People like histories. So – here ya go.
When my mother went to do commission portraits, I’d go along. I was six years old. She told me my drawings were as good as hers. With encouragement like that, who wouldn’t want to just fall right into drawing every second possible?
I would hide under tables so no one would bother me, drawing on scraps of paper with the special pencils I filched from her. I found out later she left them out for me to find. Sneaky Ma.
Later on in high school, I did pencil portraits for school mates. In art school in New York, I studied graphic design, and went on to become an art director in a small ad agency in San Francisco.
Then the 60s hit, and it was smoke a lot of pot and don’t-tie-me-down! Off to Big Sur I went with my insanely heavy backpack, where I dropped lots of acid and hung out with the Grateful Dead. I began painting around that time; eventually my BF and I moved to Santa Cruz, where we started making pottery.
I loved clay. Just getting my hands into it was a rush. My first pots were made from coarse stoneware – no great shakes. But I persisted.
We built a couple of amazing high-fire kilns that roared like dragons during the cold dark nights under the stars. My last one was the best. Most kilns have at least a couple cold spots that don’t reach the high temps you want for glaze perfection – that one had not even one.
After close to 15 years of refining and honing my skills, I ended up making high-fired (3000 degrees) porcelain with very fine hand-drawn designs.
I invented a few processes that allowed me to get a translucent, high-fired mat glaze – impossible, they said! But I did it. To the left are two of the specialized pots I made at that time.
I also invented a way to do underglaze stains that didn’t run under the over-glaze. (Also supposedly impossible!)
In 1981, in a horrible accident, a guy ran a red light, plowed into me right behind me on the driver’s side, propelling my car into a full 180 degree swing into another car on the passenger side.
My beautiful Volvo station wagon was totaled – as was I. They said I’d never walk again. Fooey on that! I was supposed to raise two little boys without being able to walk? I don’t think so!
I fired three orthopedic docs who just wanted to stick me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, and ply me with expensive medications. I was lucky – I found a chiropractor whose office was right down the street from me, and within 6 weeks I was back on my feet and running.
It was at that time that a friend introduced me to stone. Love at first sight. I’m still in love. Stone is the best medium yet for the simple, roundified forms I like to make.
And wouldn’t you know it? I never thought anything could snatch me away from stone, but suddenly, years later in October of ’17, I found myself going wild about watercolors.
Color just reaches in and grabs me by the guts – in 2018 I fell for bright, gem-colored chalk pastels, and did a whole series of silly, funky critters.
In 2021, I dove into surface pattern design, and over the next years, I have created more than 3500 designs for fabric, wallpaper, tiles, and other flat applications – both single designs and repeat designs.
The ones you see on this site are only a small fraction of the enormous number of designs I’ve done. I love it that I get to do tons of drawings with all the wild color I could possibly want.
I can’t seem to keep from dipping my fingers into all sorts of pies. I love to write, so I began writing stories and articles on Medium and Substack, and I add them and my latest images on my website AngelaTreatLyon.com for people who don’t have instagram or aren’t medium or substack members.
I started writing books completely by surprise. A well-respected energy coach asked me to write a book on EFT, the Emotional Freedom Techniques, because she liked how I presented case stories. So, I did!
Since then, I’ve written and compiled over 70 books, and I have designed and published books for other authors. You can find many of my books on amazon.com, and at AngelaTreatLyonBOOKS.com.
I believe that people should be able to read for very low cost, so I have many of my best books for free or very inexpensive prices (like 5 bucks) at atlyon.gumroad.com. I know – weird name. But so what? I like having my books laid out so nicely there. My latest books, The Inside Secrets, Volumes I – VII, are all there as ebooks, and on amazon in print.
You can see the many different types of stone sculpture I’ve done at AngelaTreatLyonART.com. There’s a whole lot of my other work, too – mandalas, pastels, books, both at that site, and at LyonArtandDesign.com.
CONTACT ME!
Let me know if you have any questions about my artwork, if you’d like to purchase or commission something, or collaborate with licensing or wholesaling. Go HERE to contact me.