How would you like to develop your work in the future? What would you like to achieve?
W: It would be nice to do film again, something new that goes even further than we went before…
Can it have Bowie in tight trousers again?
W: Yeah, maybe…he’s older now. Maybe Johnny Depp?
B: It’s problematic trying to think of doing something in three dimensions and in movement. I’m in despair when I see how films are made now and how you do it. But it still, one hopes, can be done. I was just in London at the Little Angel Puppet Theatre, and they showed Labyrinth. They said they could have sold the tickets time after time because they only did one showing. It’s just how people responded to it. To try and figure out what it is about Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, it’s the thing that you don’t see. You’re looking at a movie, but you’re also feeling something else. It’s that other magic that went on that’s beneath the surface and about how you get that onscreen. It came from a different direction, whereas many people who make movies now, it’s about money and market research and all this stuff but not allowing the mystery to shine through. It would be wonderful to be able to attempt to do something that was slightly out of your grasp when you were making it, and you didn’t quite understand it. Those films have had longevity because they were not of their time, they were of another time that’s fluid and therefore continues to be timeless. It’s intriguing to think, is it possible to do something like that again? I don’t know…
I just want whatever I do to have meaning, to have resonance. Having said that, what we find is, whatever we do, it seems to go into a book. I believe passionately in books as a way of communicating ideas to people, but they want to be out doing different things. They want to be part of people’s lives. Any way of allowing that to happen, I’m all for it!
For more information, visit www.worldoffroud.com.
Marc Potts and Kelly Martinez
Marc Potts is a visionary artist based in the UK, whose powerful work is informed by his exceptional knowledge of folklore and connection to the spirits of the land. His work has appeared on numerous book covers and Pagan publications, and he is currently working towards several books of his own. Kelly Martinez, Marc’s partner, is an exceptionally skilled jeweller and master pattern maker, specialising in ancient methods that are little known in the modern world. I interviewed this fascinating and talented couple about their creative work and experiences of Faery.
Kelly Martinez and Marc Potts
Marc Potts, “Old Ginny”
What does Faery mean to you?
K: It’s something that’s always been with me. I don’t know where it comes from, there’s no one else in my family that feels this way. I was always the odd kid at school! I have always, from being tiny, known that there was something other than human or animal—spirit that is nature based. I’ve always felt very close to that. Especially when I’m out on my native moors, the West Yorkshire moors, like Saddleworth Moor. It’s like electricity going through me, and I know it’s not just coming from the land, but there are other things there. Elementals, whatever you want to call them, but there is something else there. It’s something very spiritual. It’s part of me.
M: To me, very much the same sort of thing. It’s a nature-based spirituality. I’ve always had an affinity with not just nature, but I was fascinated by the whole landscape, the spirit of the landscape. I started on this path a long time ago…late seventies, early eighties. I never called faeries “faeries,” usually nature spirits or elementals. Elementals is a word I use a lot.
It was a form of invented Paganism, I didn’t follow any particular path within Paganism and still don’t, but there’s elements of lots of different paths within Paganism that have elementals and Faery lore. My ritual work would centre around elementals, not just earth, air, fire, water, and all that business, but elementals of rocks or a tree—especially trees. Everything has a spirit, and there’s almost hierarchies of spirits. There’s what I would call a “landscape Pan,” which would be above certain other things, for example. The art that I do, that’s my way of manifesting…I had to paint it. Also, I’m an avid reader of folklore; I read anything and everything. It’s not necessarily Pagan, but it ties in. You can recognise the old gods sometimes, they’re everywhere. It’s not just little faeries in dresses—they rarely are.
What do you see as being the purpose of your creations? Why do you do what you do?
M: This is going to sound flaky, but I kind of made a deal after a ritual I did one day. I was in Wales…again, this was the early eighties, we decided in this ritual we were all going to take on different roles, and I was the Horned God. After that I did these four paintings…I used to be a natural history artist, but these were the first “Pagan” type paintings I’d done. They were tree spirits. I gave those four paintings to my friend, and then there was a subsequent ritual, which was all about what I was going to do from then on. It was a deal I made…it’s a one-sided deal, but it’s certainly satisfying in a driven sort of way.
Marc Potts, “Hedgerider”
I used to do a lot of “sitting out”…going out into the wilderness, staying out all night. You do get some fantastic stuff from that. I used to do a lot of trance work. I used to do this thing with tree spirits, for instance—I would befriend a particular tree, and over a period of weeks I would keep returning to that tree and meditating or visualising or trance or whatever happened, and I would do
