Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc.

Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

I had a job as an illustrator, and I wanted to change the direction of my work. I moved to the country, and immediately I started to paint fairies and trolls.

You do not see fairies through the eyes, you see them through the heart and that took me a long time to learn because I was always trying to see them through my eyes.

Naming a fairy is notoriously difficult, because they don't particularly like to be named. There are so many of them, and humans have always wanted to categorize them. In that way, we think we can have more control over them.

Faeries are seen through the heart, not through the eyes. Remember that faeries inhabit the interior of the earth and the interior of all things, so look, in the first place, in the interior of yourself.

Once you step onto the fairy path, it's almost like there's no way off. You have to keep going.