Green Heron, framed water color by Dhyana Mackenzie

Note:  correction from yesterday’s post.  Jennifer’s last name is: Beinhacker not Beinnacker.

I have set up a small shop at Etsy based on recommendations by some of you, dear readers, and am all ears for anything besides set up that you suggest. 

Things are a bit busy around the old household.  I have decided, since ArtOMatic is a great chance to create a new network of artist friends, to continue this idea of artist interviews as long as I can find artists who will interview with me and send along some jpegs of their work.  That gives me a bit of rhythm to upcoming posts and lets me multi-task:  get a post up and make new friends. 

Today’s interviewee is hardly a new friend.  Dhyana and I met back when I was managing Wylde Women Gallery.  Her work doesn’t necessarily fit the Southern Maryland requirements of birds, boats and barns, and she was despairing of ever finding a place to show it.  Like ArtOMatic, Wylde Women Gallery reached out to all artists, and we had a show with her in October of 2005.  Or maybe it was 2004.  Time flies.  At any rate, she and I have been friends ever since, and she is my roomie at ArtoMatic this go round (and last go round too).  You will find us in Room 6Y17. 

So here we go:

Describe your artistic process and how you came to your current art style.

I usually get a vision of what I want to create as I think about it.  Many pieces I do tell a story from an actual place or time, and as I research it the pieces come together.  I do sketches, then an in-depth drawing, and from there I start painting.  I think your style manifests out of who you are.

What/who are your inspirations for art?

My inspiration was always to come up with a new form of art which I’m still working on.  I respect all the masters.  Every master artists is an inspiration to me, each in their own brilliant way.

Why did you choose to show in ArtOMatic?

My art work is different; it’s mystical art.  I live in a place where I sell pictures of lighthouses.  I want to get my art out there for people to see who I am and what I can do.

Where else do you have your art?  Where can folks see more of it ( on line, galleries, etc.)?

http://www.MysticalDreamArt.com

Are you a full time artist?

I run a graphic shop during the day, and teach Japanese anime and painting in the evenings.  I paint weekends.  Right now I’m working at combining brushwork and airbrush for helmets and motorcycle design work.

Do you have any tips for aspiring artists out there?

Get a degree first, take every cutting edge graphic and computer graphic course out there as well as what interests you.  After your 4 year degree, or masters, feel comfortable if you decide you want to paint; travel around the world and paint everything before you settle down.  Then make a good business plan that works for your art.

Here’s more of Dhyana’s art. (That’s my motorcycle helmet with the great dragon on it.)

thought for the day:  …nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know…It just keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves…To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.  Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times