OBID ART
Graphic novel in installments in 2012 (Artist's Books)
Flannery O'Connor in art and music with The Harrows (Exhibits)
Flannery O'Connor in art and music with The Harrows (Exhibits)
contact me at trettinl@gmail.com
What, you might ask, is Obid?
It is many things, among them a village in Slovakia, a neighborhood association in Pittsburgh, an electronics firm, and a traditional Islamic scroll motif from South East Asia (obid obid). It is also one vowel different from the word "ibid" meaning "the same place."
My Obid is a world parallel to the one including Charleston, SC, where I live in 2011. Whilda, my alter ego (above right) lives in Obid. In Obid, the harbor has gone dry, the air is toxic, and the traffic is a chronic mess but scientists have learned to prolong life, a setup that makes for many interesting problems.
I am writing and illustrating a graphic novel about Obid. It is a dark adventure story, but also a romance so not everything about it is bleak, despite the environmental problems, the technological nightmares, and an anxious population.
I also make cut-paper collages based on the black and white illustrations.
These drawings and collages keep me happy with my life in South Carolina, a place where I sometimes don't feel I fit in.
This may be because I grew up in the Mountain South in the 1950s and 60s, listening to blue grass, gospel and the Beatles, and while I tried to escape my roots for several years by moving to the northern Midwest, I married someone up there who decided to study swamps, so here we are. But in Obid, I control everything--the environment, the politics, the culture. So what's not to like?
Obid Art has expanded to include other projects. In 2010 and 2011, I completed a series of cut-paper collages and paper objects based on the short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), by Flannery O'Connor. A major 20th century American writer of short stories and two novels, O'Connor was a life-long resident of rural Georgia who made short detours through Iowa and New York City. I respond to her dark humor, eccentric characters, and sharp moral and social commentary.
(Descent of the Holy Ghost, cut-paper collage of hand-painted paper, 2011)
(Ruby Turpin's Celestial Handbag, object of handmade and commercial paper, 2011)
I like to think Flannery would have enjoyed Obid, and I hope you've enjoyed this introduction.
There will be more soon because other projects are on the way. My style is cartoonish, often with a dark or satirical side to it but still colorful because I'm at heart an optimist. I detest paintbrushes but love scissors and drawing tools so my work is full of hard-edged shapes and decorative marks. I like to make really little things and also some that are 6 feet tall.
