EDITOR’S NOTE: Samuel Araya previously explored his process for illustrating The King in Yellow in “The Darkening of Materials,” “No Mask,” and “But Stranger Still.”
Deities with multiple arms always held a fascination for me. Normally, each arm would hold a symbol that represents one aspect of the god, but I decided against that. In this painting, the six arms had a nice synergy with the antagonist of “In the Court of the Dragon,” playing otherworldly dissonant sounds on the church organ.
The upper arms describe what in ceremonial magic is the sign of “the god supporting the sky,” or the shape of the trident, which is a traditional symbol of water. I associated water with the figure of the King in Yellow thanks to Lake Hali being mentioned in the book.
The lower arms hold a compass, a symbol of justice and divine knowledge. On a more personal note, it evokes the line, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” The compass reminded me of my unexplained terror of mathematics being the divine language.
Folding fabric and materials are of course, a love letter to the artist Beksinki. He left us too early, but with such a legacy of beauty that is hard to believe we shared the same planet.
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Samuel Araya
Ascencion, 2018
