Many times people ask me where the interest in voodoo came from. It was born from a period much like the one I’m in now. My creative mind was stale — I had no thoughts, no originality, no will to produce or create anything. For 4 or 5 weeks I had done nothing, which was a long time for one semester at college. I had produced no work, shown nothing in class. I was barrelling toward crits with nothing to show.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, and try not to be this way, I’m a hater. No, that’s not street slang for anything. I just let hatred build up inside of me. I’ve done it recently with my job, and I need to do something to purge the hatred from my body. This is how the original voodoo series was born in 1999.

I decided making voodoo dolls of people I didn’t like would be fun. I always had a knack for creating stories of the perfect death or ultimate punishment for those people — creative stories. Nothing simple, like, “I wish they would die.” No, these stories went far beyond.

So I set about collecting what I would need. Barbie dolls, sculpty, paint, props. I decided to create diptychs and triptychs showing what happened to the doll, and what happened to the person as a result. I figured I would get grilled in crits on voodoo, and there would be some know-it-all there who would shred my series to pieces, so I set my sights on the library to get all of the answers I would need.

The library didn’t have what I needed. Turns out voodoo doesn’t have much to do with cursing people — it was an actual religion/way of life, and it was about the same thing all “religions” are about — the golden rule. Do unto others…

This was all well and good; it actually piqued my curiosity and made me want to learn more about voodoo, which is how the voodoo series you see today on my site came to be. But, it really didn’t help my present situation.

Long story short, there was no voodoo know-it-all in crits. Ironically, this series was one of the most well-received I produced in my time at KCAI. The most controversial piece in the entire series was a picture of me, the curser, having my spells turned back on me: I was in a YoYo Courtney box (which is one of Skipper’s friends from the Barbie empire). It sparked a fierce debate that ended with one of the professors leaving the room in tears.

More to come soon on the original voodoo doll series. Pictures, stories, FUN!

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My Art by Courtney

I love swimming in the moonlight. The water is a black ink enveloping my body, and I feel so alone — but in a good way. The water is warm, and I feel safe.

This is one of the few things I miss about the high school/college days. In the summer I’d get home at 4 in the morning, eat Krystals on the dock, then go for a swim with a few friends. Afterwards, I would be shivering in the cool night air, running to get into the house and into a soft cotton t-shirt, snuggling down into the bed.

Filed under:
Miscellany by Courtney

I can only hope that one day I have so much money that I can let the spirits design my house.

Filed under:
Miscellany by Courtney

Pleasure Island, Orlando, FL

Filed under:
Miscellany by Courtney

My job tends to be a drain on me. All I want to do when I can finally shut down my work is drink. Anything to try to kill the braincells I have accumulated during the day. I only wish when I drank I could pinpoint which braincells to kill.

So this morning, I decided I would just start drinking early. It makes my day smoother to say the least. I’ve never had gin and soda, but it’s pretty damn good, as long as there’s plenty of lime. To put a smile on my face, I used the stirrer I received from my neighbors when I was 2 or 3 — it’s my first of many pink elephant memorabilia.

You can tell he’s been through hell and back — and I can’t believe he’s in this good of shape a quarter of a century later. I wish I remembered more about that couple that lived next door to me — I just remember the woman in a bikini.

Mr. Pink Elephant sat in my kool-aid as a kid. I would use him to stop up my straw (by sticking the stirrer into the straw). I thought I was the bees knees with Mr. Ele-phant.

This, of course, was until the infamous kool-aid incedent. When I poured an entire pitcher of kool-aid onto the carpet in the kitchen (accident, I swear). I wasn’t allowed to drink kool-aid for another 10 years. I wonder if it would have been such a big deal if we still had the vinyl floor in the kitchen instead of the new carpet?

So, I had this stirrer for a good 25 years. It wasn’t until 6 years ago that the pink elephant obsession was revived. I was walking down Chartres in New Orleans. In the window of an antiques shop, I saw a pink elephant martini shaker. It was over $200.

I obsessed over it. I wanted it; had to have it. It was one of the first things I purchased on eBay. Actually, it was the first 2 things I purchased on eBay. I have 2 pink elephant martini shakers — different designs.

The second of these martini shakers is the reason I am teased to no end by the boyfriend. It just illustrated one of his main points: I am a klutz.

The top had rusted on the martini shaker. I couldn’t get it off. I had tried numerous things over the years to pry it off. This day, I had soaked it in WD40. No dice. So, I did what anyone would do. I pulled out my hammer and my flat top screwdriver and went to work.

As I was working on the lid, the boyfriend says, “Be careful. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

This was at the exact same second that I scraped the skin off of my knuckle with the screwdriver. Shit, I thought. I will never hear the end of this.

So, I snuck into the bathroom, and bandaged the hand. It’s not nearly as bad as the time I exacto’d my finger off trying to get the label off a vox bottle.

I went back to work, and a minute later, the lid was off! Victory is Mine!!

Of course, the boyfriend did notice the bandage later that evening. I can’t complain; he definitely pays attention to me.

🙂

Of course, none of this has a thing to do with heffelumps and woozles. Other than the fact that they make me smile too.

Filed under:
Miscellany by Courtney