Anytime that is ‘betwixt and between’ or transitional is the faeries’ favorite time. They inhabit transitional spaces: the bottom of the garden, existing in a space between manmade cultivation and wilderness. Look for them in the space between nurture and nature, they are to be found at all boarders and boundaries, or on the edges of water where it is neither land nor lake, neither path nor pond. They come when we are half-asleep. They come at moments when we least expect them; when our rational mind balances with the fluid irrational.

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.

To believe in faeries is to step into an enchanted space where the rational mind meets the irrational heart, and all things become possible.

Fairies are becoming much more popular. I see fairyland as this big sea, and the tide is sometimes out.

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.

In the 20th century, artists did a great disservice to fairies. They painted fairies in a way that was shallow and trite. So when people see my stuff, they suddenly realize the depth of fairies.

Spirits were seen to be very much part of the everyday world, and you were accosted by spirits all the time. It's only really quite recently that we've relegated the fantastic as being just imagination and not real and having no purpose.