The Creature Show

will be up at Roq La Rue Gallery until the end of May

 2312 2nd Ave. Seattle, WA 98121

(Between Bell and Blanchard in the Belltown neighborhood)

for inquiries contact kirsten@roqlarue.com

 

Charles and His Northern Henry

Acrylic on board

16”x20”

Antique frame convex glass

By Travis Louie

 

 

(detail)

 

Charles was a gardener. He was always digging and planting in his yard in North East England. The smell of the Earth was like fine wine to a sommelier. One day, while readying the soil for a new crop of vegetables a strange thing happened. When he thrust the spade into the ground it let out a yelp. He looked down and saw a tuft of hair. Gently using his hands to remove more dirt, it wasn’t long before he revealed a gigantic hairy head that smiled at him. In between smiles, it would utter, “I am Henry”. That is all it would say as Charles continued to unearth this strange being from his garden. After many hours, Charles managed to dig up the “Henry”, who stood awkwardly taller than the house.  A few months later, another “Henry” was discovered in the South West, in Devon. He was not quite as tall as the northern “Henry”. He grumbled and grimaced, frightening small children and farm animals. They were forced to re-bury him.

The Northern “Henry” was much more affable and started to learn more words. He admired Charles’ mustache. It did not go unnoticed. He would say, “mustache” and point at Charles’ whiskers. He did this several times a week for the next few months. One day, Charles hired a barber and bought a barrel of mustache wax. The Northern Henry was delighted; fore he was now able to live out his days working the garden with a well groomed mustache.

 

  The Family Yeti

Acrylic on board

26”x 20”

(detail)

 The Family Yeti

Acrylic on board

26”x 20”

by Travis Louie

 

For as long as anyone can remember, there has always been a Yeti in the Wallace family. Victoria Wallace spent most of her adult life concentrating her efforts on “Yeti awareness”. Over the last few centuries, it has become the Wallace family’s primary philanthropic endeavor. No one knows for certain how long these docile hairy beasts can live. The current family Yeti is believed to be over 300 years old. It has become a tradition for each generation to have their portrait painted with the Yeti. 

 

 

Pug-Faced Woozel

(Pugga-woozel)

9”x12”

Acrylic and graphite on paper

By Travis Louie

 

 

(detail)

 

The one and only “pugga-woozel” gets its name from the close resemblance it has to pug dogs.  It was discovered by a young boy who was looking for his lost kite on the outskirts of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey in 1895. There had been reports of an unusual animal that was described as being “marsupial or koala-like” and sightings always involved stolen lunches or sandwiches. The boy, who found it, claimed it was leaping from tree to tree with a loaf of bread in its mouth. The young man was mesmerized by the strange dance that the “pugga-woozel” performed when it was near food.  Entranced by the animal’s graceful movements, he lured it into his picnic basket with a few bits of roast beef and took it home. After it ate all the food in his house it escaped back into the wild.

Every so often, the boy would see it in the woods, but he never took that glutton home again.

 The Cranky Plankton

Acrylic and graphite on paper

10 x 8”

Convex glass

By Travis Louie

 

This rare species of plankton has a peculiar ability to cause anxiety and make people turn on each other. They were dubbed the “Cranky Plankton” because of the irritable chemical that they produce. It quickly evaporates and once airborne, it only takes a few moments for the chemical to take effect.  Often, they are captured and placed in glass jars and cups as pranks to incite all manner of calamity.

 

 

 

 A Girl and Her Troll Head

Acrylic on board

16 x 20”

By Travis Louie

 

 

 A Girl and Her Troll Head

(detail)

 

Trolls generally had little to do with humans. Every so often they become unruly and had to be “controlled”.

There was a time when the common practice was to behead them. The heads of older trolls possessed magical properties. Despite being  separated from their bodies, the heads remained alive and.  Some even grew their bodies back over time. In the 1890’s it became fashionable to keep them as pets.

