Step into the City of Proswell with the Cold Spring Branch’s Allison Insko
If you visit the Cold Spring Branch this month, take note of its glass display case. This December, it features the work of one of the library’s own: Allison Insko, patron services assistant.
A bustling cityscape. A diner (that’s run by a cult!) serving up breakfast staples—sausage links, potato wedges, sunny side up eggs and steaming black coffee. An indoor picnic. A library-meets-café overlooking water.
This is the City of Proswell, East Caroline, a world Insko has been developing since mid-2020. While the world is much like our own, Proswell teems with fantastical elements.
According to Insko, the world started with the characters, specifically Catalina. She then went on to create Catalina’s roommates, or the “-Ats.”
“From there,” Insko said, “it expanded into: ‘Who do these people know? Where do they exist? How do I make all these things work out?'”
Insko is a recent graduate of Northern Kentucky University, having received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in spring 2024. Snapshots of Proswell previously showed at NKU as part of her graduation exhibition. Insko credits realists like Edward Hopper and various fantasy media as inspiring her work.
“With Hopper, it’s taking the way he depicts mundane moments with this sort-of weight to them and mixing it with the fantastical,” Insko said. “[In this way], it seems normal that there’s a dog-person walking across the crosswalk.”
The City of Proswell’s lore runs deep. Take a closer look at the images and you may start to piece together a story. Weaved across the work is a local cult, an influential business with a penchant for nepotism, and even a biker gang.
Of the latter, Insko took inspiration from the real-life Bikers Against Child Abuse nonprofit’s manifesto and merged it with the aesthetics of knights. In Proswell, they’re known as the Galloping Guardians. In this displayed art piece, two bikers are depicted taking kids out for a ride to help them build self confidence.
One of Insko’s favorite details in “11:55 AM/The -At’s Apartment,” aka the aforementioned indoor picnic, are the tennis balls next to Catalina.
“That is because it’s an apartment! Catalina is really tall and has horns,” Insko laughs.
The display includes eight poster-sized pieces and four supplemental postcard art pieces. Along with Proswell, other projects Insko has worked on include a tarot deck and commissioned work.
“There’s a joy I get with unconventional illustration,” Insko said. “Character, scene illustration is fine—it’s great. But doing the backgrounds or drawing a height chart where everyone is posed in a way that gives meaning to their character is just very fun.”
To learn more about Insko’s work, visit hazel-hawthorne.neocities.org.
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