Former Flame Fridays - Felix Vanasse

4/18/25

Since I submitted to volume 4:

So much has happened! I published a collection of my own poetry and art, titled If Your Heart is Burning, containing 50 original poems and 20 or so illustrations. That was something I was working up to for a few years so I'm really proud to have finished it. Another major development was that I did my first commercial mural painting at a music studio in Ottawa. It took all Summer but it went exactly according to plan, so that was really awesome. I found out I love working big, so I'm going to try to do that more often!

Inspiration for pieces submitted to Vol. 4:

Stranger at a Strange House was inspired by a house in Ottawa rather near The Green Door, on Main Street. It had the most lovely blue and yellow spandrels and columns that had eye-like details, so I absolutely had to do an illustration of it. But emphasizing the architecture wasn't enough, I wanted to add a story, so I improvised a character who was bundled up for winter, and for added interest, I gave them horns. I think the whole thing, especially the red sky and eyes everywhere, was the result of some subconscious Welcome to Nightvale influence. Sometimes I still think about what a more northerly Nightvale-esque town and story would be like. Don't get me wrong, I love the desert, but imagine how the vibes would change with snow, pine forests and gabled houses!

Bondage dancer: I wish I could say it was deep, but I really just wanted to experiment with poses. Rope offers a lot of opportunities to get cool figure drawings. I've done one or two since.

Thank You for Destroying Me is about the ecstatic ego-death that can come from music. I've always been very strongly affected by music, and to me, one of the most liberating and healing things is when you can just let it invade your consciousness. I love to dance for the same reason - it puts that constant chatter of thoughts and decisions on hold, replacing them with whatever melody, rhythm, tempo, sonic textures and lyrics are present in the song. Normally, I find it difficult to 'go with the flow,' but when the circumstances are right, I'm happy to let myself be a slave to the music. I wonder if others can relate. It probably reads as something sexual and a bit emo, which is surely why you selected it for a Sad and Horny collection, but it was originally really about the effect of music.

Thank You for Destroying Me

Sound on skin
Massaging muscles
Scraping away pain
Smearing consciousness
across the landscape

Lyrics are irrelevant
Vibrations are colours
Colours are time and place

Inhabiting
a cyclical dance
of incremental changes

Feet on raw concrete
Water tumbling down
gentle roughness
softly carving
Colours and meaning
hopes and fears
droning, undulating
a pulsating mist

Thirty-six minutes and nineteen seconds
of peace

Thank you for
destroying me
just now 

Why Troublemaker/Firestarter:

Truthfully, at the time I was submitting my stuff everywhere. I just wanted to get a foot into the industry, see if my stuff was appealing enough to be picked up by any publishers at all and see what it felt like to be in an anthology alongside others. It felt good! You were the very first magazine to publish me, and I'm so grateful for it. That was a real boost to my confidence and helped me make more daring moves in my career afterwards!

Where people can find me:

Following me on Instagram @felix_vanasse is the way to get the fastest updates.
My Facebook business account, FelixArts, is a great place to see my business collaborations unfolding in real time.
My website, FelixArts.ca is a good place to see my art portfolio and keep track of major projects, although I am sometimes a bit slow to update it.
For good measure, here's a link to where you can buy my book: https://a.co/d/3V8IRI6
I've got an AllPoetry and a Tumblr as well but those are seeecret. :3

Instructions for Substack people:

I want you to pause and take a deep breath. There's a lot going on in the world but you're still here. The trees are still growing and the birds are still singing, even if you can't hear them. Get out into the woods asap if you can and, only if it feels right, bring my poetry collection along for the walk. I've been told it goes well with the smell of spruce trees.