It was no surprise when I discovered that Maggie Jackson had won in the Fractal section of the Think Pink II contest which has just ended. Her very beautiful mandala was a perfect concept for the contest, and also a very pretty design created in Ultra Fractal...





<sub>One of the First Place prizes on offer was an interview in the News for the winner of the Fractal Section. Ironically, I had already carried out an interview of *Fraxa, which can be seen HERE!

Here is a slightly more in-depth interview, revealing more about the Person behind the Art...</sub>

Sampling of *Fraxa's works from her Gallery

Calendar - and don't miss out on *Fraxa's other Prints!

Short Interview (tailored specially for this edition)

How does it feel to have won the Fractal Section of the Think Pink II contest?

I’m slightly overwhelmed but very delighted. I got a note from Jen saying I was one of the winners, went to have a look and was shocked to find I had actually got first place – wasn’t expecting that at all! I’ve never won anything in an art contest before so this is really special.

Do you, or did you ever have a job or career, and if so what is/was it?

I’ve been retired for 7 years now but before I was married, I worked in London as a secretary/PA to the director of a multinational company and spent most of my working life in a secretarial/administration capacity in commerce, industry and the legal profession. For a time, when I was first married and the children were small, we ran newsagent and tobacconist’s shops which allowed me to work and be at home at the same time!

Do you have a family? If so, perhaps you could tell us a little about them?

I’ve been married twice, the first time for 13 years and this time since the year 2000 although we’ve actually been together since 1988. I have three children from my first marriage, Karen, who is 40, Phil who is 39 and Alan who is 35. I was a single mother from when they were 6, 10 and 11.

Karen has been married to Martyn for 13 years and they have two daughters, Martyna who is 9 and Karyna who is 7. Martyn also has two sons from his first marriage, Steven who is 22 and Sam who is 20. Phil and his partner Kate have been together 4 years and have a little boy, Sonny, who was 2 in June. Alan is still single, having had a very acrimonious split from his girlfriend about 18 months ago and is maybe still licking his wounds a bit.

I also have one brother who is 18 years younger than me - so only 6 years older than my daughter - and he lived with us for a time when he was little. He now has a son and daughter himself but sometimes it’s hard not to think of them as being my grandchildren rather than my nephew and niece!

I love every single one of them to bits. My grandchildren are a constant delight and never fail to make me smile when I’m feeling down. My children have been totally supportive, both to me and to each other and my husband is probably the most long-suffering person in the whole world.

Are any of your family members artists of any sort?

My mother painted watercolours in later life, my son, Phil, is very talented at drawing fantasy characters such as dragons, gargoyles, that sort of thing and my daughter has a great flair for colour and design.

Since you ask …artists of any sort – my husband is a full-time musician and Phil writes and performs his own blues-style songs – sometimes the words of his songs make me cry they are so beautiful.

If you had never had a computer, do you think you would have tried artwork in any other form?

Probably not with any seriousness – I know I’m absolutely useless at traditional art – can’t draw anything recognisable, certainly can’t paint, no good at pottery – but my head’s always been full of artistic ideas, that’s why I’m so glad to be able to use the computer as an outlet for them.

What are your main hobbies besides producing fractals?

I do a lot of cross-stitch, which I find very relaxing. I keep threatening to convert one of my fractals into a chart and stitch it – but it’s still on my list of ‘things to do before I die’! I also read quite a lot, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series (about dragons) is a favourite, also anything by Terry Pratchett – the man is a genius – and biographies/autobiographies. I used to do a lot of gardening but I’m afraid my elderly joints won’t let me do as much as I would like now. Of course, I’m an avid soccer fan – if you can call that a hobby – and I certainly spend quite a lot of time watching it, on TV, occasionally at Old Trafford when I can get to Manchester, the girls’ team by brother runs or just kids in the park.

Do you live in the kind of environment that enables you to socialise and pursue hobbies that you enjoy? If so, do you play an active part in any of them?

I’m quite a solitary person – apart from spending time with my family – not unsociable but I do like to spend time on my own and I’ve moved around a great deal so it’s hard to maintain long-term friendships. I do wish I had more ‘real world’ friends but my friends on DA are a really good substitute – there are some great people here.

Could you pick out any three of your fractals from your dA gallery that you like the most and say what it is you specially like about them?

I suppose I’ve picked the following three not so much for their aesthetic qualities but because of the sense of achievement I felt when I’d completed them.

The first one is The Magic Pool - I’m particularly fond of this one because it took me months to collect enough Apo images to make a picture – I wasn’t very good then at choosing what I wanted to make in Apo and then actually being able to do it – it was just a matter of tweaking what turned up!! Eventually I had enough to put them all together in Photoshop Elements and I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out in the end.

The second one is Aquarelle - I like this because I managed to successfully combine the glass ‘gems’ I’d been trying to make with a fractal image – I’d tried quite a few times before but this is the first one I really liked.

The third one is Chain - I like this because I felt I’d finally got the hang of masking properly in Ultrafractal – you’ve no idea how hard I found it despite the help I’ve had from many people trying to explain it to me! I also discovered how to use textures and I really like the rusty one on the chain links.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I’ve recently taken my website down as I was getting a bit fed up with my artwork being ripped off and turned into tacky videos on YouTube and elsewhere. I really only built the website to see whether I could do it or not and now I know the answer – I can! I just have my gallery here now and a smaller one at Renderosity.

There is a great collection of links to both Apo and UF tutorials and resources, plus some for other programme, at ImagersFractalDDs [link] - it’s the best collection of links that I know of. *FireLilyFractals (Mary Thornton) also has some very easy-to-follow UF tutorials for beginners which I found immensely useful. I would thoroughly recommend anyone starting out with UF to take Janet Parke’s courses on-line at the Visual Arts Academy. Although they can be a bit intense, they are interactive, so you get lots of feedback from the instructor and they are extremely reasonably priced.


_{CONGRATULATIONS MAGS on winning the Fractal Section of the Think Pink II Contest! This was a huge achievement, particularly taking into account the very numerous amount of entries for this extremely worth-while cause run by `JunkbyJen in conjunction with $Moonbeam13}