Kirstin's Inspirations

Here Kirstin offers a little insight into her artistic inspirations:

For as long as I can remember I always been "a drawer". I drew on everything I could find from the moment I could hold anything that would make a mark. Many items of furniture throughout our house while I was growing up felt the effects of this tenacious desire to draw, not to mention countless papers and pieces of card which I squirreled away in my big art scrapbook (which I still have!). A precious and treasured memory-house for me today, that scrapbook serves to remind me of my humble beginnings and the truth behind my art and my insatiable need to draw and create. For me Art isn't about gaining a reaction from the people I show it to, though the feedback I receive has always been deeply appreciated and humbling. Instead, art for me is about the moment of creation: the spark and excited zing of enchantment and magic as I furiously work to capture that magical essence- my inspiration. I find it hard to create artworks to a formula or to a specific purpose: often if I try, the artworks will have a habit of steering the course their own way, and tend to end up completely different to the way they were intended. To this, I can only shrug my shoulders and surrender to the way of inspiration. To do otherwise would be to ignore an important part of who I am and what I love in this world- life, spontaneity, imagination, magic, love and truth. This is the reason that I rarely take commission work. I find that when a painting wants to be painted it will find a way of painting itself, and there is little I can do to force it otherwise.

When people ask me 'what inspired this painting?' or 'how did you think of doing this?' the answer is often hard to come up with and will be different every time. The most simple answer I can give is purely 'I just did' or 'it just came to me'. You'll see in the descriptions to many of my works throughout my online galleries that the image just 'popped into my head one day', usually fully formed and demanding to be realised on paper for others to see. This is how my imagination has always worked. When I was younger, I would write a lot of stories, and each time they played unbroken in my mind's eye just like a movie. My only job was to record what happened and describe it as best as I could. It's very similar with my artworks. Of course, everyone is influenced in many ways by all the images they have ever seen and by other artworks and artistic styles and techniques that they admire. My fairy paintings 'Mariposa' and 'Lost in Memories' were both inspired greatly by the techniques of the contemporary school of painters so popular these days. I wanted to bring a bit of that edgy, yet whimsical, contemporary flair to the usually more traditional world of fairy painting. Occasionally I will be inspired by something direct: usually a beautiful aspect of nature outdoors or a particular human emotion or expression. The idea for my 'Morning Gossip' painting above occurred to me in such a way as I was swimming beneath some beautiful gum trees overhanging a lake in the afternoon sun. All of a sudden my little dragons were there with me, sitting amongst the kookaburras and just itching to be painted! This is what makes painting so exciting for me: I completely give myself up to my painting as I am doing it and paint with complete intuition, often not knowing how something 'wants' to be painted until I can see how it has been painted by my hands as I just let them go.

This is also the reason that my work stretches across so many mediums, genres and styles. Never the kind of person to be tied down by anything, I just have to let my free spirit dance with the spirit of each artwork that wants to be created, that has 'chosen' me, as it were, to paint it. Should you ask 'Why did you paint it this way?' my reply will always be 'because it had to be painted that way' (my mother informs me that this was always my answer, even when spoken from tiny, pouted three-year-old lips at the indignity of such a question!). My artworks represent little pillar stones along the journey through my imagination: sometimes this journey has taken a wide and scattered course, but all of it connects with the deep magic of life and the true essence of inspiration. Now, through my website, I share this journey with those who wish to accompany me and I welcome them to share in the magic that I enjoy so much. The thought that any of my creations can resonate with another person brings me great joy and speaks of the common magic spread throughout all of us. Should anyone like my art enough to purchase any of the art or gifts offered here, I am truly humbled and I thank them deeply.

-Kirstin Mills

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