So, I commissioned  ritikin earlier this year after she did some phenomenal work for a good friend of mine. I had an image in my head of something kind of psychedelic given my, well, exploration with those themes.
I was honestly floored by the sheer quality of lighting, colour, and cohesion that Ritikin managed to assemble. It feels like something that ought to be hung up on a wall. Which I just might do.

Ritikin's ability to translate my scrawled thoughts into something that is not just coherent, but also just kind of jaw-droppingly pretty and cool stunned me, and I am in genuine awe at their level of honed skill. I can't endorse them enough. If you have ever wanted to get a picture that is just kind of glorious, please go and give them your patronage. I know that, if given the chance, I will certainly be a repeat client. 💙

The original can be found here, so please go and give it your favourite!

I don't have a full and proper vignette for this one because, truth be told, I wasn't actually sure what to write. So I just wrote a bit stream-of-consciousness, which exists below.

Salrith and words © myself
Art ©

* * * * *

You stumble forwards through the warm and cloying air of your living room, the fuzzy carpet beneath your feet feeling like soft fur. The colours in it seem to shift and sway like slow-rolling ocean waves, and they catch your attention as though magnetic. It’s hard to look away from your feet as you walk, each step sending pins and needles shooting up your legs, which seem to be joining in the slow dance of the carpet.

Your face feels a brush of something that could be air, or could be someone blowing on you. It’s enough to tug your attention away from the fronds of the carpet, which by now are actively waving at you, helping you to look up again. Up ahead, the window seems to shimmer like a distant lake. The reflection of the lamp looks like dappled moonlight, and the space between you seems to stretch out to an alien depth.

Feeling disoriented, you reach out to steady yourself on the wall, the plaster feeling rough like tree bark. It’s cold and rough, and the grass beneath your feet continues to wave in greeting. The little patterns in it that shift and undulate remind you of dancing, and as you turn your attention from the pool of water on the far wall, you see that the carpet has sprouted blue and orange buds like paint splatters.

The room around you feels colder, and the tree to your side seems to stretch up tall enough to brush the sky. Its bark feels vaguely like plaster, and the roof has become dark and shadowed, and your furniture looks more like boulders or shrubs. Their imagery seems to keep shifting and distorting as you look at them, first one way and then the other. It feels almost like they are whichever form is in your mind – but more and more, it feels like landscape.

You think you see new motion to the side. The flowers around you ripple in the wind, simultaneously the familiar carpet of your living room and something other. Your hand on the wall is your hand on a tree, and the window seems to be both itself and now a distant lake, moonlight shimmering back at you. Colours shift and waver before your eyes, and it feels like you are in two places at once, superimposed over one another.

“Wild, isn’t it?” you think you hear a voice ask. You can’t tell if it’s with your ears, or with your thoughts. Something shimmers in your vision, and a strange creature stalks forwards, dragging a drapery of colour behind her. Your mind can’t decide if you’re looking at a person or an animal, simultaneously seeming to be both, if she’s there at all. Eight green eyes behold you, body both black and blue, with too many limbs and a thick tail that reflects a curtain of shimmering light.

“When reality stops making sense. We’re all so anchored in it,” she says, voice a light chitter, like some sort of insect. “Mired in it.” Her head cocks slightly, and your vision swims around it, like one of the sources of the strangeness rippling and warping through your world rests on her spiny head, following her like a cloak. A cool wind brushes over your face, or perhaps it’s an air-conditioner. The ceiling shifts overhead, either an arm’s reach or as far as the sky.

“What do you think would happen if we left it behind for a while?” She shifts her pose, taking a step away from you towards… something. With a slight smile, she steps into the overlapping landscapes, her tail lifting as she moves.

“Want to come?”