“The Troll Festival” 24x30 Oil on Panel 2026
It was during the time of the Linterget Troll Festival when the mysterious pyramidal object that would be later known as “The Mystifier” arrived in the town of Crow in the land of the Southwestern Bellows. A time of celebration and revelry, the Linterget Troll Festival was held each year in honor of Linterget the Troll, a rude, hulking, cave-dwelling creature who haunted the mossy mountains looming over the town--a town named for its abundant corvid population.
The Linterget Troll Festival was a time for wholesome family fun, and it was also the time in which the community collected and transported the traditional offerings of pickles, baked goods, and alcohol to Linterget’s cave. In truth the offering was more of a tribute or a tax, for if Linterget failed to receive the apple wine, rhubarb pie, the honey muffins, the maple yum yum bread, or if a single pickled egg was missing from his yearly bestowal, he would descend from mountains and harass Crow’s residents, both human and bird alike. Linterget the Troll didn’t always shatter bones with his mighty ironwood club, bite the off hands of children, or chew bloodily on oldster’s heads, but he always said mean things.
So the Linterget Troll Festival was both fun and important for the wellbeing of the community. This is the first painting in my new series, “The Mystifier”...a tale of distraction, a foreboding troll attack, and spoiler alert: a time-traveling future human attention vampire. Also, townsfolk in festive hats.
And here is the painting in the frame!
ARTIST NOTE:
Yes, the hats worn in this painting and in the series are worn to mirror the hat worn by Linterget the Troll in his honor during the Festival. The feathers are all crow feathers.
Believe it or not, the deeper more personal story in this series focuses on phone and internet addiction, haha. The “Mystifier”—the object that is descending from the sky is basically the equivalent of a cell phone blasting social media content and other dumb stuff. It shows an unending amount of images, visions, and distracting things to the citizens of Crow. Linterget the Troll is an Internet Troll and the Future Human Attention Vampire (who will appear later in the series) is a Social Media CEO.
I love to take a purely fictional/fantastical premise and infuse something more personal that I have been thinking—stewing—about. It is never my aim to be preachy, but I think this recipe creates something more magickal in the end.
Recently, I have been considering switching my old iPhone for a dumb phone. What do you think?
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