Strange Tales to Inspire Art with Charles Kroll

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce a number of “Strange” or “Weird” tales to the students; to encourage them to consider and create art which has its basis in such stories; and to write short unusual tales of their own, to be shared with the other students, by the week’s close. All of these works of fiction would function as source materials for the artists, in their contemplation of the strange, fantastic, and the unexplainable elements in one’s personal life. The main aim is to immerse students in the contemplation of a range of mysteries – mostly those encountered through one’s day-to-day existence. Selected art representations would be presented by the instructor, which would possess enigmatic, suggestive, and symbolic qualities.

Charles Kroll holds his Ph.D in Studies of Literature. He has taught at colleges

and universities in five states. He has composed works for the French horn in the Late

Romantic tradition, and painted in a direct and simple language, influenced notably by Surrealist and Metaphysical artists. He’s written short stories and one novel, and is a strong proponent of literature of the “Strange, Fantastic, and Supernatural.” Literary masters he admires, include Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Isak Dinesen, Robert Aickman, and John Cowper Powys. His novel was intended, in part, to present the unique values and eccentric characters which Powys might have approved of, re-fashioned for our modern times. His concern with unusual experiences and what still passes for the “supernatural,” have been constant interests since childhood. Dream life, and the fantastic realities it conveys to the soul, have served as inspirations for writings and pictures.

Forging connections between the arts, and spiritual systems of thought (including a wide range of Western Esoteric Teachings), is central to his ongoing quest to express himself  more articulately through several appropriate mediums. A collector of cultural source-items, he has pursued accumulations of good films in a number of genres, classical music recordings, and books, spanning biographies of composers and writers, to literature, out-of-the-way scientific subjects, metaphysical studies, and collections of painters’ works.