Welcome to AllArtWorks Featured Artist Series!
1. What other profession is similar to being an artist and why?
I believe being an author is similar to being an artist because an author creates original characters from the mind, just as a true artist creates work from their mind and lays it on paper. I also create many of the covers on my books, which is an art. I am both an artist and published author, so I know the painstaking work taken to create original work. Please check out: www.sevenmermaidspressllc.com for all of my books!
2. What’s the nicest thing you can remember someone said about your work, or an individual piece?
“How did you ever create that?” This was said of a pour painting I created called burning man. It’s an incredible piece, (at least to me) of a man slowly melting in ice blue, dark blue and white billowy clouds of paint.
3. What’s one thing you’d like everyone to know about you as an artist?
I was born in Turkey and abandoned in the US when I was a child. I never went to art school, but I have learned to draw, paint, sculpt on my own. I’m also a published poet and novelist. I utilized the library and the internet for my education instead of college and developed my own unique style.
4. What was the last piece of art that you saw that blew you away?
Edgar Degas - The Little Dancer sculpture was so exquisite and poetic, the poise of the little fourteen-year-old girl, a fluid softness to her hands and body. To me it’s an overwhelming beauty that makes me stop and consider the moment in time that Degas captured.
5. What’s something you haven’t done but you want to do in art/painting?
I would like to teach Art Appreciation to younger children and have dreamed it many times.
I like Ingres because of the depth perception of his paintings. To me, his paintings have a deep-rooted personality. Each is a study of internal essence, most with the eyes staring, gripping the viewer. The colors are vibrant and carefully considered.
*The reason we ask about Delacroix and Ingres is because they were contemporaries with wildly different styles!
