Create A Name Art — My Photographs — My Gallery — My Passion
I’m an artist with a love of photography, history and walking – in other words wandering the countryside looking through ancient church records and taking photos that inspire me along the way. It’s great when you can turn your lifetime passion into a fulltime career. Over the years, I have probably amassed the biggest collection of alphabet photography from around the world, but if you notice a distinctly Celtic feel to many of my images that’s only natural.
So where did it all begin? I first started to use my images for Wedding Gifts and it just took off from there. People love my product and gallery website because they can interact with it and become part of the creative process. What could be more satisfying than to give someone a gift you have designed yourself? With my Custom Made Art, nothing is made until the customer tells me what to make. You tell me the name or word you wish to visualise, and the personalized text you wish to add. It becomes your unique creation - I just provide the pieces of the jigsaw to make it happen. I no longer frame the piece of art – photo frames are so ubiquitous nowadays – I prefer to concentrate on designing the perfect image to put into the frame. Many people like to get the art work printed locally so they can have the gift ready to give within days. That’s fine too.
A lot of people ask me “what makes a perfect alphabet photo?” For me it’s one that has what the Japanese call 'wabi sabi' – the art of finding beauty in imperfection and decay. My images capture cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. Through wabi-sabi, we appreciate the lichen, rust, driftwood, and the march of time they represent. Most of my images give you a fragmentary glimpse of something – the old latch on the ancient gate... For me, the context where I capture the photo is as important as the image itself – it must have a timeless quality about it which lends a certain mellow beauty to the finished composition.
Wrapped up in my quest for the ancient and worn alphabet images is my love of history. It always fascinates me in this modern world how linked we are to the past. When you study Genealogy and trace ancestry its always best to start with learning as much as you can about your surname and the history surrounding it. Your last name gives you a sense of identity and helps you discover who you are and where you come from. When you research a name you quickly realize the close common ancestral links between Europeans and our American cousins. It makes a perfect gift to design an art work which celebrates both a person’s name and a record of their past origins.
