active along with us! 

Here's two videos about some of the dioramas I've just started building - which will be integrated digitally with mixed media pieces.


Video 1.



Video 2.

Here I am, babbling more about found art, working with what you have. Again, I had a lot I wanted to say about serendipity but talking to a camera you're holding it awkward. Feel free to ask me directly if you have questions about process, especially if you're an artist yourself.

Words of Traitors - Transmedia perk 1 Unlocked

A short walkthrough of my office at the time of working on this project, and a little talk on the whiteboard of how this project ties into some of the other material available here. 

Talking about some of the thumbnailing process as we get into layout and creative direction.

And finally, talking about the literary background and some of the process and circumstance that got this whole thing started.
(My back was acting up that night so that's why I'm lying down, if you're wondering.)

First transmedia perk unlocked by reaching $1000 goal!  Next unique perk is reserved for breaking $2500. Reaching our full goal will ensure a well produced and distributed illustrated book, and set us off running for the graphic novel that we are spinning out of one of the short stories in this book for a kickstarter and a somewhat unique artistic process involving CG and photographic source. Liking indie art in theory is one thing but coming in at the ground floor like this not only ensures that it gets made -- it also ensures that you will have the first edition pre-ordered and signed. (Who knows, maybe one day you can sell that for a lot of money on whatever replaces eBay.)

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

The Words of Traitors: 7 Lives in Transition, 30 Day Crowdsource

NONE OF THESE MEMORIES ARE MINE ANYMORE. The divorce was amicable. It just didn’t work out. They’re great memories, don’t get me wrong. Honestly. Sad, brutal, we’ve lived hardtogether, and the truth is that I’m a little jealous that you’ll make them your own. It’s selfish. These memories can guide the lost, or offer comfort. Enough of them for seven people, compressed into snapshots, provided to you for the price of a bar of artisanal chocolate.

They’ll find a perfect home in your head—sending their roots into that verdant soil of the right mind, a mind like yours—and I’m sure before any of us know it, they will be yours entirely. To me, it will be as if they never were. We wouldn’t have a flicker of recognition if we passed one another on the street one rainy morning.

I hope you are happy together. Goodbye. —Jamie Curcio.

The truth about these stories. I was fighting chronic pain, I had to move, I was behind on payments, I was getting death threats, royalties from past books weren’t cutting it, and suddenly I had an infection in the nerves inside my teeth. No one in their right mind would choose THAT as the time to start churning out short stories, one every few days. But that is exactly what I did. 20,000 words in a month. When my laptop and desktops died or became unreliable, I started writing it on my cellphone because my handwriting, though it’s alright for notes, is just too slow and clumsy to write fiction with.

I packed my life into boxes and then unpacked them again, and in the process discovered that I had one parcel along with them: this freshly printed young manuscript, written in a month, which was (I was told quite a few times) bringing people to tears. 

At the end of the day no one knows anything about what good literature is, not really. But I do know that I made girls cry, and that has to count for something. (Though I hope it makes some of you laugh, in the end, as well.)

Now it is the time for these stories to be polished, for them to be paired with the art of some very talented artists, for a cover to be created — and most importantly — it is time for you to join us in the steps that come next. 

FUNDRAISER July 19, 2012 - Aug 19, 2012. 
MANY PERKS TO BE ANNOUNCED FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION.

http://wordsoftraitors.tumblr.com
www.wordsoftraitors.com to be functional as soon as the DNS stops screwing around.

Goodnight, and good luck.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]