Desiree Hewlett was born and raised in Vancouver where she was fortunately brought up by open minded, creative parents. She decided at a young age that creating was the most interesting thing to do in this life. She considers herself and artist who uses various mediums mostly consisting of photography at the moment. Desiree considers anything where a person conveys creativity in a medium, to be art. This includes: photography, writing, painting, drawing, sculpting, crafting, textiles, drama, singing, computer graphics, public speaking, sex and music. These may be broad terms and not completely inclusive, but then again neither is art. 'As cheesy as it sounds, I create therefore I am.' Desiree has been known to say in one of her more alcohol induced moods. She started out by dabbling in textiles, public speaking, writing and recycled crafts during her younger years. Then she tried her hand at two dimensional art, decided it wasn't her forte unless she was copying and continued on manly a three dimensional artist in high school. After she was dragged kicking and screaming to Kamloops with her parents at 18, she attended the University College of the Cariboo and was finally able to take photography and design. Considering she was only one of maybe the handful of Goths residing in that town at that time, the time spent there was arduous. Needless to say, Desiree spent most of her time breathing in chemicals up close and personal in the Dark Room, going on nature walks, getting stalked for her Demonia boots, living on the internet and discovering what a beautiful medium photography could be. She no longer needed to be good at processing real life that moves and changes into lines which was her big problem with two dimensional art from life before. It now had a picture plain, space and lines that would not move on her. Desiree took her lens on a journey to view the ordinary in an un-usual and unique way. She loves to play with peoples perceptions and make them ask her what it is that she took a photo of. Currently, with the help of Descent, she's been studying movement and it's effects on photography. 'I love to dance. I love to watch people dance. Sometimes it bares the soul more than any words can say. Dancing and beautiful clothing is what initially intrigued and inspired me about the Gothic community.'
Desiree eventually escaped Kamloops to live here in New Westminster where she has spent the last three years enjoying the Goth scene. She took an Adobe Photoshop course and eventually gave in to digital photography after the unavailability of darkrooms were beat into her tiny head. She also decided to further her three dimensional career with a Motion Picture Set Painting Course.
Desiree hopes to further her artistic experience through her volunteer work at Descent and hopes that her photos may make people remember a good time, a forgotten friend or a good emotion from the moment of time captured behind her lens. She invites anyone who wants a photo to come up and ask for one. If you like her work and are in a photo which you would like a bigger size of she will send it to you. 'Artwork can only fully be appreciated if it is shared.'
One day in the near future Desiree hopes to go to Emily Carr or Kwantlen to get a photographic degree so that she may fulfill her dream of owning her own studio. She is so tired of the Sears 'cut and paste' portrait studio that she wishes to make it in the market of unique photo portraits for the average person and the alternative alike. She would like to create her own sets, light her own studio and generally make people look the way they think they should be, truely are or what they feel they look like inside. She'd also very much like to dabble in fetish photography and mythical creatures. All will come in time and until then, she's going to have a good time getting there.
