Hugo Award-winning artist brings science fiction, mythology and fantasy to life

A lot to her mother’s dismay, a younger Elizabeth Leggett seen their whitewashed partitions as a canvas.

“I would draw on the partitions and set items in front of it,” she mentioned. “When we moved, my mother mentioned, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ”

Leggett’s very first paying out gig was painting other students’ tennis footwear in high faculty.

Now the Albuquerque artist reveals her perform at Santa Fe’s Keep Present-day.

Leggett’s day occupation keeps her chaotic illustrating e-book handles for Prince of Cats Literary Productions, creating digital pictures for science fiction and fantasy.

The artist turns to good art for much more particular expressions.

In 2012 Leggett illustrated a total 78-card tarot pack in a single year. Additional current series have integrated will work primarily based on the tales of fantasy/sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury.

Other operates capture the secret of her individual muses. She usually incorporates fantasy and mythology into her function.

Leggett grew up in North Carolina, exactly where she majored in psychology and English literature at East Carolina University in Greenville. She is entirely self-taught.

“My mom was a single father or mother,” she described. “We went to all the museums. She favored to demonstrate off my work, but she didn’t want me to do it as a occupation.”

Even with all those uncertainties, Leggett labored as a middle college and superior university teacher, then became a freelance artist for 25 a long time, illustrating book addresses and journals.

She moved to Albuquerque, the household of her partner, six decades in the past.

“I’ve usually finished parts for myself,” she claimed. “There has to be a part of your possess voice in points.”

In 2015, she received the prestigious Hugo Award for Greatest Lover Artist. “Game of Thrones” mastermind George R.R. Martin gave her her initial solo demonstrate at Santa Fe’s Jean Cocteau Cinema. It was there that she was recruited by Keep.

Her portrait “Magpie Charmer” reveals a woman, her coat embellished with multiple trinkets, with a magpie perched on her shoulder.

A bird lover, Leggett understood she had in no way depicted a magpie.

“Amid the visual chaos, (the determine) is extremely calm,” she stated. “I really like fabrics. All the coloration perform are the trinkets on her sleeves is lace.”

“I attract on the pc like I paint,” she continued. “And I believe like a painter.”

Leggett uses models for most of the hands, heads and system parts.

The entwined fingers in “Cassandra’s Dream” are truly her very own. The reality clings to her like butterflies.

“Cassandra was the sister of Hector of the Trojan War in Greek mythology,” she said.

“She was blessed by Apollo to do prophesies.”

When Cassandra turned down Apollo’s developments, he cursed her to in no way be thought.

“I am fascinated by the hand positions of American Indicator Language,” Leggett extra. “She would like to communicate, but she is familiar with she should not and the other hand is halting her.”

The two “Making the Most of the Offered Light” and “Carried A’weigh” are muse paintings.

“I have a modest superstition that I need to acknowledge her every 12 months,” Leggett said. “For 2020, most people was so unfortunate. But at the identical time, there ended up times. Most people realized at some point this would come to a conclusion.”

The figure wears a crown of acorns for progress. The “poor small shell-shocked owl” represents knowledge. The crow, whose flocks are acknowledged as “murders” symbolizes the plague of the coronavirus.

“Carried A’weigh” is made up of a soaring tree with an acrobat being approximately thrown by a horse.

“I enjoy factors that fly. The tree is an olive tree. Olive trees are sacred in lots of religions.”

In September, Leggett will be the guest of honor at the WhimsyCon costume and steampunk convention in Denver.

“I do a lot of studying,” she explained. “I appreciate tunes, I enjoy flicks.”