Tim Hutchings says: Hey folks, about a million years ago (2015, I guess) I was involved with a book written by my pal Ezra Claverie. It's a collection of "Lovecraftical" writings that do some -really- neat reworking of the less obvious formal stuff that Lovecraft does in his stories. This book does a lot of blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction, it squishes together existing and imagined media, all sorts of stuff. It also turns an eyeball on HPL himself and the ugliness that lurks within the author.
Here is a PDF of the entire book.
The book prefigures my own game interests around metatextuality and deceptive self-portraiture. I was a little shocked when I revisited the book and saw the parallel between that book from way back then and what I make now.
And there's a chapter in there on me, from back when I was an artist. Sort of. Ezra wrote something in that lengthy-magazine-portrait style in which he imagines a Miskatonic Valley that was flooded for hydro power, a Lovecraft house museum, and a version of me making contemporary art projects about the sunken town of Dunwich. Then I made artworks for the book that were uncomfortable parodies of the serious work I was doing at the time.
And, holy shit, there are original Erol Otus artworks in the book. Those alone are worth the price of admission.
(The Erol Otus bookplate)
The book is 8.5x11, I think. Clothbound. 84 pages, all full color throughout. Layout by Sarah Doombringer of Bluebeard's Bride fame.
Okay, here's the actual 'promotional copy' for the book written by a smart person:
The Shadow out of Providence comprises a play and two short stories, featuring illustrations by Timothy Hutchings, Erol Otus, and Dan Zettwoch. It draws inspiration from the work of the Providence fantasist Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), critiquing Lovecraft’s racism, nostalgia for aristocracy, and florid style, while celebrating his work’s continuing influence on culture.
Price includes one hardcover book, one bookplate by Erol Otus, one random postcard by one of the three artists, and one hand-silkscreened acetate bookmark by Dan Zettwoch.
Here are review blurbs.
“This is unlike any other Lovecraft-inspired book you’ve laid eyes on…. unique for its quirkiness, its aims, and its presentation. … If you don't get one for yourself, get one for that Lovecraft-lover in your life, or even that Lovecraft-hater!”
--Forrest Aguirre, Heraclix and Pomp
“This book is so good, interesting, clever, creative, thought-provoking… I was absolutely fascinated by it…. Truly cutting-edge original.”
--Matthew Carpenter, “The Best Lovecraftian Books of 2015,” Lovecraft EZine Talk Show
“Highly entertaining.”
--Sandy Petersen, game designer, Doom, Quake, and The Call of Cthulhu RPG
“…an ambitious, clever, complex and yet still completely accessible project that plays with some of Lovecraft's more obscure literary concerns…”
--George Strayton, screenwriter and producer, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Transformers 2
Back to Tim: And here's an artwork from the book that I made. It's a false period picture of a woodpecker who has been murdered and his body placed on display. Woodpecker is a legit historical term for the people who disassembled the buildings in valleys which were being flooded; these people were sometimes treated poorly by the locals. That's me in the foreground, shirtless with a rifle, referencing an Odd Nerdrum's "Water Protectors" series from the 1990s. All the components that went into the photograph are extracted from photos taken by long dead family members of mine.
I'm a little embarrassed at the quality of the composite. I could do much better now.
EDIT: Oh my gosh! It's bad on purpose! I just looked at the book and this is an imaginary art project by the book-version of me! The book-Tim inserted himself into a historical photograph (so the hanging scene is supposed to look real) because that was part of my real gimmick as an artist back then. The figure that is me is SUPPOSED to be badly composited in.
I am so relieved.