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Interview with Stephanie Law
Featured Artist for August 2000
Would you introduce yourself and give a little personal background?
I'm Stephanie Pui-Mun Law -- currently an artist/programmer. Typing away
all day, and scribbling all night. My ethnic background would be
Chinese, but I've lived in California most of my life, and I'm fully
a California-girl.
How long have you been an artist?
I never really know how to answer this question. If you want to know
how long I've loved to draw -- as long as I could remember. If for
how long I actually decided to take it seriously and make it a goal
for my life, then 3 years.
How long have you been creating fantasy art?
Fantasy art has always been what I've done, even before I was really
aware of a fantasy genre. When I was a kid, I spent all my time drawing
mythological creatures, and fairies.
Have you had any formal training in the fine arts?
I took art classes any chance I could in school. Went to the community
college for some figure drawing classes over the summers (although they
had the models wearing speedos for the young and impressionable minds
that they had present in the classes), took watercolor classes to learn
Chinese painting for a couple years, took some oil painting classes for
about 4 years.... And finally, majored in fine art (doubled with
computer science) when I went to Berkeley for college. Almost everywhere
I went -highly- discouraged fantasy art though. Most especially at
Berkeley where they attempted to reject me from the art major until
I made such a clamor that they let me in.
What are your biggest artistic influences and inspirations?
For ideas, I'm mostly influenced by legends, folklore, and mythology.
I buy books and books on different mythologies any chance I get. But
for visual influence, my favorite artists would be -- Preraphaelites,
Impressionists, Surrealists, Celtic art, Alphonse Mucha, Dave McKean,
Daniel Merriam, James Christiansen, and Brian Froud.
Can you describe your creative process - how you come up with ideas for a
new drawing and how you take those ideas and create a finished piece of
art?
Many of my pieces come from mythological figures. I start to imagine
what he/she would look like, and what that figure really means --
because mythology and folklore figures very often are archetypes
of the human mind. Something has kept these tales alive over
centuries, most often not even in a written form, but passed verbally
down through generations because the stories and the characters have
some kind of reverberating truth to them. And so, in a stream of
consciousness sort of way, I start to integrate background elements
to the pictures as I paint them.
Do you have a favorite fantasy artist or artist you admire?
Daniel Merriam. He's called a "contemporary surrealist" but
it's an unfortunately fact that "fantasy art" just doesn't seem
to cut it in the mainstream fine art world unless it gets labeled
another way.
What advice would you give to young artists just starting out?
Keep practicing. It's the only way to get better. People always ask
me HOW I did something. There's no one method -- it's something you
discover, as you work. How to see the world, and how to make
that unique vision into your own painting. And don't get discouraged
by what others say. If you really love your art, and have found something
you have a passion for drawing, then just do it.
If you could be a character from a fantasy novel, movie or game, who would
you be?
Hmm... the Sandman from Neil Gaiman's comics.
What cartoons did you watch as a kid?
Voltron, The Pirates of Darkwater...
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