Born into an artistic family on 23 March 1976, Misty Benson often begged her mother and her aunt to draw pictures for her. It wasn’t until college that Benson (a.k.a. Gossamerfaery) realized that she had remarkable talents of her own. Although she originally attended college to become a veterinarian, after a year she noticed that she had not taken advantage of any arts classes in high school or college. Determined to change this, Benson enrolled in an art history and an anthropology course; she was so intrigued and impassioned by these that she eventually graduated with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a BFA in Studio Arts. “[These classes] allowed me to experience the world and think in ways that I may never have learned on her own,” she explains.

After graduating, Benson set up her studio, “Gossamerfaery’s Attic” in Idaho; it is here that she brings her Morbidly Adorable Creations to life. Her extensive travels around the United States and in Nepal, Thailand, Costa Rica, Spain, England, Wales, China, and South Africa inspire her artwork, but her main focus is on the fantastical, spooky, yet sweet characters she creates. Influenced by the “Big Eye Art” of Gig and artists such as Junko Mizuno and Brian and Wendy Froud, Benson’s drawings and paintings feature faeries and skeletons with big, dreamy, endearing eyes (or eye sockets!). While the faeries are the light side of her art, the “skellies” are their dark counterpart. “They have a way of laughing in the face of death and celebrating their own existence,” she explains.

Gossamerfaery’s beautiful creations are primarily painted using acrylic paints or sculpted with paperclay, a mixture of volcanic ash and paper pulp. The end results, including paintings, sculptures, stickers, and prints can be found in countless homes and collections across the country. Misty Benson’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including 500 Fairy Motifs, Big Eye Art: Resurrected and Transformed, and her own book, The Morbidly Adorable Skelly.