Rachel Feinstein loves fairy tales. Her thesis at Columbia was on Bruno Bettelheim and a sinister early version of "Sleeping Beauty". Years later, motherhood inspired the artist to hunt for her favorite editions of "Thumbelina" to read to her kids. She dug up the trippy, Technicolor Shiba Productions version of the story on eBay. Her children weren't interested, but she was inspired by the hyper real color plates.
NYMag paired Rachel Feinstein with author Michael Cunningham, whose latest book, a collection of rewritten fairy tales called Wild Swan and Other Stories, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux this fall. Together they created the "Seven Ages of Woman", a story bsed on a 16th- century painting by Hans Baldung, as a dark and beautiful exploration of femininity and motherhoold. Starring Grace Coddington, Karen Elson and more. www.nymag.com