 

 

 

 Sir Frederic Burke and His Leviathan

Acrylic on board

11”x19”

Antique frame convex glass

By Travis Louie

 

 

(detail)

 

Sir Frederic Burke imagined himself to be some kind of adventurer. He used his family’s vast fortune to investigate mysterious stories about mythical creatures. He had heard a tale about a great aquatic beast that was supposedly sighted in the North Sea. He chartered a large sailing vessel equipped with a cargo hold he thought could manage such a “monstrous” animal. After months searching for this elusive creature, he heard word that the beast’s lair has been discovered in a cove. When he arrived at the location he discovered a large egg just beginning to hatch.  The emerging creature reminded him of his old dog, who had recently passed away.  He swore the crew to secrecy and took the helpless newly hatched “monsterling” to his estate in Devon. Since Sir Frederic was the first living being it set its eyes on when it had hatched, it imprinted itself onto Frederic, acting as if he were its parent. He fed it a salmon and cod from the family hatcheries and before long, the aptly named Leviathan began to grow to enormous size. After a few weeks, it was as large as a steam ship. It had a bad habit of chasing after carriages and would capture them and bring them to the property as offerings like a cat bringing a dead mouse or bird to your doorstep. As the behemoth grew to full size, it would bring back large cargo ships and trains as gifts. Luckily Sir Frederic had a lot of property. Before he could fully train Leviathan to stop bringing such things home the estate had turned into playground of marooned ships. In order to pay for the property damages, Sir Frederic opened up his property as an amusement park featuring his prized pet as the main attraction.

 

 

 

A Boy and His Squid

Acrylic on board

11”x19”

Antique frame with convex glass

By Travis Louie

 

Thomas was jealous of the amazing pets that some of his friends had at school. When his friend Oliver was having “squid trouble” he asked his parents permission to purchase one of them. His parents thought he was being silly and told him if he didn’t mind looking after such a thing, it was fine by them. When he brought it home, both his parents fainted. It was an enormous beast. Apparently, it had outgrown its enclosure and had eaten some of the livestock.

 

 

Curious Myths

 

 

 

Krampus Mugshot

Percy Carruthors had a fascination with the myth of the Krampus. Everywhere he looked he thought he saw evidence of their existence. Krampus were known to punish people in peculiar ironic ways. Really aggressive alpha-male types were found unconscious wearing mismatched women’s evening wear, abusive tax appraisers were dressed as pigs, all their earnings forcibly given away to charity, and various members of the “self-important” society around him were found dangling from lamp posts or stuck to railroad billboards . . . the glazed look in their eyes and the muttering of the word “Krampus” seemed like obvious clues, . . .strangely, these happening went unnoticed by everyone in the precinct he worked in. Percy’s co-workers made jokes about him, saying he had “Krampusitis”, for his constant obsession until the day a large Krampus turned himself in for “child-juggling”. Percy gladly took the mugshots.

 

 

 

 

 The Toad Prince

After years of approaching young women with the promise that a kiss would turn him into a prince, he finally convinced a young lady with strange hair to kiss him on his moist lips. Unfortunately, she was afflicted with the “bad hair” and the toad merely turned into a larger human-size toad. He became much smellier and developed a taste for single malt scotch and sausages. His dreams to be a prince w dashed, he became a criminal lawyer, croaking his way through court room trials for the next 40 years.

The Hypno Doll

The myth of the Hypno-doll concerns a mysterious doll which came to life and escaped a toy factory in Germany. The doll wanted so badly to be human that it willed itself to be. Despite her miniature stature at just under a meter in height, she has been able to evade discovery with her ability to spin her swirling eyes and her swirling hair, hypnotizing any suspicious individuals into believing she was just a little girl.

  Ethel

According to the myth, she rose out of the sea at low tide to look for a man sometime in the 1880’s.  It is said she was part jellyfish because of her transparent appearance and spindly hair. She attracted her possible suitors by giving off the scent of fine food and liquor. When the men she wooed were not to her liking, she stung them with her tentacle hair. The stings were said to induce paralysis and memory loss. In one of the stories, she even turned a man into a jellyfish.

