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Info About Me
My name is Pat Thielen and I live in sunny and tranquil Woodbury, Minnesota which is a 'burb of St. Paul. I moved here last year from North Minneapolis, which in my estimation was a very good move. Although I'm not living in a stone house in the woods, I am well away from the gunshots, burglaries, fights, assaults and other wonderful facets of my old neighborhood. My real goal is to get a house in the country and escape the insanity of the city, but right now I'm far to poor for that. Or, a nice place in Uptown would be nice as well. Cash donations are, of course, always accepted. I really am a good charity and may even be tax deductible. Really (except maybe for that tax deductible stuff)! Fantasy has always been a big part of my existence and sanity. I've always enjoyed reading books by J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles DeLint, Greg Bear, Robert Heinlein, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Kenneth Graham, Michael Moorcock, Katherine Kerr, Anne Rice, and many others. I've also been greatly impressed with the myriad of fantasy illustrators and artists; such as Brian Froud, Wally Wood, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, Clyde Caldwell, Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, Julie Bell, Michael Whelan, Bernie Wrightson, and many others -- including some very fine amateurs that I've seen at conventions and on the Internet. Fantasy is one of those things that keeps me going. I often think that if I go just a little farther into the mist I'll find the Realm of Fey or the Otherworld, which I believe to be much closer to us than we may think. I don't think of fantasy worlds as being that far away, really. They're just behind the gossamer veil, which at any moment could be brushed aside with a breath. Sometimes I'm convinced that people like Charles DeLint are writing nonfiction, as opposed to fiction. I can feel the reality of their words in the back of my mind. This is something I try to portray or hint at in some of my photographs, and if I'm successful in this the viewer will hopefully be touched by a hint of the fantastic when they view them. Fantasy doesn't necessarily exist in another place in another time far, far, away. It can exist quite nicely in the here-and-now; hopefully this vision comes through in some of my work. This interest gets me to some of the Fantasy/Science Fiction conventions that occur each year near my home, such as Minicon, CONvergence, MarsCon and Valleycon. The Sci/Fi crowd is a wonderful bunch of deviants, who all share a common interest: To party and escape. They are free-willed, open, rather honest, and usually posses above average intelligence. Anyone who is interested in the genre should attend at least one convention a year. It's wonderful therapy! And where also can you hang out with a few hundred (or thousand) of your closest friends? The conventions also give me an outlet for my art, which can be quite encouraging when people actually buy the stuff. So, from fantasy we go to conventions and on to another closely related topic: Paganism. Yep, that's right, I'm Pagan (scary, huh?). This I've been all my life; although I was raised in a Catholic family; and I'm very happy I chose to be born a Pagan again during this lifetime. I tend to work along a Shamanic path, with Celtic and (mostly) Native American (Dakota) influences. I'm by no means a Shaman yet, but I'm learning all the time and continuing to grow in my abilities and Wisdom. I've also been involved in Wicca and a couple different Druid groups. The Pagan path contains what I believe to be the most diverse group of individuals you'll ever find. Everyone has their own path to Spirit and their own ways of expressing this connection. It is said, among Pagans, that if you ask a room of five Pagans a question you'll get at least seven different answers. This inside joke expresses the fact that these folk are very individualistic and are able to grasp and accept multiple ideas on a given subject (or that we can't make up our minds on anything <g>). Many are psychic, artistic, creative, highly intelligent, and most are broke. But being without money is a choice most of us make, for money in itself doesn't really get you anything important. If you can't take it with you when you die there is little point in being overly concerned with it. Money is a tool that needs to be used by the person, not the other way around. I think that's where a breakdown in our society occurs -- people normally think of money first and people and ideas second. This attitude has caused pollution, war, famine, destruction of the environment, and all manner of problems for people the world over -- along with creating a powerful sense of denial to justify it all. Greed seems to be the greatest virtue of the neo-god Dollar. There comes a time when even certain gods outlive their usefulness. So Pagans do not look at the world the same as most people. We comprise perhaps 5% of the population here on Turtle Island, and most people have never heard of us apart from segments on shows like "Strange Universe." But that's all right. We're interested in quality over quantity and so the Pagan groups are usually kept quietly out of the way from society in general. To us, such taboo subjects as sex and nudity are considered sacred as they are aspects of Spirit and are integral parts of the Creation. To me it is incredibly sad to see that such beautiful and natural things as love and the human body are considered "obscene" and are censored, and yet all manner of violence is quite acceptable. You can't show a naked person on TV, but you sure as hell can blow someone up and have people killed in other equally horrific ways. All on prime time, of course. It would be so much healthier to accept love, sex and nudity as the natural and Spiritual things they are and put away the violence. But then, that's one of the reasons I'm in that 5% group. This Pagan side of me is very evident in a lot of my work as well, and will continue to be a focus in the future. Witches have this unique ability to make fantasy real; they are like a bridge between the worlds. They open doors and bend reality all while existing in the "real" world. So by portraying a witch or some "unearthly" or "supernatural" creature in the here-and-now I can help the viewer suspend disbelief for just a moment and allow them to feel the fantastic in a very real way. I this is a component of any good depiction of fantasy, and I truly hope it is something I achieve in my work.
