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As a theatre person, I think Symbolist-inspired art is in my blood. I want to explore more of it.

I'm reading "Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Art of the Four" (by Roger Billcliffe) right now, and I'm falling in love with Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh's work.

It straddles the decorative, practical, and symbolic worlds with gorgeous stylistic abstraction and narrative. All the work of The Four does, in some ways.

But especially Margaret and her sister Frances. I think they managed to take Art Nouveau and infuse it with deeper meanings beyond its now famous practical applications that we see from Mucha and such. They used its stylization for thematic messaging in ways that others didn't, I feel, influencing Klimt among others.

I've always been a fan of Pamela Zagarenski's work as well, and now I'm itching to try my hand at combining all these influences into my own expressions. Taking my work to something beyond pretty. "Pretty, and..." I think.

Wish me luck!