There have been many sightings of a woman levitating out of the surf with a flowing white dress along the Eastern seaboard. Most of those reports have taken place during seaside town festivals, usually in the evening, and involving much drinking.

 

 Jones

Reports of a slow-moving little man with a very large head and glazed over eyes came from Kingston, New York in the 1890’s. At first, he was thought to be part of the undead wandering around with a slow moan. He actually was a man who the locals called Jones. He was a constant sleepwalker. He once sleep walked for almost 27 years,  only “dosing “ into consciousness to avoid obstacles in his path. He once woke up in 1896 on Warren Street and uttered the word “Plugh”, looked around, and then fell back into his sleepwalking march, which took him from route downtown Kingston all the way to the Rondout and back again.

 Banned from the Scopes Trial

Brothers, Oog, Ug, Atuk, Glump, and Samuel were banned from being part of the jury at the landmark trial. They feared they were being singled out because of their low brows. They actually were told to leave because they  smelled badly and were prone to getting excited and screaming at people. 

 Phineas G Gruffin

Phineas G Gruffin disguised himself as a sheepherder on the Scottish Moors. He sang these awful songs in a loud booming voice When there was a fog his awful voice would actually sound better the closer he was approached. He sang to cover up the sound of the shoveling as he dug for “scumpers”, small mole-like animals who cultivated golden truffles. The golden truffles were a delicacy he could not resist.

 

 Myth of Floaters

The best stories about this myth come from North Dakota, where the hairiest floaters reside. In those stories the floaters are said to hover over people’s heads and sprinkle seeds which germinate and sprout herbs and foliage. One man claimed to have grown a full head of ferns atop his mostly bald head.

 

 

MY COMICON SCHEDULE : 

Thursday

 At 4pm at the Hi Fructose Magazine booth #4939

signing newly published book “Curiosities” with a special cover only available at Comicon

along with an exclusive print, also only available at Comicon.

Friday

At 12 noon, I’ll be at the Baby Tattoo Books booth #601

signing copies of the new book. Also, there will be a few sets of all of the available covers; The Gallery 1988 edition, The Baby Tattooville edition and the Comicon edition.

At 3pm I’ll be at Sketch Theatre, the Gnomon booth #5363 doing some live drawing.

Saturday

At 12pm I’ll be signing again at the Hi Fructose Magazine booth #4939

Sunday

12 noon I’ll be signing at Last Gasp books booth #1614

Herbert was a very peculiar simian. He walked upright with a cane. and
had an unusual gait that consisted of a slow step followed by a slightly faster one, and then a short hop. His prehensile tail was longer than usual and he used it to pick people’s pockets, . . .not to rob them, but to find out as much information as he could about them, . . . fore he loved people. They fascinated him.
Most of his early life was spent working for an organ grinder in a town square in Sheffield. It was his favorite vocation because he was in contact with so many different people. He danced to the sounds of the organ grinder for 5 years and then tragically, his employer was run over by a team of Clydesdale horses. As a result, he developed a phobia of horses and a weakness for single malt scotch.
In 1915, he enlisted in the military and left Sheffield to fight in the trenches for 2 years. He returned home after suffering the war wound that accounted for his unusual gait and his need for a cane. No longer able to dance, he was forced to get a job at a distillery.
On his first day of work, he came across a team of draft horses and nearly wet himself. To help him overcome his equine anxieties, his fellow workers came up with an elaborate plan. They dressed up as horses and pranced around him for days. When he was hauled away to the asylum, they all apologized and wished him well. He recovered and spent the rest of his days working for shipbuilders in Glasgow and avoiding horses. 

Comments

I’ll be participating in a few shows this July

First, at Roq La Rue Gallery’s 10th Anniverserary Group Show in Seattle,  opening July 11th.   

Next will be the Hi-Fructose Show at Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica opening July 12th.

Then, at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco I will be part of a 4 person show featuring Joe Vaux, Brandt Peters and Scott Scheidly, opening July 18th. I’ll be in attendance.

I will also be at the San Diego Comicon signing prints at the Hi-Fructose table. July 24th to the 26th