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Anne Powers author of "Smoke from Small Fires"

Altered Pages is honored
to introduce you to author and artist
ANNE POWERS


Smoke from Small Fires 


"It's the 1950s. Picture Blackshale, Tennessee, with its home fires, small town ways, and postwar innocence - the perfect place for a girl to grow up. From her earliest days, an artistic spark has been smoldering in Anna Grace Tollett, and when the mountain turns dark and unnerving, creativity is all she has to weather the hard times. As an adult, she describes her art: It is about the rituals of our lives, we who live in the tribes of Appalachia, and the spook in the hollow, the voodoo of the mountains. In Smoke from Small Fires, happily off-tilt characters, bizarre events, and the gamut of human emotions stack up like a collage layered thick with compelling details. Rendered in visually rich prose, courageous Anna Grace and her quirky band of kin and friends rise above poignant trials that will color your mind's eye for a long time."

 
Every plan to run away from home includes a well-doodled farewell note! This is Anna Grace's.

A gift from the artist HERE on Pinterest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ANNE POWERS

Anne Powers is a lifelong fine artist who became "the accidental writer". Riven from her studio by circumstance with only a laptop for company, bits of word and story ended up layered like collage into a highly visual writing style.


 


Anne was head of a college art department for 35 years and taught 3D Animation in the New Media and Digital Media Academy programs at Stanford University.


Your achievements/awards/education: Art World awards include the Winsor Newton Award of the American Watercolor Society, the (top) Award of Merit in the Tennessee Watercolor Society and inclusion in “A Fabric of Our Own Making”, an exhibition of 40 American Women artists at Georgia State University (Which was pretty cool because Elaine DeKooning and Judy Chicago were in there too.) Somewhere in there I crossed over to the dark side and won a national Best in Show digital art competition, MacXibition 1996, which was sponsored by New York MacUsers, Apple Computer and MacWorld magazine.

She has a BFA in Painting and an MFA in Graphic Design from the University of Tennessee Art Department. Teaching 3D Animation in a program at Stanford led to the opportunity to write several textbooks that were used worldwide.

Where do you gain most of your inspiration: Like many art makers, pieces bubble up out of the fascinations and influences of childhood.

Her father sold building supplies and after school she ran amok between material samples and paint chips, so her work naturally explores differences in surface properties and color. She'd collect discarded objects for their patina or paint and draw on them without mercy, fashioning them into collage surfaces or personal relics. 'The stitches and crafts and stories of kinfolk, the lights and color of a traveling carnival, the spook in the lake hollow, the voodoo of the mountain, these are some of the joys and nightmares of childhood that shape my work' stated Anne.


Anne Powers writing porch!

Like "Smoke from Small Fires" on Facebook HERE!!! There you will find TONS of information in the Photo Albums on that page.  You will find ANNE POWERS on Pinterest.  

"Smoke from Small Fires" is available online at both Amazon and Barnes and Nobles.



Comments

  1. A very interesting lady,you are Jane!
    I love the mermaid runaway letter! So glad to have learned more about you and now off to locate your book!
    Thanks so much for sharing here with us!
    warm regards,Jackie

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    1. ps...thank you for the collage!

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    2. Stopped by your page. LOVE the steampunk piece...you have a great sense of design!

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  3. Anne, we are so pleased to have you join us today. Your writing is amazing, as is your art. After viewing many of your pinterst posts, I decided my favorite was the Domestic Weapon Belt. Soft colors and mood belie the intent! THANKS for sharing with us. Jean

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  4. Fabulous story, Anne. Love your writing porch! Your way with words is awesome and I wish I had that talent. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Barbara, Enjoyed perusing your page...AND I see you are a fellow Tennessean!

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  5. Anne, so nice of you to share your story with us! Nice to meet you. :-)

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  6. Thanks everybody! Will be making a bee line to go look at YOUR work!

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