Ataraxia
Art Collage Rebecca Tillett Art Collage Rebecca Tillett

Ataraxia

The quote on the subject’s chest, “Nothing can be created out of nothing” comes from the Roman philosopher Lucretius in his work De Rerum Natura (around 50 BCE).

At its core, it means: Nothing just appears out of nowhere—everything comes from something that already exists.

Lucretius was building on earlier ideas from Epicurus and early atomic theory. He believed the universe is made of tiny, eternal particles (atoms), and everything we see is just those particles rearranging, not being magically created or destroyed.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Memento Mori: A Skeleton in a Niche
Rebecca Tillett Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Memento Mori: A Skeleton in a Niche

Long before skulls became shorthand for rebellion, fashion, or Halloween décor, they served a much simpler purpose: a warning. A reminder. A confrontation.

This month’s From the Vaults of the Unhinged feature is Memento Mori: A Skeleton in a Niche, a late 15th-century engraving by Master IAM of Zwolle, a Netherlandish printmaker active around 1470–1495. Now held in the collection of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the engraving is modest in size—just over 6 inches tall—but its message is anything but subtle.

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The Last Dance
Restorations Rebecca Tillett Restorations Rebecca Tillett

The Last Dance

The Dance of Death originates in medieval plays and folk rituals performed on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December), and in funeral sermons. In the most popular version, Death (in the form of a skeleton) dances in succession with people representing particular social ranks (Pope, emperor, king, lawyer, peasant, etc.) and takes away each in turn, demonstrating that nobody, however exalted in this life, can escape death.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Experimental Anti-Flash Visor That Looks Like Sci-Fi but was Dead Serious
Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Experimental Anti-Flash Visor That Looks Like Sci-Fi but was Dead Serious

Every era leaves behind artifacts that feel almost too strange to be real: objects that look like props from dystopian fiction but were, in fact, earnest attempts to solve very real fears.

This experimental anti-flash visor is one of those objects.In 1882, Odilon Redon released a lithograph that still feels eerily modern: The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Mounts Toward Infinity.

At first glance, it is deceptively simple. A single eye floats upward over a darkened sea, tethered to a small basket that resembles a skull or severed head. There is no horizon, no destination, no explanation. Only ascent.

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To the Origin of All Becoming
Rebecca Tillett Rebecca Tillett

To the Origin of All Becoming

Before language, before belief, there was a body becoming, a sacred heart, the first house built without hands, the hungry grasping of knowledge of good and evil. And time that shrieks by like a train horn while you pray for more.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Eye That Escaped the Body
Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Eye That Escaped the Body

In 1882, Odilon Redon released a lithograph that still feels eerily modern: The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Mounts Toward Infinity.

At first glance, it is deceptively simple. A single eye floats upward over a darkened sea, tethered to a small basket that resembles a skull or severed head. There is no horizon, no destination, no explanation. Only ascent.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Screaming Experiments of Dr. Duchenne
Rebecca Tillett Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: The Screaming Experiments of Dr. Duchenne

This particular image, charmingly titled “Terror Mixed With Pain, Torture,” gives us the exact emotional cocktail you expect from someone who has just been wired up like a Victorian Christmas tree. The man’s expression is a frozen scream: eyes wide, mouth collapsing into horror, forehead stretching into an existential telegram reading: “Sir, please stop this.”

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Hypnopompia
Restorations, Personal Mike Restorations, Personal Mike

Hypnopompia

After a 14 hour show day spent mostly talking with people about mostly darker art, we got home and I crashed hard, and, as I tend to do, stirred at 4 in the morning. In the dark, in the quiet of that between place of consciousness and sleep, unsure if I was in dreamland or the waking world, I suddenly got the distinct impression I was not alone, and then that someone or something was standing on my back.

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Sloshed
Rebecca Tillett Rebecca Tillett

Sloshed

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

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Resurrected Relics: Reviving Paul Pfurtscheller’s Charts
Restorations, Process, History Rebecca Tillett Restorations, Process, History Rebecca Tillett

Resurrected Relics: Reviving Paul Pfurtscheller’s Charts

Long before the age of digital imaging, Austrian zoologist and artist Paul Pfurtscheller (1855–1927) created a breathtaking series of zoological wall charts that turned classrooms into miniature cabinets of curiosities. First published in 1902, his works fused scientific precision with artistic elegance, depicting insects, worms, snakes, and other creatures in striking detail. More than a century later, many of these charts survive only through damaged or poorly scanned reproductions—but through careful digital restoration, we’re bringing them back to life one by one.

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From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Fortunio Liceti’s Book of Monsters
Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett Vaults of the Unhinged Rebecca Tillett

From the Vaults of the Unhinged: Fortunio Liceti’s Book of Monsters

In 1616, Italian physician and philosopher Fortunio Liceti published De monstrorum caussis, natura, et differentiis libri duo (On the Causes, Nature and Differences of Monsters, in Two Books). The first edition was largely text-based, but by the time the second edition appeared in Padua in 1634 (often dated 1633)—published by Paulus Frambottus—the work had transformed into something extraordinary: a quarto volume of over 260 pages, illustrated with a gallery of the grotesque.

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Decomposition
Framed Work, Real Insect Rebecca Tillett Framed Work, Real Insect Rebecca Tillett

Decomposition

I’ll leave you the light from my eyes, baby
when they go dim
All the sounds I couldn’t hear but wished I could
I’ll leave you my mother’s will to live
The softest grass for your bare feet
And my father’s peace with surrender
But not the turmoil, baby

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Despair at Dawn Engraved
Framed Work, Poetry Rebecca Tillett Framed Work, Poetry Rebecca Tillett

Despair at Dawn Engraved

Light arrived without warmth, pressing on my chest
Morning bird song too much like sirens
Traveling away from me
Until the silence absorbs them
And I hear only the weeping echo
from the empty room behind my bones
A lifeless aquarium where a heart once dwelled
Or an endless ocean
I couldn’t bear to cross
To face another day

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Eve Before the Cosmos
Photo Collage Rebecca Tillett Photo Collage Rebecca Tillett

Eve Before the Cosmos

Still the unrepentant tongue. They claim creation was loud, but don’t mention the sweet silence of her becoming. Her inky shadow unraveling and peaking and staining galaxies with the light and dark of being long before God claimed them.

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