Nightmares in the Sky

by Stephen King, text, and f-stop Fitzgerald, photographs

 

My impression of gargoyles was dramatically changed when our local librarian handed me Nightmares in the Sky. I had gone in search of pictures for inspiration in designing a logo for T-shirts for our recent hand carving workshop on San Juan Island. Our working subject was to be gargoyles in limestone. In this large book the beautiful photographs by f-stop Fitzgerald are of details on old buildings in Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. The text is by Stephen King, the undisputed master of the modern horror tale. Nightmares provided images that helped in the creation of the Greenman logo that graces our Roche Harbor Ts.

 

Stephen King recalls his first encounter with a gargoyle. “He takes me to the window, small, dirty, crisscrossed with old chicken wire and points across the street to something which seems to be a monster being born not of a living creature but of a building. Seeing this obscene thing is a shock; what is worse is seeing the people passing to and fro beneath it, intent on either plotting their day's business or planning their evening's pleasure; they pass to and fro and do not look up.

 

None of them look up.

 

I hear him say it again. ‘We don't see them...but they see us.’”

 

The first gargoyles were nothing but ornate gutters. The word itself comes from the Latin meaning drain or gutter or gullet. Wealthy folks and rich churches in medieval times competed to own the best and fanciest gargoyles.

King writes:

 

“...and yet the origin of the beast is enlightening, because it points directly to the purpose of the art-form. A drain is a perfectly utilitarian device for venting waste-water; gargoyles, with their dreamlike, hideous array of faces, may well serve much the same purpose for our minds: as a way of venting the mental waste material made up of our hidden fears, inadequacies, and even our unrealized and mostly unacknowledged aggressions...

 

You might note, as you leaf through these pages, how many of these beasts are seemingly insane with rage. Look closely, because we see these ominous Lares of the human psyche so seldom. They are there, these nightmares, but they are in the sky. Look closely, because even when you don't see them...

 

...they are watching you.”

 

As you can imagine, this book holds many fascinating images as well as a very provocative text.