Alisa

I love to travel...have an addiction to paper...live in San Diego...wish I was a mermaid...love the ocean...have 2 cats but don't like cat "stuff"...need coffee in the morning and at 3pm...add words to all of my art...believe that anticipation is the key to happiness, or at least a reason for getting out of bed in the morning...

I'm a Scorpio with no secrets.

Frida Kahlo is one of my heroes. I play the soundtrack to "Frida" when I'm making art.

I'm learning Portuguese because I have a weakness for Brazilian men. Should that be a secret?

I like the Virgin Mary in all of her incarnations and I have a shrine to her in my house. Lately I've been learning about Imanja or Yemaya, a Yoruba goddess who is also said to be another version of the Virgen Mary.

I like all kinds of religious icons and acoutrements.

I also like Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) because it looks at death in the face and accepts it as part of life. This goes along with my life philosophy of living every day - really, really living and loving - because you don't know if tomorrow is going to happen for you.

I love bright colors and lots of sparkle. I have enough patience to glue sequins on one-by-one with a bamboo skewer, which happens to be my favorite art tool. My favorite color right now is aqua.

I'm a wordsmith- love langugages, fonts, books, alphabets, words, words, words. Anything with printing, any language, non-Roman alphabets are especially fascinating.

I'm often a little behind, but I ALWAYS send my swaps.

Collages: anything that I can stick to something else. One of my favorite mediums is encaustic (beeswax). Since I joined swap-bot I've made lots of ATCs and inchies.

I also make tiles with polymer clay and have just started decorating matchboxes. When I can get them, I also make shrines/nichos.

Crafty Chica (Kathy Cano Murillo) makes amazing everythings! She is my soul-sister-glitter.

Laurie Mika creates beautiful, ethereal mosaics with polymer clay tiles that she makes herself.

People who make art journals, or who add collage and other elements to their journals. Dan Elridge inspires me.

rock, a little reggaeton, flamenco, mariachi if there are trumpets, dance/trance/house, Rafael Moreira - the hottest musician on the planet!

Hawaii, Spain, France, The Algarve, Tangiers, India, London, Italy, Germany, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Brussels, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Amsterdam, New York, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans

Brazil, Thailand, Austin TX, Fireweed Art Retreat in Juneau, Alaska

cookbooks, especially international; contemorary fiction, but not Oprah's book club because they usually depress me; anything by Southern authors, fiction or not; travel; dictionaries in other languages; art and artists; chica lit by authors like Mary Castillo and Laurie Notaro; paganism, tarot, astral travel

cutsie Japanese/anime stuff; chickie-ducky themes; commercial Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc. decorations; chicken; chocolate; tea; desert/mountain themes; books and movies about animals because they make me cry