Featured Artist: Starflycreations

I have the pleasure of having a wonderful artist, Starla Apodaca, as a leader on the NNNTeam. She is not only a great leader and former captain of this team, but also a most gracious woman and great teacher! She has mentored me in becoming captain and has been a valued and caring friend.

But besides all that, most importantly Starla is a great artist! She runs a shop on Etsy called Starflycreations. She creates original paintings, exclusive stationery designs and more. She recently created this fabulous custom work:

When I asked Starla about her life, she responded:

"God has blessed me with a wonderful family and talent. I've been married almost half my life. We have two wonderful children. A young teenage son who thinks he knows everything and a three-year old daughter who probably does! We have a dog, a turtle, and have been known to nurse injured green anoles back to health. We also love cats and have one which stays at my mom's due to allergies in the family. My son has great promise as a photographer and my daughter has great promise of being an adorably cute, walking, talking, dictionary!

My favorite activity, outside of spending it with family, has to be art. ART. ART. ART. I love creating! I've often referred to myself as AADD - Art Attention Deficit Disorder, as I cannot stick to one medium or style from commercial digital illustration to mixed media paintings, I love them all. To me, life is a beautiful chaotic mix of very special and very different moments. I try to reflect that in my work. To me, creating the same type of art every day is like having the same emotion every day. My art is a journey, just like my life.

I am the volunteer leader for art and computer science - graphic design for our local 4-H. So far in art, I've taught drawing, jewelry making, and polymer clay sculpture. Three of my students entered the state fair in polymer clay and all three won. In graphic design, I am currently teaching Adobe Photoshop but also have Illustrator and InDesign slated for this school year. I also volunteer with our local PTA and our church.

I have a BFA in Graphic Design with emphasis in communication arts. That's where I met my hubby. I've spent many years in advertising in the roles of graphic designer, art director and creative director before going back to freelance to grow my family. Now that my daughter is three, I will be gearing up the reigns to increase my activity, once again, in the commercial field too. My commercial portfolio may be viewed at www.starflycreations.com

I discovered Etsy through a friend of mine, Andrea. She sells adorably cute, whimsical paintings and children's decor. She is also a new NNNteam member. If it wasn't for Andrea, I would have never known about Etsy, nor would I have met such wonderful people through the teams that I am now fortunate to call my friends, so I wanted to give her a plug! Here is her shop www.andralynn.etsy.com

I am inspired by so much in my life that I cannot keep track and am notorious for leaving yellow sticky notes EVERYWHERE and never getting around to reading them all. My doodles and thoughts are not confined to sticky notes. I write on the back of envelopes, on magazines, note pads, anything and almost everything. Also - I love to read, though I am known not to pick up a book for a long while, and then read an entire book in one sitting because I may not get back to it again.

Starla's most recent project is polymer clay sculpture ornaments. She recently completed one of her daughter, pictured here: