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Acrylic. Canvas panel. 8×10.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Stretched canvas. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 12×12.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 12×12
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Gallery wrapped canvas. 18×24
©Elle Wonders 2017
Excerpt from Little Hollows Beckon:
“When he opened his eyes, there were tears. He tightened his grip around my waist and pulled me in close, coaxing my thigh around his hip. Together we wept for the trials we had faced, and the gratitude we both felt for not being alone in it. We wept for the feelings of hope we had secretly harbored, and the possibility that happiness was something we could both have — something we could give each other. With lips nearly touching, we whispered the things that had gone unsaid, tethered only by the gravity of having found something so impossibly grand.”
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 16×20
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 16×20
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
Acrylic. Canvas panel. 11×14.
©Elle Wonders 2017
La Limoncella by Elle Wonders
Acrylics. Canvas panel. 12×12
©Elle Wonders 2017
A ladybird lands
In Constantinople
When I think of little hollows, I think of a hollow in a tree, or in a thicket of brush. I think of the slight concave area just above a hip, or collar bone. The dip at the top of a man’s shoulder, or the soft depression at the top of a woman’s inner thigh. But I also think of the hollow places we all have inside us, that most will never see. Those small voids that become full when we experience extraordinary love, and intense connection. These are the hollows that draw us in, and make us seek ways to fit together.
This stunning photo is by photographer Peter Levers. It is very similar to the image I have in my mind when writing Little Hollows Beckon, and it captures the mood of my story incredibly well.
Synopsis
After years spent rebuilding her life, Willa Hawthorne feels as though things are finally moving forward again. With a successful gallery exhibit behind her and a second collection underway, she’s making a name for herself in the art world. But after she becomes engaged to Evan Mercer, a handsome attorney who’s everything a woman would want, Willa sees her unwillingness to fully let go of her past with Jamieson Corbin.
With an uncanny sense of timing, Jamieson returns and pushes his way back into Willa’s life. His reappearance not only threatens her relationship with Evan, but the sheer madness of it challenges Willa’s sanity. Because there’s an impossible catch: Jamieson has been dead for three years.
From a small idyllic town in Upstate New York to a remote hamlet in the Highlands of Scotland, Willa embarks on a provocative journey of love and betrayal with an unexpected ally. When the two of them discover long-hidden secrets of Corbin Family folklore, they are beckoned to a place where light and darkness intersect, and spiritual boundaries are redrawn. After unearthing painful truths from the past, Willa must reexamine everything she believes about life and death and find a passage that connects the two worlds.
Ode to a Corbie
Swift an’ black, wi’ feaithers sleek
He looms atop th’ branches.
Wi’ time, an’ tide, an’ moors sae bleak
His battered sool, entrances.
Mirk ushers in, oan corbie wings
Deid silence. Ah wait an’ listen.
Fur th’ lest c-r-r-r-ruuuck! tae me, he sings
Passion stirs, an’ mah een, they glisten.
A yearnin’ quaver, rises up frae th’ glens
Roosed by his calls, his tooch, an’ his need.
Frae his swellin’ soonds, a’m oan edge, he kens
Fur his keen, whetted glances, Ah heed.
When love’s een close, nae glancin’ back
Yit charms an’ spells sometimes daur.
With his unearthly grasp, Ah shaa ne’er lack
Each other’s longings an’ vices, we baur.
Th’ sharp, duple pitch, shaa ne’er be far
Fur oor wayward ambition, lies a nether.
Mooths against skin, mak’ e’erlastin’ scars
Stronger than time, is oor tether.
Tho ne’er was he, a raven pure an’ reit,
Forever blows th’ win’ thru mah bones.
A new wicked yearnin’ micht willin’ tak’ flight
Upon th’ day, his black heart, atones.
© Elle Wonders – 2016
Ode to a Corbie (English Translation)
Swift and black, with feathers sleek
He looms, atop the branches.
With time, and tide, and moors so bleak
His battered soul, entrances.
