The Seed of the Spell Paintings
This piece comes from a 2022 series of graphite drawings on Arches paper mounted to hardboard. I began them without preliminary sketches, wanting the work to unfold freely—letting my hand move without a fixed idea of what should appear.
For this drawing, I arranged a small still life: a skull, a pinecone, violets, and leaves, chosen simply for the beauty of their shapes. The skull, though, lent a certain gravity—a touch of mystery that made the whole grouping feel like more than a study. As I drew, it began to seem less like a natural arrangement and more like a deliberate staging: an offering, or perhaps a task of intention. A spell, assembled to send certain vibrations out into the world.
That thought caught me. Could an image itself be a spell? We often think of spells as rituals with objects in hand—wands, chalices, candles, bells—brought to life through the alchemy of flame, water, ash, and word. But what if that intention could be conjured and carried by an image alone?
I only had to glance at the history of Christian iconography to know the answer was yes. The faithful look to the Christ Child or the Madonna not as “mere pictures” but as conduits of prayer, devotion, presence. Could there be an equivalent in the magical or pagan imagination—a visual language that works in the same way, but without the centuries of church provenance? Perhaps the realm of fantastic art has already begun building such a lexicon: images that don’t just illustrate magic, but perform it.
The title I gave this drawing carried another layer of meaning for me. War is a constant presence in the world, and much of my creative work—whether in art or music—has been a kind of prayer for its end. This piece, though it grew from skull and pinecone, also became part of that wish: that images, like spells, might help us imagine peace into being.
Looking back, I see this drawing as the seed of a larger idea. What began as a simple still life became, in my mind, a kind of altar—an image that could hold intention. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already reaching toward the notion of the operative image—art that doesn’t just depict, but enacts.
That question—could a spell be done with an image?—has become the path I’m exploring now through my spell-paintings.
I’d love to hear your thoughts— can an image itself be a spell? Share in the comments below.