The story Teller - Phoebe Wahl

Meet Phoebe Wahl - a young artist whose art focuses on magical outdoors living, warm family life, femininity & motherhood, and even the magic creatures that the eyes can not see...
Phoebe graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 with a BFA in Illustration, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon.




Phoebe grew up unschooled in Washington state, and credits her 'free range' childhood in the Northwest for much of her inspiration and work ethics.





Family life is a big issue at Phoebe's art - she creates illustrations, paintings and  fabric sculptures of women giving birth, breast feeding or carrying a baby, of lovers, and families having family moments at home or outdoors She even makes lovely family portrait-on-demand.Read what a talented blogger who had the honor of having her family portrait done by Phoebe wrote so beautifully about it














I have and will feature here only artists that simply amaze me, whose work I can't forget. The reason I want to share Phoebe's work, although she is an illustrator and not a pattern/surface designer, is simply because I can see patterns all over her work. Her illustrations are made of patterns, and  in some cases they seem to me like they should or could have been multiplied into a pattern.

In her work she deals with issues that not many illustrators dare to - the joy of the body, the celebration of femininity, birth, and breast feeding. The women's figures are not model-like,  they are not skinny or idealized - they are real, full figures.

She works in a variety of mediums, from watercolors and collage to fabric sculpturing. I think two of my favortites are the painted papers collages and the fabric sculptures (and dioramas)

Just take a look at this amazing growth chart. what a joy - to grow surrounded by these lovely creatures... and what can be more symbolic  - Phoebe Whal REALLY grew up among them, dreaming of fairies, chasing little animals, and now she makes other children happy,  getting taller and bigger with the magical environment she recreated for them

On the  "ABOUT"  section at Phoebe's website she writes:" She spends her time illustrating the imaginary worlds she inhabited growing up in the Pacific Northwest through painting, sculpture, sewing or storytelling. You can find her wherever there are pillows, children’s books and a cup of tea"...





So grab your own cup of tea, hit the play button on the video below, and take a pleasant trip to Phoebe's land