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Kirstin has compiled a very
special collection of artworks here for you to
view, that won't be found anywhere else! Here you will get a rare glimpse back into
the life of Kirstin so far and the development
of her artistic expression along with her, from
the first moments she could hold a pen to the
artworks that led her into producing her website
and leading her Magical World into the one you
see now.
"Our
tale begins exactly two weeks before Christmas, in
December 1984 with the birth of a blue-eyed girl
who smiled and laughed often and dreamed even
more. Sit back and relax as we travel through a
twist in time to explore the story of this girl
and her lively imagination!"
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 In the Beginning...
"From the moment I could hold a pen (and there
were plenty in supply...both my parents were
primary school teachers!) I have loved scrawling
images onto anything I could find. Walls, shelves and tables
were especially alluring during my early years,
though I must confess that they still hold an
intriguing enticement to this day! Brought up on
a healthy diet of imagination, fairytales,
Grandpa's bedtime stories and as many books as I
could get my hands on, I drew a diverse range of
subjects from the very ordinary to the very
imaginary! Writing and drawing long before I
attended school, in my work appeared an uncommon
attention to detail, usually rendered in tiny
drawings. My first ink pen artwork was sold in
an exhibition at the age of four, which was
extremely exciting for me, and I thrived on the
encouragement of my family, friends and school
teachers. The artwork below was created around
the age of 3 or 4. See the tiny details I was
delighting in? Wriggly little worms, birds in
nests, feet, gardening tools...and landscape
perspective!
The next artwork was created when I was 6 years
old, in Year 1. It was a tiny illustration in my
school diary, only 4cm high, depicting my
classroom complete with individual pencils in
tins on the tables, the blackboard with tallies
of our Sports house points (with mine team way
ahead!), pictures and the date written on it,
and even the stereo player plugged into the wall
beneath it! I'm the girl in the middle in my
green school uniform sucking up to the teacher
by giving her flowers ;) I never actually did
this in real life, so you can see the respect I
had for the visual image to convey a message
even back then!"
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 Establishing
a Talent...
"By the time I entered the middle years of
school, it had become clear to my family and
teachers that my love for drawing was the
expression of a talent rather than simply an
advanced development. I drew on everything: in
the borders of exam papers; on my homework
sheets; in my school books. In 1993, when I was
8 years old, I wrote and illustrated a short
fantasy story set in the Australian bush for the
May Gibbs Nutcote Write-in, and, much to my
excitement, I was the NSW State Winner. Called
"Gumdrop and Minniflyer on the Job," it depicted
the story of
a fairy with "crystal wings and a gumnut crown"
and her friend, a small kookaburra, as they set
out to educate a careless girl about the plight
of the environment. The fairy and Pegasus
pictures below
were also created when I was 8."
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 The
Junior Years...
"Between
1997 and 1998, when I was 12 and 13 years
old, it was all about horses. My medium of
choice was often a biro pen (being usually
what was in my hand at the time, during
school) and again, I drew on anything and
everything. You can see in some of these
pictures the lined paper of my schoolbooks
or the scribbled words showing through from
the back of the page! At this time most of
my artworks were sketchy, quick and designed
to capture the mood of my imagination rather
than create complete artworks. During this
time I first tried
my hand at oil paints (with the foal below) and began to
appreciate the value of careful shading and
light control in my works."
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 The
Return of the Fantastic...
"By
the time I was 14 years old, I had
almost (though never completely)
outgrown my obsessive love of horses. My
mind instead returned to its original
love, its true orientation: the deep and
enchanting realms of the fantastic!
Dragons resurfaced and fairies abounded:
all etched out with my trusty biros and
graphite pencils. I drew castle upon
castle that I visited in my fantasy
imaginings, and even tried my skills
with colour pencils by reproducing an
illustration from one of the Brian
Jacques books I had read over and over
(the mouse on the left below)!"
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 The Pressures of Senior
School and the Art Academy...
"Between
the years 2000 and 2002, when I was
15, 16 and 17 years old, I entered
the social and academic pressures of
Senior School. My time for drawing
was severely reduced, unless it was
for the subject of Visual Arts,
which I took, or for an assignment
with a visual component (I usually
found at least some way to
incorporate drawing!). When I wasn't
working on the multitude of
assignments or reading
books, I was usually enjoying the
increased social freedoms that come
with maturing teenage-hood, hanging
out with friends, running
around out in the bush, or watching
TV and movies to zone out for a
while! All this left small time
for drawing. The only exception was
my hand-drawn greeting cards that I
had been making as long as I knew
and which came to be a recognised
"brand" within my family and
friends! By the time my final
school year came around the pressure
to create HSC-accepted artworks
became too much and I barely created
a single piece of art. Below are
some scant sketches made during this
time, as well as the two
self-portraits, 1.26m x 1.7m, that I completed for my
final HSC art portfolio in the
three weeks before it was due."
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 University
and my "Art Absence" Period...