The dark ushers in, on corbie wings
Dead silence. I await, and listen.
For the last C-r-r-r-ruuuck! to me, he sings
Passion stirs, and my eyes, they glisten.
A yearning quaver, rises up from the glens
Roused by his calls, his touch, and his need.
From his swelling sounds, I’m on edge, he kens
For his keen, whetted glances, I heed.
When love’s eyes close, no glancing back
Yet charms, and spells, sometimes dare.
With his unearthly grasp, I shall never lack
Each other’s longings, and vices, we bare.
The sharp, duple pitch, shall never be far
For our wayward ambition, lies a nether.
Mouths against skin, make everlasting scars
Stronger than time, is our tether.
Though never was he, a raven pure and right
Forever blows, the wind thru my bones.
A new wicked yearning, might willing take flight
Upon the day, his black heart, atones.
© Elle Wonders – 2016
“Because she was the trigger, the bullet and the gun.”
-E. Wonders, Dirty Little Shrine
“The sound of it opened a new world inside her heart, and it swallowed her whole, from the inside out.”
-E. Wonders
He wanders down the path for the not undeserving, to a place where sometimes is enough. A place where electricity surges and hums through his chest, as the yellow light filters down through the canopy, glimmering like a bright spirit who understands – one of the happy few.
-E. Wonders, The Dirty Little Shrine
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
– Edgar Allan Poe
“He draws a pastèque bath in a large wooden tub, and they sit nestled in bunches of melon, crushed under the weight of want.”
– E. Wonders, The Dirty Little Shrine
Et que ce n’est pas chose étrange
S’il en est tant que le loup mange.
Je dis le loup, car tous les loups
Ne sont pas de la mesme sorte :
Il en est d’une humeur accorte,
Sans bruit, sans fiel et sans couroux,
Qui, privez, complaisans et doux,
Suivent les jeunes demoiselles
Jusque dans les maisons, jusque dans les ruelles.
Mais, hélas. Qui ne sçait que ces loups doucereux
De tous les loups sont les plus dangereux.-Charles Perrault
It came in rushes, then slowed – that longing for a place that wasn’t enough. Her skin glowed around his shadow, and with her ear to his heart, she let it pulse.
– Elle Wonders, Pour Mon Bzou
A new bud darkens.
Engulfing heartache blossoms,
Altering a mind.-E. Wonders
“It’s evening in the morning when he finds his dirty little shrine. She is surrounded by torches that coax the truth like he coaxes the sound that her tongue cannot make.”
– E. Wonders, The Dirty Little Shrine
“The forest is dark and damp, and she feels the soft, loamy earth underneath her. The night brings them fear, and awakening, and a language that has no home.”
-Elle Wonders, The Dirty Little Shrine
“It was a trap, but not a trap. It was an epoch of abundance. An embarrassment of words…”
-Elle Wonders, Pour Mon Bzou.
“When he awakens her, they begin to build a confessional from all that they have. A sacred place, where words can be stripped bare. A sanctuary for thirst and ambition.”
– Elle Wonders, Mapa da Boa.
Excerpt from Pour Mon Bzou:
“A blaze of epiphany. Like baneberries in dim light, he could not have imagined the whites of her eyes. Her stare caught his flaws, like fireflies in a bell jar, and his good fortune wandered off like a gypsy.”
Excerpt from The Dirty Little Shrine:
“She sees the hunger in his face, but not in his heart, because like the sound on her tongue, it has been hidden. “If my heart was pulled out of my chest and put, beating, in front of you, would you know what it wants?” he asks. Look how easily he betrays his heart for her, ripping it out of his chest like an Aztec god. She just nods as they sit in their dinner bath, and play like warriors, and he sees how her fire begins in her mouth. Like a dragon.
And there was feeling back in his chest.”
