Chapter 10 now on Patreon!
Every chapter of Moonrise Menagerie begins with a place. For Chapter 10, the place was Mostnica Gorge in Slovenia, at moonrise.
The Place
If you have never seen photos of it, picture moss-covered stones along winding water, and the kind of green that looks like it has been quietly growing since before anyone kept time. Hart's-tongue Ferns unfurl in the shadows there. Clusius' Gentian shows up in a blue so vivid it looks like someone turned the volume up on a flower. I wanted the real plants of the place in the painting, so a visitor to the gorge would recognize their neighbors. They are all in the painting, doing their best to steal the scene.
Then I needed someone to live there.
The Creature
I knew the creature would have something to do with reflection, because water at moonrise does that. It holds the light and hands it back. So I went looking for a shape that felt like a mirror with legs. I ended up with part deer and part swan: the antlers and the quiet footfall of one, the long, curved neck and the feathered grace of the other. The Moonwing Hart is a guardian of reflection. It does not say much. It just stands at the water and invites you to look a little deeper, at the person looking back at you.
The Question
That question sat with me the whole time I worked on this chapter. What if you could see yourself exactly as you are and meet that reflection with love? It is a bigger question than it sounds. Most of us are much better at noticing what is unfinished than noticing how far we have come, and growth rarely looks the way we imagined it would. Sometimes it looks like a very tall bird-deer standing calmly beside a waterfall. I have stopped asking growth to explain itself.
Of course, no chapter is complete without Chonkins. This month he became Moonhart Chonkins, my cat with little antlers and a magnificent feathered tail. He took the whole thing very seriously. He has always wanted a tail like that, and I like to think he feels the woodland version suits him.
The Postcard
This month's postcard is a collectible 4x6 inch print of The Moonwing Hart, with a 2 inch Moonhart Chonkins sticker tucked in beside it. The postcard shows a pale pink and cream creature with branching antlers and a great feathery tail, standing in a dark, mossy forest beside a glowing blue waterfall under a purple sunset sky, with blue flowers close at hand.
Moonrise Menagerie is an illustrated series with a new chapter each month, and an enchanted mailer comes to your door with every chapter. If you would like to follow the story, the Moonwing Hart will be waiting by the water on my Patreon.
Therese Tucker is the artist and founder of Starthistle & Quartz, an illustration and surface pattern studio in the Pacific Northwest.
