Tolkien Etchings

Iluvatar, J.R.R.Tolkien’s imagining of an all-being in his Silmarillion, like Manwe, Ulmo, Varda, Yavanna, and Orome, etcetera, is another mythological character that I felt strongly drawn to when I created my recent etching. Because of sparsity of info that Tolkien gives you about these characters, combined with their very elemental and powerful nature, one has great freedom in depicting them, along with great inspiration.

In my depiction, the notion of music flowing from the creator’s body was exciting to me. I wanted to create a very lyrical somewhat undefined space flowing around and through the figure. And also I wanted to give the sense that Iluvatar was floating in space, while forming stars all around him. I intend to make a companion etching to this one, that will also be a very loose abstract sort of piece. In it all the Ainur will rhythmically flow around Iluvatar, and with the music that he and they are creating.