{"id":976,"date":"2025-03-29T23:03:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T06:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/?page_id=976"},"modified":"2025-05-14T16:25:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T23:25:43","slug":"from-ontario-to-sailing-a-celestial-sea","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/from-ontario-to-sailing-a-celestial-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ontario to Sailing a Celestial Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Artist\u2019s profile: Joel Bisaillon
Joel Bisaillon Gallery<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.artstation.com\/umbraludus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/umbraludus<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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CJMT<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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First, please tell us a bit about yourself.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I\u2019m a 50-some-odd-year Canadian boy who still doesn\u2019t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Born in Niagara Falls my family moved around a bit until we landed in Brantford Ontario.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made friends like any kid would by finding the other kids who were also kinda picked on by bullies and grouped with them. One of them was very influential in my creative life. A few of us would have lunches in the English teachers classroom. We would un-knowingly engage in an Exquisite corpse illustration competition on the chalkboard for lunches on end and this guy would focus with such detail it amazed me. As a joke I usually just drew a box around the scribble and autographed it \u201cPablo Picasso\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually we became gamers (D&D and such) and aired our creative juices in that environment seasoned with Heavy Metal. World-building is a massive utensil in the toolbelt of any creative. Being given the permission to be creative is the primary thing roleplaying has given to me. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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CJMT<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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What are your primary inspirations?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Going to the public library I used to read a lot. At first I gobbled down all the  L. Frank Baum books followed by C. S. Lewis, a little Anne McCaffrey, Stewart Cowley with his Terran Trade Authority universe,  and eventually Alfred Hitchcock horror anthologies. Dragons and space wrecks and Ghosts oh my. I never thought I would leave the library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend’s brother used to have a lot of Heavy Metal<\/em> magazines (M\u00e9tal hurlant<\/em> ripoffs), I think a few copies of Weird Tales<\/em> that were published a decade earlier, and some of those Warren Publishing magazines like Eerie, Creepy, Mad, <\/em>and Vampirella<\/em>. We snuck them away when we could, like young boys do, finding dad\u2019s porn magazines for the first time. (That was a thing in the 70\u2019s\/80\u2019s.) As 10-14-year-olds, we knew we shouldn\u2019t be reading this stuff but that\u2019s half the reason it was thrilling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The artists I found in these books have nurtured me for years: Frank Frazetta, Chris Moore, Angus McKie, Enki Bilal, Moebius, and H. R. Giger. They\u2019ve led me to research others such as dystopian Surrealist Zdzis\u0142aw Beksi\u0144ski or the gothic horror of Brom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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CJMT<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Do you have a “grand vision” for the future?
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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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To make a basic living as an artist. Nothing like \u201cmaking bank!!\u201d but enough to break free of being a cook. At 50, I\u2019m tired of coming home with knicks and burns, sore feet and a bad back all with the stress levels just below what nurses endure. The high-pressure and fast-paced nature of the industry as well as staff shortages, lack of time, lack of daylight and limited budget really beat us to a pulp. I\u2019m not suggesting our work is as important, but most cooks\/chefs can attest that the demands far outweigh income.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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CJMT<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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What have you found most challenging in your creative work?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Oddly others\u2019 (clients) direction of their vision. It\u2019s not so much that I become upset about what a client wants but how I interpret it. I recently (at age 50) was diagnosed with dyslexic. Doctors explained to me that it\u2019s often mis-explained as word blindness but in reality, a full learning disability that I have unknowingly adapted coping mechanisms for. Due to this, I have to ask the client different forms to get to the same description so I understand why a client may find this daunting. It’s not so much that I can\u2019t read well but my inability to focus on what I\u2019m reading as I tend to hyperfocus on one aspect and bypass the proper interpretation. This takes my muddled and tainted understanding of a scene and unfortunately feeds it to the innocent client who just wants an image to accompany their work. 
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CJMT<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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What’s next for you?
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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Moving from Ontario, Canada to Houston, Texas. I have a few personal projects I want to get out the door, but this move will take up the better part of a year while we sell off half our stuff, scout apartments, traverse American bureaucracy, and hardest of all, harness-train our cats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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CJMT<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about?

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JB<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I have a grimdark medieval fantasy webcomic I\u2019m very slowly working on called Eirgsmoth <\/em>about the everyday corrupt and loathsome denizens of a failing city-state focused on cults, gangs, nobility, and innocence lost. It can be found at: https:\/\/fables.pro\/a\/series\/eirgsmoth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am also working on another webcomic called Sky-realms of the Celestial Sea which is much more upbeat directed to a younger audience about two children and their cat who go on a dream-quest to find their father across the infinite skies of the Celestial Sea in a flying gondola. A rather fantastical journey in the vein of L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll. This isn\u2019t quite ready yet for showing. I do have a few pieces for concept art but nothing substantial. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n\"Joel\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I am a self-taught freelance digital artist from Canada who focuses on dark and dramatic, bold and colorful imagery with a flair for the fantastical. One can see I appreciate the darker aspects of fiction genres holding close to horror and fantasy. This could be a throwback from my old days playing P&P RPGs. I have over the years worked with several renowned roleplaying, tabletop gaming, and publishing companies trying to bring the unreal to life.\u201d\r\nhttps:\/\/www.artstation.com\/umbraludus\/\r\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/umbraludus\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s profile: Joel BisaillonJoel Bisaillon Gallery https:\/\/www.artstation.com\/umbraludus https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/umbraludus CJMT First, please tell us a bit about yourself. JB I\u2019m a 50-some-odd-year Canadian boy who still doesn\u2019t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Born in Niagara Falls my family moved around a bit until we landed in Brantford Ontario.\u00a0 I made friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":820,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"interviews","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"iawp_total_views":75,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-976","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1581,"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976\/revisions\/1581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2025-issue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}