Marco Mazzoni’s fascination for art began when he was 14 years old. His friends who had a rock band, asked him to do the cover for their album. “I became interested in art looking for cues from the covers of Korn and Jack Off Jill”.

Jennifer Joanou creates visual journals and altered books utilizing mixed media and collage techniques. A graduate with a BFA in Fashion Design from Otis College of Art and Design, her work is a culmination of more than 25 years as an artist. This work began when she was a teenager and sewed her own clothes, then continued when, in her early 20’s, she became a prominent Los Angeles designer. Her women’s wear was popular with Hollywood studio executives and was sold in Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman and Fred Segal. In 2004, she began creating art journals and altered books that incorporate her love of personal expression and all of her past mediums including fabric, photography, paper and paint.

Kirbi Fagan is an award-winning book cover illustrator specializes in creating art for young readers. Her illustrations are known for their magic themes, vintage textures, bright colors, and powerful characters. She received her bachelor’s degree in Illustration from Kendall College of Art and Design. Kirbi lives by two words… “spread joy.”

I would like to introduce Danny Gregory, co-founder of Sketch Book Skool and sketchbook artist. An amazing person who has inspired me to sketch everyday! His new book will be arriving soon at your favorite booksellers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Independent book stores on February 17th.

Juliana Coles, award winning fine artist, received her BFA from the Academy of Art University San Francisco. A controversial pioneer of the Art Journaling movement, Coles developed “Extreme Visual Journaling,” an active meditation technique and spiritual practice that accesses archetypal signs and symbols from the unconscious for transformation and healing. What began as a personal creative inquiry into developing new pathways in the brain after her epileptic seizures, this process, taught by Coles internationally, is now used by art therapists, teachers, artists and professionals around the world. Her inspiring Visual Journals have been featured in over 20 books including “Making Journals By Hand,” and as part of the “1000 Journals Project” her work was exhibited at the SFMOMA. Coles creates from her enchanted studio in Albuquerque, NM with her Ghost Cat, Petey, RIP.

Lisa Kokin lives and works in El Sobrante, California with her spouse Lia, three Chihuahua studio assistants and Bindi the cat. The daughter of upholsterers, Kokin stitches everything she can get her hands on, including discarded books which she rescues from the local recycling center. Kokin received her BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA, and is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions. Her work is in many private and public collections in the United States and abroad. Kokin is represented by Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, CA, Gail Severn Gallery in Ketchum, ID, Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson, WY, and Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas, TX.

Elusive Muse knows that many of you will be ready to pack your bags and move right in to the amazing studio of Vermont-based artist, Sarah Amos! There is certainly plenty of room. We are busy putting the finishing touches on our exclusive interview with Sarah and will be sharing some of her amazing work with you soon, but in the meantime we thought we would share a few photos to wet your appetite.

Alexander Korzer-Robinson is an UK-based artist whose work transforming antiquarian books has brought him international acclaim. The base material for his “cut book sculptures” are antiquarian books that have been stripped of their utilitarian value by the passage of time. Working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others, a new composition is formed using only the contents of the original volume.

Artist Rebecca Rebouché has long been influenced by her Southern upbringing and the flora and fauna of the natural world. Rebecca splits her time between a treehouse studio in rural Louisiana and a loft in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. Her paintings are widely popularized on products at Anthropologie. She is the founder of The Beauty Shop Gallery in New Orleans, located in an old cornerstore that once served as a salon. She can be found traveling the world for inspiration and posting to instagram. Viewing her portfolio is like stepping into her dreams, while her blog reads like a found diary.

Roberta Cadorin is an italian mixed media artist located in Belluno, Italy.

Ben Giles will not stand still. At just 21 years old, he’s already designed prints for Diesel and has been chosen by Justin Timberlake to be featured on BeachMint (a website selling art hand- picked by celebrities). Giles also boasts a vast body of personal work. The young collage artist, hailing from Suffolk, England describes his work as experiments in “collaboration, installation, pattern, film, sound, creation, repetition, evolution, and metamorphosis.”

Born in Poland in 1984, Bartosz Beda relocated himself to the UK in 2008 to study at the Manchester School of Art. After graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2011, and selected for the 2012 Catlin Art Guide for most promising emerging artists in UK, he progressed onto the Masters programme at Manchester Metropolitan University to develop his practice as a painter. Beda has been short-listed for the Title Art Prize, the Door Prize, and The Saatchi New Sensations 2012, and won the esteemed Torwy Award for the Best of the North of England in 2012.

Juliette Bates was born in 1983 in Paris where she lives and works. In 2007, she earned a master’s degree Reserach in Art History from University Paris X with a dissertation about the photography of fairground freaks at the end of Nineteenth century, in France and in the United States. Juliette decided to devote her time to taking and printing her own photos. She graduated from the Icart Photo school in 2011. With a pronounced taste for graphics, curiosities and scenes instilled with an absurd element, she explores photographic themes that appeal to her: the confrontation of man and nature, the passing of time, a certain fragility…

Michael Kerbow is a San Francisco-based artist who works in a variety of media including painting, drawing, assemblage, and digitally-manipulated photography. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has appeared in multiple publications.