Genre: Memoir/Satire
Synopsis
In her early forties, during a period of restlessness, Elle Wonders narrowly escapes a mid-life crisis by planning not one, but three trips to Europe. After two back-to-back vacations, first to England, and then to Norway, Elle embarks on a ten day road trip around Ireland and Northern Ireland with her favorite Englishman and their newly adopted potato. This sometimes witty and poignant memoir chronicles the many shenanigans they attend to in country pubs, old graveyards, and long winding roads that inevitably lead to stinging nettles and a cuppa tea.
In their quest for freedom and alcohol, and with nary a travel itinerary or GPS in site, Elle and Pierre (her very English traveling companion with a French name) navigate their way past real-life zombies, stressful roundabouts, and locals who insist on telling them six irrelevant stories when all they want is directions to a nearby petrol station before their rental car runs out of fuel (and Pierre runs out of bacon flavored crisps).
In typical style, the exasperating pair spend their days on the open road quarreling over the rules of food-ordering etiquette, and the proper way to read (and fold) a genuine, paper road map. They narrowly escape a run-in with traveler-folk, stumble upon a stampede of (semi) wild sheep, and very nearly steal the sweetest dog ever from a small village beach. But they experience true enlightenment during a long, drunken night in Galway, where in a seemingly normal pub, they encounter evil fiddlers who play never-ending songs and an assortment of old Irish men who distract Elle with non-stop dancing while their sons plot marriage proposals.
By the time this journey of madness and delight comes to an end, the exhausted duo discover the secret to cross-cultural friendship, the value of rust-free water, and the fact that petrol stations that sell bonafide Irish potatoes is what you will find at the end of a rainbow.
Oh, and there may or may not be a bit of nudity along the way. And quite possibly crown theft, leprechauns, and a small amount of crying. But not necessarily in that order.
© Elle Wonders 2009–2016
C’est Lou qu’on la nommait
Il est des loups de toute sorte
Je connais le plus inhumain
Mon cœur que le diable l’emporte
Et qu’il le dépose à sa porte
N’est plus qu’un jouet dans sa mainGuillaume Apollinaire (1880 – 1918)
There are wolves of all kind.
I know the most inhuman.
My heart, the devil takes,
and deposits at his door,
is no more than a toy in his hand.
Genre: Memoir/Satire
Synopsis
In her early forties, during a period of restlessness, Elle Wonders narrowly escapes a mid-life crisis by planning not one, but three trips to Europe. After two back-to-back vacations, first to England, and then to Norway, Elle embarks on a ten day road trip around Ireland and Northern Ireland, with her favorite Englishman and their newly adopted potato. This sometimes witty and poignant memoir chronicles the many shenanigans they attend to in country pubs, old graveyards, and long winding roads that inevitably lead to stinging nettles and a cuppa tea.
In their quest for freedom and alcohol, and with nary a travel itinerary or GPS in site, Elle and Pierre (her very English traveling companion with a French name), navigate their way past real-life zombies, stressful roundabouts, and locals who insist on telling them six irrelevant stories, when all they want is directions to a nearby petrol station, before their rental car runs out of fuel (and Pierre runs out of bacon flavored crisps).
In typical style, the exasperating pair spend their days on the open road quarreling over the rules of food-ordering etiquette, and the proper way to read (and fold) a genuine, paper road map. They narrowly escape a run-in with traveler-folk, stumble upon a stampede of (semi) wild sheep, and very nearly steal the sweetest dog ever from a small village beach. But they experience true enlightenment during a long, drunken night in Galway, where in a seemingly normal pub, they encounter evil fiddlers who play never-ending songs, and an assortment of old Irish men who distract Elle with non-stop dancing, while their sons plot marriage proposals.
By the time this journey of madness and delight comes to an end, the exhausted duo discover the secret to cross-cultural friendship, the value of rust-free water, and the fact that petrol stations that sell bonafide Irish potatoes, is what you will find at the end of a rainbow.
Oh, and there may or may not be a bit of nudity along the way. And quite possibly crown theft, leprechauns, and a small amount of crying. But not necessarily in that order.
© Elle Wonders 2009–2016
