Navigating through SkyDancer's pages is exceedingly easy due to the well-planned menu.  The first page you come to is the site map with descriptions of the contents of each section.  There is also a second, very detailed site map which has all images catalogued alphabetically.  I kept it open throughout my whole viewing experience to ensure that I wouldn't miss one of her creations.  Start with the Introduction to get an overview of the site, and then proceed to the section titled SkyDancer for a brief bio of the artist.

The Non-Digital Art Gallery holds photos of some of Jo's award-winning traditional artwork, such as the fiber sculptures titled C'Hikkril Totem Figure and Living Column.  Remember when macramé was synonymous with something to hang a plant in?  Not anymore - and these are not small pieces - Bud is 6 feet tall!  There was an interval when she started into basket weaving and, as Jo puts it, "Of course I immediately ignored all of the 'rules' and just did my own thing."  These baskets are not your usual hold-whatever types.  Some are even made out of … sausage casings?  You really have to see these delicate, paper-like baskets to appreciate them.  Also in this section are beautiful one-of-a-kind white deerskin pouches, and Ms. Pagliassotti can be commissioned to create one based upon your own inspiration.

Bryce 2 through 4, Amorphium, Adobe Photoshop, Painter, Poser 4, L-System, Ulead, and the Celtic Knot Program, comprise some of the software used to create the images in the digital galleries.  Lakeshore Dawn is so realistic that it almost looks like a photograph.  The image titled Petals is accompanied by a tutorial, complete with screen shots of the Bryce program windows.  Most of the pictures have short paragraphs detailing what the images are about, like The Podtree Caretakers of Planet Xamborra, which make you even more aware of the detail. Sunflower of Another Sort (Jo thinks it looks more like an artichoke) shows what can be done with something as simple as one letter of the alphabet placed into a freeware program called Spiralizer.  Look at Sprites to see what a single dot can produce.  She even details what specific effects and/or applications were used to create the pictures.  The Copperworld Gallery is a collaborative effort between Jo and her daughter Dru.  Dru is in the process of writing a children's book that will be illustrated with Jo's work and there are a couple of excerpts on the site.

Children amidst huge mazes of pipes; birds in unexpected places; incongruous mixes of mechanical and life forms; fairies dancing between blades of grass, with tiny dinosaurs hatching out of eggs; images barely peeking out of the scenes.  Take the time to really look at the pictures and you will find all sorts of hidden imagery.  Many of the works have links to larger versions where you can explore the detail.  The Light Side Gallery has a great picture titled The Ladies Brigade 'sketched' in Painter.  It's hard to envision sketching with a computer, but using a drawing pad, that's exactly how this image was created.  An exquisite piece of poetry about a nursing home resident, Yesterday's Lilacs, was the inspiration for one of Jo's images.  The City is a futuristic look at the architecture of what our cities could someday become.  The Theme Gallery holds the work of 78 other artists who were invited by Jo to submit images based around four themes.

What is a bloop?  Or volumetrics?  What is the difference between reproductions and digital prints?  Ms. Pagliassotti has written articles answering these questions.  There is an interesting commentary on digital versus traditional art.  We tend to think of artists as being purely creative when they pick up their pencils, paints, and other tools.  Yet now the digital artist must master technical programs in order to create their works - right brain, left brain - merged.  "Most recently I paint with light on a wonderful tool called a computer." - Jo Pagliassotti.  What an incredible way to describe digital art.

Winner of 17 Bryce Forum Select Gallery awards, with images permanently indexed in their gallery, Jo Pagliassotti offers up a variety of treats on her web site that you will not find elsewhere.  Click on the image at the top of this page to embark upon a 'Journey Into the Mind of the Artist'.

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