Artist Katharine Angell Woodman says the woods behind her Searsmont Rd. Studio in North Appleton, Maine are enchanted. Fairies, nymphs and leprechauns gather there to do mischief and consort with nature. Sometimes they leave gifts for the children who visit Woodman. And sometimes, a fairy will still her beating wings, will hesitate just long enough for Woodman to capture her on film.

"All forests are enchanted," says Woodman. "But especially the forests in Maine, because of the vast variety of toadstools, mosses and ferns."

Inside her studio, cutouts of angels swing from cabinet knobs and feathers, glitter and white silk chiffon fill a hundred nooks and crannies. Red-spangled shoes the size of an acorn claim space on Woodman's desk along with photographs of fairies and a dish of Lunar Moth wings. Other wings large enough for a human fairy hang in a corner, waiting for a child eager to leave the real world with her Nikes at the door.

In part, children are what inspired Woodman to begin creating her fairy prints. She remembers a nearly idyllic childhood, roaming in the woods behind her grandmother's Seal Harbor home. She remembers "secret places" to play, parents who remained married to one another and a myriad of opportunities simply to be a child.

"Today", Woodman says, "children experience a different world. Families are broken up. Other families are in the trap of needing two incomes. And the children are hurt. They're left with television and the so-called information highway. It's so unconnected. Why do we need so much information anyway? We should just listen to our hearts. So I decided to bring some of the magic back."

As she speaks, Woodman points to a picture of her grandmother, who looks something like a fairy godmother herself, and may serve as a reminder to the artist of her own charmed and magical childhood. Woodman's words careen about the room, dancing from topic to topic. She laughs easily and frequently, never allowing the conversation to get too serious. Wisps of long blonde hair frame her face, the rest tucked into a knot a the back of her neck. She gets up to change the music.

"Jazz," she says. "It's not my energy," as she searches for classical music. A flute concerto fills the room and drifts through the open windows into the enchanted woods behind.

Woodman moves to several boxes filled with fairy prints. One by one, she names the fairies pictured and tells their story. She holds up "LUNA" and in the photograph, tiny Luna holds a chrysalis, the hard shelled pupa of a Monarch butterfly. "It's real," she says, pointing to the chrysalis. "Most people when they see it don't know what it is. It's Luna's job," she explains, "to protect the chrysalis. Monarch butterflies winter in the mountains of Mexico," she says, "and because of deforestation there and seven inches of snow during the last two winters, hundreds of thousands have not survived to make the long journey home to Maine. Woodman says she only saw two last year.

You know, there are jewels of moments in life, almost like, you want to ask: "Hey, who's scripting this?" She suddenly interjects. "Like the other day, I was thinking about how long it had been since I'd seen a Monarch and I looked out my front door and there was a Monarch, fluttering at me, as if to say: 'I'm back.'" She continues the litany of fairy names: Moonbeam ,Arianna, Harmony, each a flicker of magic poised amid toadstools and moss and the secrets of the forest in her back yard. Sometimes, she insists, creatures appear in the finished photo that were not there when she snapped the shutter. But then, when you photograph fairies for a living, anything's possible.

Not that she hasn't had years of experience in the world of art. Woodman worked for 25 years as a makeup artist in film and television, painting such faces of such well knowns as Charlton Heston, Lena Horne, Betsy Palmer, Kevin Bacon and William Shatner to name just a few. She also describes herself as an avid watercolorist who has had many shows in New York City and Long island.

One day, a man from Canada came into her studio and said he wanted the framed print of the Star-Chaser for his daughter, who's a year old. He said he remembered from his childhood a picture of two guardian angels that hung over his bed, and he wanted his daughter to have one hanging by her crib, so she could have the same magical moments of childhood he had known.

"...And that was a MAGICAL MOMENT for me ", she said. " To have someone connect with my vision is food for my soul; it's always the frosting on the cake !".

By Linda McRea
Courtesy of The Bangor Daily News August 28th,1997