A Modern Gypsy Gladdens Our Spirits
Once upon a time, a young woman named Rima Nomadic embarked on a journey with her princely troubador Tui. They constructed a home on wheels, which a few may have been fortunate enough to spy, wending its way through a mystic wood.
But for the rest of us, she has created another home, a digital abode christened The Hermitage.
The Hermitage is “a phantasmagoria of fancy, a museum of myth, a realm of the ridiculous.” We are all invited to behold the treasures she has to offer, but to gain access to The Hermitage we must “step around the corner of everything that [we] hold to be real” and “yield to an odd world.” A map is provided to guide us as we adjust our perceptions.
I yielded willingly. Perhaps I was enchanted, or under a spell. Actually, I felt these magical states swirl about me as I was swept into Rima’s fairytale world.
Les Bonnes Fees, a “monthly e-Zine for fairy tales, folklore, and everything in between,” managed to capture this illusive artist in an interview. It reveals an amazingly talented, delightfully eccentric woman, who has retained her humility and childlike wonder. Rima has a passion for story, especially old ones that “have come from an oral tradition, and changed over the centuries.” She loves “the strange and frightening bits that have in recent years been swept under the carpet.” Her love and passion for story are continually metamorphosed into art that appears to have freshly materialized from a magical realm..
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a blog about books, rhapsodized over Rima’s clocks.
On Once Upon O’Clock, Rima displays the “unique original oil paintings on rustic chunks of wood” which she turns into clocks by making them tick. She recounts, with great amusement, that one of her early school reports declared “Rima has no sense of urgency.” I warn you, do not take even a glimpse of these clocks if you do not want to be put under their spell. I will have to collect the tears I am shedding at the moment, because her Etsy Shop has been swept clean of all clocks (someone took this one, this, this, and this–my absolute favorite). Tears have magical healing properties, so I shall keep them safe in my rainbow colored glass vial, and inquire if that meets the price when another clock becomes available. If not, I shall have to self administer them, as an anodyne for my disappointment. Where is that grant for three wishes when you need it? (It’s almost as difficult to secure as an art grant.)
Luckily, the Hermitage Shop still retains some stock.
If you are now licking your lips because you have developed a craving for all-things-Rima, a treat is in store for you: a YouTube rendition of The Woods, a song by Polly Paulusma. Rima and Polly’s melding of talents produces a haunting five minutes and twenty nine seconds that will stay with you. Let us request the good fairy to arrange that these two collaborate again (if she doesn’t, the wicked witch will). You may have noticed that the video reveals Rima’s name in the so-called “real” world, Rima Staines. I apologize if a dwarf now has dibs on her first born!
I leave The Hermitage unwillingly, with folded wings and fingers reluctantly rubbing the magic dust from my eyes. Fortunately, I can return anytime I wish. As Rima says, “If this world has rung bells in your spirit and called you back to somewhere long forgotten, then I am glad.”
Rima, you must be hearing bells right now, but I have not made you nearly so glad as you have made me. May you continue to live happily ever after.
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