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Detail of "Shape-Shifter" © Terri Windling, 1992 Click here for a larger image.

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So deep-rooted was my love of myth that I went on to study the subject at college (at schools in Ohio, London and Dublin), with a particular interest in the role of women in the oral storytelling tradition. I studied turn-of-the-century art movements with their roots in fairy tales and myths: the Pre-Raphaelites in England, Art Nouveau on the Continent, the Celtic Renaissance in Scotland and the Celtic Twilight in Ireland. Although I then spent a decade in New York City, working in the book publishing industry, I found myself repeatedly drawn back to the British Isles--and eventually I moved to a counry village at the edge of Dartmoor.

Then a curious thing happened. Through a long chain of circumstances, I found myself in the alien, sun-bleached landscape of the Sonoran desert--a world away from the misty moors and green woodlands of England. No one was more surprised than I when the desert crept into my heart, took root there, and would not let me go. I now live in Tucson, Arizona during the winter half of every year.

The ancient Greeks referred to a person's tutelary spirit as one's "daemon" (or, to the Romans, one's "genius"): a personal spirit which guides us, provokes us, and inspires us to fulfill our creative potential. My own daemon was sleeping until it felt the kiss of the hot desert sun. And then it came abruptly to life, and told me to get to work! The desert filled my paintings with its colors, symbols, flora and fauna; it loosened my brush strokes and added a raw, urgent quality to my working methods. In the desert I came to appreciate the myths and legends of my own country: a unique mix of Native American tales and the transplanted folklore brought here by immigrant cultures from all around the world--a peculiarly American "melting pot" of ancient folkways and stories. I came to appreciate the potent mix of the ancestral blood in my own veins, the native blood of North America intermingled with the blood of western Europe. Wandering through the spirited desert hills, I came to truly understand how the land itself shapes mythic imagery--and how, as an artist, to let the land speak through me with its own voice.

I now no longer approach my drawing board with distinct imagery in mind; instead I try to empty myself of intent and let the images emerge as they will, guided by the spirits of the landscape. I think of myself as a "landscape painter," even though my work is figurative--for each figure is born from a certain area of the desert and the myths contained there. The imagery is unabashedly animistic, reflecting my spiritual conviction that _all_ things are filled with spirit, and that human beings are just one element in a web of life that also includes the animals, plants, weather phenomena and other forces. By merging aspects of desert flora and fauna with the human body, I have attempted to explore the animist belief (found, of course, not only in Native American religions but also the pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe) that all the creatures of earth are brothers and sisters under the skin.