"Upon finishing the HSC and
finally relaxing, I had to
decide whether to pursue my
artistic vein into an art
college or my literary vein into
an academic university. The
literary persuasion won out in
the end: I just couldn't bear
the thought of more
institutionalized art and the
pressure to create when I had no
inspiration or spirit in it. I
often wonder where I would be
now if I had taken that path. As
it was, I immersed myself in
books and poetry and literary
culture and emerged four years
later with an honours degree, a
greatly extended vocabulary and
an empty feeling that there was
something of myself that I had
lost along the way. Whether I
was too busy, too stressed or
too put off by my HSC struggle
with artistic inspiration and my
natural artistic voice, I
created next to nothing of
paintings and drawings during
this entire period, with one
important exception: from the
end of school I had formed a
beautiful relationship with a
very special person called Ash,
who I am still with, and who
provided the inspiration and
drive to create beautiful
things. Shown below are almost the
only two drawings I did during
this period, inspired by (and for)
Ash, and also a small
handful of the letters I created
for him, through the borders and
calligraphy of which my artistic
expression maintained some small
voice. The mystical manuscript
style, the faeries and the runic inscriptions
reflect the fantasy
element inside me that was
desperately seeking an outlet,
but which was pushed away by my
growing inhibitions and lack of
confidence in creating artworks."
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 A
Magical Discovery!...
"During my four years at
University I had long
desired to create my own
artworks again: to create
magical images that stood on
their own as artworks and to
feel the burn of magic and
inspiration that drove me
create
when
I was younger. But I had
come to believe that it was
useless...the only person I
was creating for was myself,
or Ash, and we were both
running out of room to keep
my drawings and letters.
Soon I had stopped drawing
anything at all, and I was
suffering for it. The only
person I knew of that
created my kind of art for
art's sake was Brian Froud,
and from where I was, he and
his artistic success seemed
light years away: a dream in
a distant future. After my
four years at university I
decided to take a step into
the unknown and take a year
off study to get back to my
creative side and find what
I had lost. It was as if by
fate that
one day, in the December at the end
of my final year at
University I by chance
happened to attend a local
medieval fair where I came
across a stall selling
beautiful artworks and gifts
just like the ones I had
always dreamed of making:
I was astounded to
find someone actually doing
what I had always wanted to
do but never thought
a feasible reality. I had seen many
stalls of art and craft
before, and had always put
off
my family's, and my own,
wishes for me to start
offering my own art and
crafts with a "one day"
that in truth I thought a
long way off. Yet something
changed in me that day at
the fair, and the "one day"
suddenly became a knowledge
that it was going to happen:
that I could actually make
my childhood dreams come
true! The knowledge was both
exciting and liberating. Instead of coming
away from that fair with a
"one day I'll be doing that"
attitude, I came away
inspired with the knowledge
that what I had wanted to be
doing could still be done. I
went home that day with a
fire rekindled in my heart:
a fire that would soon be
fanned into a blaze with my
discovery of the online
fantasy art world: a world I
had never even heard of
before (having no time for
the internet when I was
reading or out playing in
the world!) but one that was
filled with people from all
walks of life doing just
what I had always wanted to
do! Suddenly I became aware of other artists such as
Jessica Galbreth and Amy
Brown (Brian Froud and Alan
Lee were the only
contemporary artists I had
seen in books); I was introduced to
the concept of an online art
gallery and I first realised,
actually believed,
that it was possible
to create my art again and that
I would have somewhere to
show it, along with my
beloved
greeting cards and crafty gifts! In my excitement at
finding more art like mine,
more imaginations that
beheld the wonder
and
magic
that I did, I discovered
that integral part of me
that I thought I had lost:
my inspiration. One
afternoon, alone on my back
verandah in the lingering
sunlight, I was suddenly
seized once more with the
familiar hand of purpose and
inspiration: I grabbed
canvas and brush and just
let my hands fly! The artwork
"Puss," below,
was my first
and frenzied
release of
all
the
frustration
I had experienced through my
"Art Absence." From there I
gradually began to rekindle
the feel for the different
art mediums, trying to paint
and draw as often as I
could, eager to get back
those lost years of
development: I tried
watercolour for the first
time
and since
then I don't believe I have
stopped learning or growing
in my artistic expression. The artworks below are the
first "art for art's sake"
that I created with my
new-found inspiration. Though I
do feel sadly behind
where my abilities should be
after a four year
hiatus, I am so deeply
grateful to have reclaimed my
artistic spirit when I did,
and now I vow never to lose
it again- not for anything!"
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 And
so it continues...
"After creating enough
artworks to get past the
awkward re-introductory patch, I
spent some time creating my website,
which underwent many
reincarnations, and much
help from other online
artists, before
alighting as it is now.
It has grown as my
art has, steadily and
cautiously finding
its own voice among the
established weight of
the online fairy art
community, which can be
at once a divine
inspiration and a
crushing weight to a
fledgling artist seeking
to find her place. I am
thankful to the many
artist friends I have
made online along the
way: those already
established and those
who grow with me. And I
am forever and deeply
grateful for the people
who love and buy my
artworks and inspired
gifts, making it
possible for me to
continue on my journey
of artistic growth and
self-expression. To your
beautiful souls, this
website is dedicated.
I
hope you have enjoyed
this tour through the
journey of my art as
much as I have!
With Fairy
Blessings, Kirstin"
KirstinMills.jpg)
"Morning Gossip,"
created in April of
2008,
was the
artwork that inspired
this "Twist in Time."
With its whimsical mix
of fantasy and the
Australian
bush,
it represents for
Kirstin the completion
of a circle,
marking a return to her
childhood days of
uninhibited
inspiration.
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