"Alice and the Seven Keys - a Pharmacopeia of Creativity" written & illustrated by Adriana Peliano

 Comments by Semper Lux*

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 "Alice and the Seven Keys - a Pharmacopeia of Creativity"

published ‎in 2021 by @amascoteeditora (Portuguese) @underlinepublishing (English)

During the start of the pandemic in 2020, Peliano used Carroll's characters to come up with an idea to improve our humdrum lives: through seven "keys", we can use Alice "potions" to transform any situation.

"In Alice and the Seven Keys, Adriana Peliano accompanies you on a journey, exploring your creativity by means of games, magical elixirs, & her resplendent collages. Lovers of Alice, fantasy, fairy tales, and dreams will be enchanted." 

Mark Burstein, President Emeritus The Lewis Carroll Society of North America 

She lists these 7 potions using her signature metamorphic collages:

1: Cover: Alice moves 7 times. The number is significant: 

7 is the only prime number preceding a cube.

7 is the Aliquot sum of 8, & is the base of the 7-Aliquot tree.

7 is the only dimension, besides 3, in which a vector cross product can be defined.

7 is the lowest dimension of a known exotic sphere

 

2: Alice wears her Max Ernst thinking cap, like the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, & decides her fate by choosing which door to open

 

3: Metamorphic elixir 1: "Alicescopic Curiouserism". Ingredients: Petals of Alicedelic Perplexity. Flame of burning curiosity. Attraction to the unknown. Make-believe yeast. High dose of initiative. Invitation from the universe

4: "Logiclock Time": Petals of Alicedelic Tac Tic. Antidote of pointless pointer. Spirals of peace & love with time. Lushness of now. Synchronicity activator. Serendipity liquor

5: "Alicinatic Travel Formula": Petals of Magicomic Delusions. Soluble memories of a storyteller. Water from the river where Alice was born. Labyrinthine Footsteps. Mary Poppins wind. Lucid dreams

6: "Alicedelic Metamorflower": Petals of Alicedelic Chrysalices. Butterfly Breath Medicinalis. Smoke from transflowermations. Alchemical cocoons. Much room

 

 

 

7: "Flowersophical Madness": Petals of Alicinatory Folly. Extract of stone of madness. Flowersophical paradoxes. Tea of thinking differently. Vision of the invisible. Magic from a Mad Hat

8: "Mathematical Games": Petals of Alicinaris ludens. Tincture of white & red roses. Wrap of porte-manteaux. Sine qua nonsense extract. Vitaminutes of Impossible geometries. Paradoxical paregoric

 

9: At the end, do you arrive at the peaceful Giverny garden of Claude Monet?

 

10: Or at the false paradise of earthly pleasures of Hieronymus Bosch?  Swim in the bath of Venus, but look, the fountain is cracked, this garden of Lust & Vice is ephemeral, & will not satisfy you for long

 

 

 

"This is the panel from which the title Garden of Earthly Delights was derived. Here Bosch’s humans, the offspring of Adam and Eve, gambol freely in a surrealistic paradisiacal garden, appearing as mad manifestations of a whimsical creator—sensate cogs of nature alive in a larger, animate machine. It is a matter of divided opinion as to what, exactly, the humans are actually doing in this delightful, dense and nonsensical landscape, alive with a dizzying array of some of Bosch’s most delectable creatures and dotted with his alembic architecture. It is almost as though he imagined the world of creation as a terrific Willy Wonka series of machines with humans as their product." Dr. Sally Hickson

Adriana Peliano: "What could happen to the inhabitants of Wonderland after that strange collective nightmare. The scare over, they would open the door to a new world and a transformed life. Alice would learn to remain calm in the face of challenges and conflicts. The Rabbit relaxed inside his hole without a clock and would no longer be late. He was going to have tea with the Hatter, the Impossible, and Time itself. Then the Queen of Hearts would emerge. She would finally lose her mind and embrace the Heart. The butterfly would come out of the cocoon and go on a journey of self-knowledge. The Cat would invite the new to happen, traveling in imagination with a wide, lunatic smile." 

 

 

STORIES 

 

 

 

 

Semper Lux is an enigmatic entity, witty collector and presenter of precious and supercalifragilistic illustrated books, with a great  research and full of unsuspected references, who created its own Alicedelic Alixir and to curiosity, madness, journey, dream, game, transformation, added to our time the 8th key: Fun!

 

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