I am a 24 year old artist living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I love to create artwork in various media: traditional 2d drawings and paintings, jewelry, leather craft, small sculpture, etc. and I'm always looking to expand my repertoire of skills. Mythology, Nature, folklore, Faery, and symbolism are my main inspirations.
In addition to visual art, I also play the Celtic harp, Native American style flute, and various other folk instruments. I love belly dance and am always seeking new classes and resources to improve. (I'm an amateur in both departments of music and dance, I assure you!).
Music: Genres: world, world fusion, world beat, ethnic fusion, trip-hop, Celtic/Gaelic, Middle Eastern, medieval, classic rock, alternative rock, singer-songwriters, ambient, electronica, folk, etc.
Artists: Tori Amos, Simon & Garfunkel, Niyaz, the Decemberists, Knossos, Fiona Apple, Imogen Heap, Joanna Newsom, Ekova, Laura Veirs, Lhasa de Sela, Rasputina, the Shins, Qntal, Broken Social Scene, Pentaphobe, Loreena McKennitt, Capercaillie, Delerium, Mary Jane Lamond, Peter Gabriel, etc.
Movies:Pan's Labyrinth, Edward Scissorhands, Amélie, Memoirs of a Geisha, Beauty and the Beast, The Shawshank Redemption, Contact, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Silence of the Lambs, Legend, The Last Unicorn, Interview With the Vampire, What Dreams May Come, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,The Matrix (the first one only, not the sequels), Hero, Batman Begins, The Prestige
TV:The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Miami Ink, LA Ink, Futurama, Gargoyles, The Big Bang Theory, No Reservations, Cities of the Underworld, Robot Chicken, CSI, Dirty Jobs, Shark, House
Books:
The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman The Witching Way of the Hollow Hill by Robin Artisson Go to your Studio and Make Stuff by Fred Babb The Thief of Always by Clive Barker The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher Faeries by Brian Froud & Alan Lee A Witch Alone & Natural Witchcraft by Marian Green The Misson of Art by Alex Grey The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran The Philospher's Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren Nightmares in the Sky by Stephen King Gift From the Sea by Anne Marrow Lindbergh Drawing Closer to Nature by Peter London Intelligence in Nature by Jeremy Narby The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura For Love of the Dark One: Songs of Mirabai translated by Andrew Schelling Nature, Man, and Woman by Alan Watts
plus many, many more!
Likes:
Dislikes:plagiarism, cigarettes & those who throw them out of their windows while driving, canned vegetables, extremely poor grammar (e.g. using apostrophes to indicate plural words, confusing "their," "they're," and "there," etc.)
Hobbies:Although I am primarily a visual artist, I appreciate and am involved in other artforms: writing (nonfiction essays & the rare piece of poetry), dance (bellydance, to be more specific), magic, music (I collect and play various folk instruments namely the Celtic/lever harp and Native American flute), divination (my preferred methods being the Elder Futhark & the I-Ching), among others.
I enjoy creating artwork in various mediums, jewelry-making, writing, bellydancing, kayaking, staying up late/early into the night/morning, sleeping, walking in the woods, listening to good music, reading, star gazing, swimming, and probably other things I can't recall at the moment.
I collect books (new & vintage), feathers, ephemera, art supplies, old keys, and folk instruments (e.g. Native American-style flutes, Suelings, penny whistles, ocarinas, thumb piano, castanets, aerophone, pan pipes, etc.) which I also {attempt} play.
I believe it has been about a year since I last created a Faery Mask
necklace. Thankfully my life is beginning to reorient itself around my
own art- and jewelry-making again and I'm starting to settle into a new
pattern which allows more time for creation.
I've had quite a
number of people e-mail and comment about the Autumn Firefox necklace,
and while this new piece is not a fox, it is another in the wild canine
family. This mask was not originally intended to be a coyote, but it
asserted itself in that way nonetheless. If I would have set out to
make a coyote Faery Mask, I probably would have wanted his expression
to show a bit more levity. That's just not the way it turned out
though:
Coyote Concerned is available for adoption. I also have a few other jewelry pieces available as well as some original ACEOs, etc. at my Etsy shop.
Thursday, February 21, 2008, 04:02 PM EST [General]
Today has been a good day. I had my harp lesson, then brought a bunch of stuff over to my new apartment and reveled in the idea of my own space. The sun is shining and it is warmer than I was expecting it to be.
When I came home, I had an e-mail awaiting me from WildSide Press with notification that a book featuring my cover art had been published and a shipment of the books would be headed my way shortly. I was not expecting the book to be printed until the summer of this year. Out of curiosity, I searched Amazon for the title, and lo and behold, it is there with my art emblazoned on the cover: Harp, Pipe, and Symphony by Paul DiFillipo. This is my first real book cover, and I feel really accomplished! I feel the graphic designer incorporated my piece very well with the type and overall color scheme. It's especially appropriate that the novel is about Thomas the Rhymer, who has had a profound influence on my own path. I cannot wait to see and read it for myself.
Often we focus on the technical aspects of learning to draw: rendering, shading, perspective, proportion, etc. but if you're hoping to make art that addresses the Faery realm there is also a whole other world to take into consideration beyond the simply technical aspects. This is not to deride technique and matters of craftsmanship as those are the important vocabulary in the language of artistic expression. Someone once wisely asked if you cannot draw what you see with your physical eyes, how can you draw what you see through you inner vision? :) I think that someone can learn to skillfully render the human figure and wings and be able to incorporate them together, but that in itself will not a faery artist make.
The following are some books which I feel would be really helpful to a beginning (or seasoned) artist which will take you beyond the technical aspects of art.
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orlando This book is not specifically related to Faery art, but it has a lot to say about the process of making art in general and about the challenges that can often prevent us from making art that is important to us. It is full of really great insights, but isn't a dry read by any means.
DeviantART recently added a new feature where you can create collections of various artworks based upon whatever perameters strike you at the time. I've actually been wanting to create some sort of compendium of mythic faery art for some time, and this new feature really suits that purpose nicely. The only issue is, of course, that you can only include art that has been uploaded to deviantART.
Don't get me wrong, glitter and wings can be fun. I think just about everyone, including myself, likes to indulge in them every once and a while, and for those of us who need to earn a living based upon our art, glitter and wings do tend to dominate the fairy art market right now. However, there are so many other collections of faery art (not just on DA) in which the glitter and wings are the overwhelming majority, I think it's good to show that alternatives exist.
Well, I finally bit the bullet and joined Etsy. There are so many
beautiful, hand crafted things there that I simply couldn't resist any
longer. I listed all of my currently available jewelry items there as
well as three ACEOs, and if sales there are promising, I may sell all of
my future jewelry and craft items there too. We'll see.
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