Beauty on Etsy... afiori

All photos from afiori. Above, Eiffel tower love, mixed media collage. Below, various journals and notebooks.

Today is another installment in my Beauty on Etsy Series, featuring artists and bloggers I adore ~ lovely, talented people who add a little more beauty to the world. I am thrilled for you to meet Maria-Thérèse at afiori. Her Etsy shop is full of gorgeous photographs, mixed-media collages and journals. Sometimes I browse through her Etsy shop just to cheer myself up, and her blog is one of my favorites. So, without further ado...

Your name: Maria-Thérèse Andersson. Maria-Thérèse is like one name.

Name of Etsy shop: afiori

Etsy shop URL: http://afiori.etsy.com

Blog name and URL: http://blog.afiori.com (Main site: http://www.afiori.com)

Briefly describe what browsers and buyers will find in your Etsy shop: Fine art photography, collages and one-of-a-kind notebooks with mixed paper inside and my prints on the covers.

What inspires you to create? I am inspired most of the time! I have always had a great urge to create things, to invent something new, to collect my impressions and turn them into art. Often, an image or a sentence will appear in my head - sometimes in a very finished way - and I try to make it real. Making imagination real is a big part of what my business afiori is about.

Paper, paint and art supplies in general also inspire me, but most of the time I just have this feeling that I need to create something. I will see a collage in my head, part of a poem or start to think about a problem or a question which I will then illustrate to try to understand it.

What would you like others to know about your work? Is there a particular philosophy you follow? I create everything with my heart and soul and I believe it shines through in what I do. I don't try to be like anyone else and I don't try to be popular. That is how I've lived my life so far, not necessarily by choice, but recently I have become increasingly convinced that it is the right thing to do. I think that if something is fake, people will eventually know and the work will be hollow. I want to do things that are important to me and that I can proudly sign with my name.

I have been a vegetarian my entire life and do not create anything using leather or other animal products. My work is part of me, even if people will interpret what they see according to their own view.

Many of my images are created using both photographs and paintings or collage elements. I really like to paint and actually don't have Photoshop (which seems downright shocking to a lot of people!)

Anything else you’d like us to know about you and your work? Well, I live in Härnösand, which is a beautiful town by the sea in Sweden. I moved here partly because of the sea and because I studied here (I have a Master's Degree with a major in English Literature). I started my business last year and am looking for opportunities to collaborate with other artists and to exhibit my work in other countries as well.

Above, Adagio in G Minor, fine art photograph. Below, The Secret Garden, fine art photograph. Photos from afiori.