Ellen Stedfeld
Bio
Perpetually immersed in drawing, illustration, and creative experiments, at live events and @EllesaurArts.com
Community arts in NYC/Queens -- LIC Arts Open festival May 15-19th 2024
Love participating in challenges to motivate new work!
Achievements (1)
Stories (43/0)
- Top Story - May 2024
A Minute's DifferenceTop Story - May 2024
It was a Tuesday, 2:58...59 in the afternoon. My friend Andy was white-knuckled gripping the edge of his school desk, staring desperately at the second hand of the clock slooowly circling round, while our teacher droned on and on. A girl behind me cracked her gum. Another classmate was fervently scribbling notes. I was trying to look just awake enough not to get called on. Wrapped in my grey hoodie, eyes drooping behind uncut bangs, head leaning on folded arms, I appeared the cliche of a bored teenage boy, on the verge of daydreaming his way into a more exciting life.
By Ellen Stedfeld16 days ago in Fiction
- Second Place in Snow Micro Challenge
SnowmanSecond Place in Snow Micro Challenge
The boy sculpted a man from the New Snow. A snowman. His lonely tears fell against the frost, a smear of blood from his bruises, the salt of his sweat, and warm breath that summoned life from the barren landscape, as frantic flakes swirled down around them. He wrapped his scarf around the stoic standing figure, tenderly as though this simple visage were his elder brother, and ardently wished for the company of a true friend. A floating spirit, who'd long been lost within a cracked lake's frigid waters, whose essence had become one with the winter season, he encountered this vessel crafted by the boy and found it to be a fine resemblance of his former self, a suitable resting place for his soul. Boy, spirit, and winter's magic coincided in that moment. The snowman shed a tear in tune with the lonely boy's sadness, and a small pearl of ice dropped onto the boy's head. His cold hands, like those of a corpse returned to waking, unfolded and hugged the boy with a comfort the child had never before known. "I am with you now" the young man whispered to the little magician. "I will protect you, and take you away from this place, to wherever you want to go." The boy looked up, amazed that his desperate dream had come true. He remembered then, the stories told of shaping a wish from the first snowfall. And now he believed in his heart that anything could be possible.
By Ellen Stedfeld3 months ago in Fiction
Vocal-izing 2024
New Year's resolutions are a touchy subject for some people - resistant to setting unrealistic goals, and the unpleasant weight of added expectations, aiming for changes that may never happen. Are you setting a new course for yourself, or should focus on developing who you already are?
By Ellen Stedfeld4 months ago in Art
Subway People
I often drew pictures of people on my commutes through the New York subway system. Carrying a little sketchbook that I could cradle in my hands. It was so beautiful to look at a row of passengers seated across the train car, and see so many different kinds of faces all in one place. All with two eyes, one nose, and a mouth, but each so distinctive in their shapes. As an artist, it was important to examine and determine how to depict such things, how to distinguish on person from another, or find their commonalities. This fascinated me.
By Ellen Stedfeld7 months ago in Art
Magnificent Mess
Well, if you think in probabilities of how long I'll live, at 37.5 x2=75 seems likely these days, while my great-grandma lived to 97/2=48.5 so it tracks that I'd be writing my middle memoir about now, possibly projecting into the next 10 years. (Though by then, they might have invented technology that keeps as alive another lifetime. Or the world could end tomorrow.)
By Ellen Stedfeld9 months ago in Chapters
Through Wardrobes
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - and actually the entire Narnia series - is one of the first full books I remember my parents reading to me, then reading and even re-reading the entire set to myself at a young age, and already thinking I must re-read again when I'd forgotten too much.
By Ellen Stedfeld9 months ago in BookClub
(Mostly) Good Omens: the show
A delight to watch the characters interact, their reluctance to admit genuine care for each other’s well-being, amidst a humorous struggle to handle a world on the verge of cosmically falling apart. However, my appreciation of it relies too much on what it promises, not entirely upon how it delivers.
By Ellen Stedfeld9 months ago in Critique