As far as photography goes, my influences are mostly from painters as opposed to other photographers. I'm heavily interested and influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites of Victorian England, as well as legends and literature. I try to approach this in my photography; its very much like creating a painting on film. In some ways, this makes me a throwback to the late 19th century, when photography was still young. This is what many early photographers were trying to do -- create on film what the artists were creating on canvas. I have no intention (at least now) of being an avant-garde high-art photographer. I try to capture a sense of wonder, beauty, and romance in my work. I also don't do much of the abstract nude work that seems to be popular these days. To me, when a person's head is cut off in a photograph the picture is no longer of an individual, but of an object. The photograph is about curves and composition, but it tells nothing of the person in the photo. While there's nothing wrong in this approach (and I have done figure abstracts myself), I find it more comfortable to include the person's identity in my work. While it may not seem "artistic" or cutting edge, I don't really care. Being "cutting edge" isn't really what I'm about. That I hope gives you some idea of where I'm coming from as far as my photography goes. My subjects are very near and dear to me, so to speak. An artists' creation says as much about the artist as the subject that is being depicted, and this is no different with me. So, have fun looking at the pictures and open yourself up to feel the energy behind the images. Who knows -- they may inspire something within you. Home
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About Me 11/16/04 3:29 AM
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Hello
and welcome to my WEB page. My biographical page is by no means complete
or all-encompassing. I've put it here to put a little of "me"
behind the photographs you can view in the galleries. I think it helps
put the pictures in context if there is some background information about
the photographer. I like this when I view other photographers' pages,
so I'll try to do the same for you. Feel free to send me e-mail if you're
curious about anything you find here or want to simply comment on the
photography. Comments that are not constructive -- insulting, flaming,
attacking, sexual (you get the idea) are not desired or appreciated. Those
you can keep to yourself and save us all bandwidth and grief.
In
keeping with an interest in the Occult and Otherworldly pursuits, I'm
very much drawn into the Goth community. I've always been a great lover
of creepy things; vampires, witches, ghosts, old Victorian homes and artwork,
and anything that is somehow tucked away from what we define as reality.
The Dark side of ourselves is something to be embraced and understood,
not avoided and stuffed away out of fear and ignorance. One of my favorite
concepts along these lines is the break with reality; that things are
not as they seem. I like things that are just a little"off,"
so to speak. One example would be the Adams family and the work of Charles
Adams the cartoonists. While on the surface the Adams family are a relatively
"normal" family (okay, they do wear black and may be somewhat
scary) they also exhibit behavior that isn't "quite right,"
for lack of better terminology. Reality in their context is warped, which
is the creepiness I especially like. Another great example of this warped
sense of reality can be found in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, who could
scare the hell out of you without telling you anything at all. It's what
is hinted at that makes his writings creepy and horrific, not what is
blatantly obvious. The Old Ones don't make a direct appearance in his
work, but they scare us all the same.