About Aisling

Aisling D’Art is a third-generation artist.  (Her name is pronounced “ASH-ling Dart.”)

Since 1995, she’s been online, sharing how-to information about a variety of mixed media arts.  As a result, she’s most often associated with art zines, art shrines, artists’ journals, ATCs and wild art dolls.

Bio

Aisling was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in nearby Belmont, MA.  She attended Colby-Sawyer College (New London, NH) and then Harvard University.  From there, Aisling moved to Los Angeles, working as a fashion model when she wasn’t running one of Hollywood’s largest and most innovative fine art schools.

Several years (and moves) later, Aisling became the mother of three wonderful children.  During those years, she taught workshops and wrote several popular books about fabric art, dollmaking, costuming and quilting.

When divorce threatened Aisling’s ‘happily ever after’ view of life, she began writing about her life at her first website.  That was in 1995, when Aisling was considered a little weird for sharing her real-life diary online.

The pen name, Aisling D’Art, gave her (and her family) anonymity.

But, Aisling’s unique and original ideas have always attracted attention.  Before long, Aisling.net attracted hundreds (then thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands) of visitors daily.

Friends and fans followed Aisling’s life through the inevitable divorce, and then cheered when she found genuine happiness with a wonderful man from Houston, Texas.

Today, Aisling and “HT” live a somewhat quiet life in New England.  She’s still working on art, writing for magazines, books and the Internet, and pursuing a variety of eclectic hobbies.

About this website

This website began in the mid-1990s as Aisling’s online journal, long before anyone used the word “blog.”

When readers saw photos and scans of her art, they asked, “How do you do that?”

A few how-to articles in 1996 grew to hundreds of webpages about art materials and techniques by 2000.  Aisling.net has always been among the leading websites of the art journaling community.

But, as this site outgrew its simple HTML navigation, Aisling split the information into smaller sites.  Now, many years later, with new software and navigation tools, Aisling is reintegrating the full range of articles at Aisling.net.

Until this site is complete, the best access point is the sitemap and mini-sitemaps: http://aisling.net/sitemap/ [Link]

Aisling and Yahoo Groups

In the late 1990s, Aisling D’Art founded several Yahoo Groups. The largest was AJ2 (Artists Journals 2) with about 2000 members at its peak.  Its archives are still online, though the group is no longer active.

Aisling is also the moderator of the original Artists Journals group, aka “AJ,” recently re-energized as a discussion group.

In addition, Ais has started dozens more hugely successful Yahoo Groups.  They include WildArtDolls, AJ-marketing, and ExtremeArtJournals.  All of them are now moderated by other talented artists, so that Aisling has more time for art.

Aisling’s Classes

For many years, Aisling taught at some of the country’s top arts events, including Artfest, Art and Soul, Art Unraveled, and her own DisneyWorld event, Celebrate Art!

However, when some arts events became too expensive and profit-oriented, Aisling quit the national events scene.

Instead, she taught free full-day workshops during the five years (2003 – 2008) that she lived near Houston.

If you see Aisling teaching anywhere, you’ll know that the event is well-managed and it’s worth attending.

Aisling’s zines and products

For many people, Aisling D’Art’s name is almost synonymous with art zines.  Aisling pioneered handwritten art zines in the mid-1970s.  She was one of the first to offer art zines on CD in 2001, and was also an “early adopter” of digital zines.

Today, her zines are published irregularly.  Past subscribers still receive copies, and new fans are able to download them — when they’re available — through this website (Aisling.net) and Santa Flamingo.

Since the 1970s, Aisling’s decorated envelopes and cards — and her artistamps — have been an important part of the mailart scene.

Aisling was also one of the creators of torn-paper collage journals, which evolved into what were later called gluebooks.

Her whimsical pocket shrines are still collected by friends, fans and art enthusiasts.

Her mixed-media and cloth dolls are generally zany and wildly popular.  Her paper art dolls were featured in Art Doll Quarterly‘s second issue.

Aisling’s podcasts

In 2004, Aisling began podcasting about art and creativity.  She’s still working on a format and schedule that fits her style.

You can listen to many of Aisling’s past podcasts, including Views from Santa Flamingo. [Link]

Aisling’s online diary

Aisling remains committed to her original online vision, sharing a creative life with friends and fans.   You can read her past journals, online, among the pages of Aisling.net.  Her online diary (blog) — the one about her personal life, the backstory to her art — also appears at this site.

Aisling D’Art is the pen name of painter Eileen (Eibhlin) Eilis Morey, whose work appears at EileenMorey.com.