Artist Bio

Hello, my name is Heather Stokes. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, for Illustration. I am a native of Oklahoma, but I generally don’t use many Native American elements in my work. I love their art and culture, it just doesn’t end up in my work much. I designed and created this website, and I do my own photography.

I have always worked in some medium all my life. I was born an artist, and I can’t remember a time in my life when I was not creating or drawing. My art is a part of me, and I hope that I leave a part of myself in my art as well.

My two dimensional art generally takes a couple forms. Professionally, I do a form of thick thin line work, with a brush and ink, which I them color on my computer. This is the style I use in my illustrations. Personally, I work primarily in charcoal. I have always loved charcoal. I can’t really explain why, but inevitably when I sit down to do a drawing for myself, I reach for my charcoals. Occasionally I work in graphite, but that is usually specific to certain pictures, or certain effects I want.

My three dimensional work generally consists of whatever medium I can get a hold of.  I have worked in ceramic clay, and I have loved that medium. Unfortunately, the only time I really had the chance to work with ceramics, was during my time in college, and currently I don’t have a ceramics lab in my area where I can work. Sigh, someday! 
 
I also work in polymer clay, as you can already tell, if you have come by this bio via the rest of my site. I love the medium of polymer clay, because it is so versatile. There few mediums I have come across, where just when I think I know everything about it, or have seen everything in it, I learn something new or see something I would have never thought was polymer clay. The medium is ever-evolving, and the work is limited only by the imaginations of those who work in it.

I particularly like polymer clay because of its possibilities. Polymer clay can be molded, carved, textured, painted, antiqued, varnished, sanded, buffed, drilled, it can have things set in it, or embedded in it. It can be made to look like just about anything, glass, stone, wood, ivory, or agate.

About my work

I have worked in polymer clay for years. It has been only recently that I began making jewelry in earnest. I have always made some jewelry objects with polymer clay, but I have never really made one type of item exclusively. Throughout my time working with polymer clay I have made little sculptures, covered boxes, magnets, bottles, and all sorts of other things. It was my jewelry though, which people always seemed to respond to.

Now I make jewelry out my polymer clay almost exclusively. I like jewelry because it gives me so many opportunities to work in a small scale, which I like to do. I view jewelry as wearable art, and many of my pieces are completely unique and one of a kind, like a painting or a drawing. Some of my necklaces I create multiples of, but even when I do this, there are still very few of them created (ie: less than 20). I like for my jewelry to make a statement, to stand out as well as coordinate with a persons outfit.

My influences have come from many different places. I can not generally point to specific artists who have influenced me, but more often than not I am influenced by images, colors, textures, little snippets of life around me that get stored up in my mind in a sort of weird mental scrap book. When I work, I get little flashes of things I have seen, or techniques I have tried or seen done, which then get worked into a piece. At the same time, I can say what other art forms have influenced me. I have been greatly affected by most East Asian arts, specifically Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. I have studied these on a rather basic level, but the deeper I go, the more they effect me. Many of my pieces have a distinctly Asian flair to them.

I do use molds from time to time, both store bought, and home made. I make molds of leaves, and branches I find in my back yard, and I make molds of small sculptures I have made. I also make many texture molds. Anywhere on this site that you see cedar tree branches, tiny pinecones, acorns, or leaves, they have been made from molds I have created. The same goes for the two types of leaf beads I have on this site.

I love to see what others are doing with their art, and to see what is going on in the art world. I try to make sure that my art is constantly changing or evolving. I believe that if an artist lets their art stay the same, then their art stagnates, and their creativity dies. When that happens, their art becomes hollow and uninspired. If you are an artist, you should always look around you, at what others in your field are doing, be inspired, let your work be influenced, let it grow and change, that’s how the great works of art come about. 

 

“Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.”
                                                                              Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”
                                                       Carl Gustav Jung