A late-night encounter with an owl a number of years in the past modified Clare Crespo’s life. An excellent horned owl had made a nest close to her Silver Lake, Los Angeles residence, and Crespo grew to become absorbed observing the creature’s comings and goings, its infants and its absorbing torch-like eyes.
‘I realised this owl had turn into a non-human instructor for me,’ Crespo, a multidisciplinary artist who’s created every little thing from life-size dioramas to plush mascots, tells Wallpaper*.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh)
Her distanced bond with the chook finally led to a sequence of ceramic owl sculptures and candelabras. The latest fruit of Crespo’s fascination with the animal kingdom is a kids’s e-book a couple of lady infatuated by the thought of glowing at evening. ‘Animals could make us quiet and even scare us they make us tune into different techniques right here on earth,’ she says.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
The e-book, Oralee: A Subject Information to a Younger Human Who Learns to Glow within the Darkish, traces the journey of its titular character as she dabbles between the calls for of human life and the Earth’s rhythm in nature. Pissed off by the bodily and societal limits of her residence, Oralee feels enchanted when the nocturnal universe seems from the shadows. ‘It felt like her room got here alive when the opposite rooms went darkish and vice versa,’ Crespo writes about Oralee within the 64-page e-book. ‘Her clock was totally different, and it made her really feel lonely. However she understood nighttime.’
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
So did Crespo: the artist discovered herself making watercolours about after-hours critters and shortly realised she was headed in direction of a type of storytelling. ‘Possibly there’s a fairy story to discover right here,’ Crespo remembers considering. All through the e-book, Oralee is carried by an enormous owl and finally transforms right into a chook herself.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
The colourful lucidity of Crespo’s watercolour drawings completely fits the artist’s intention to convey transformation and malleability. Ethereal but sharp, the e-book’s illustrations effortlessly embody alert raptors, lush vegetation and Oralee herself. The affect partially stems from Crespo’s choice to make use of glow-in-the-dark paint on black paper. ‘I may submerge myself into the headspace of story,’ she says about her materials and palette. ‘There’s a ghostly layer within the photos.’
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
A self-described fantasist, the artist finds her power in conserving one foot in daydreams whereas remaining alert to prevalent realities, particularly the environmental collapse. ‘I name myself a fantasist as a result of I wish to elevate the curtain or open a tiny door to a different world and types of considering,’ she provides.
Oralee: A Subject Information to a Younger Human Who Learns to Glow within the Darkish is on the market from Hat & Beard Press. You possibly can catch Crespo at a e-book signing at John Derian on 16 April 2026 at 6 E 2nd St, New York, NY.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Hat & Beard)
Supply: Wallpaper
