Bravos

You, Deanna, are a treasure. What a wonderful, candid interview! Thank you so much for your work in writing and sharing people’s stories. What a wonderful thing to wake up to this morning!

Deanna, you are a terrific journalist because you bring the deepest answers from the artists and intellectuals you interview.

I love the article you did on me! It looks beautiful and catches the real essence of my thoughts!!! I think your beautiful interview is going to be read again and again! It was a real pleasure to do this interview and I hope we will talk again about art and the destiny of meaning again in the future!

Thanks Deanna. Your interviews, your artistic choices, are a super bright spot, always in my day.

A wonderful journey, Deanna, thanks so much.

Wonderful interview by Dr. Pearce. I follow Brad Kunkle’s work on Instagram. I was surprised to see his work in the opening credits for the Netflix series of Anne of Green Gables (Anne with an E). It is one of many things that makes that show a gem

Thank You! Deanna Piowaty!! Whose words nurture my soul!! Music to my thoughts! Air to my imagination!

Brad Kunkle’s work transcends imagination and beauty! I find myself mesmerized in the mystical world in which he transports us. Fantastic interview and article!

From the captivating interviews to the stunning art forms, I find myself feeling very invigorated every time I visit the site. Thanks so much for the quality of work you share on here.

Combustus feels like an expression of my soul, it hearkens to a greater need within me..”

Love the interview you did with the Edgar Noe Mendoza Mancillas. He is someone I would enjoy having dinner and a glass of wine with. What a soul! Thank you for presenting him and his work here

Great interview!

Really enjoyed this article! Right up my alley. Love his work. Thanks much.

Mitch Griffiths is one of my favs

Powerful stuff (interview with Edgar Noe Mendoza Mancillas) And excellent interview with Andrea Kowch.

Very interesting interview and work!!!!!!

Thanks so much for the wonderful article!

Made me emotional when I read the piece about Kriszti VanSlyke. So sweet

A fantastic article with depth of expression in both your words and interactive dialog, and by Laila’s exquisite Art.

Thank you Deanna for your publication. It has been a pleasure to get an intimate view at the life and thoughts of artists of interest to me as well as enjoy their work with generous images. It has also been a privilege to be part of your publication.

Insightful, great interview. thank you

Thank very kindly for all the work you have done with your publication, Deanna. The beautiful work and insightful interviews have always been a welcome landing for me. (Andrea Kowch is one of my favorite living artists.)

Thank you very much Deanna! The quality of your Magazine is amazing and I’m delighted to collaborate with you. I love your work.

Thank you, Deanna, your work to shine a spotlight on artists and writers worldwide is a wonderful mission!

Thank you for the delight you have provided me

Interesting article. Thank you. Putting a look of longing on a subject has long been a technique of artists.

Thank you for teaching me so much with your in-depth interviews. You open so many doors of enlightenment for me.

Francoise de Felice’s art reaches deep inside me to almost yank a visceral response. It’s achingly haunting but also unsettling in its gentle beauty. She talks about roses having special meaning. I noticed that many of the pieces you showed contain some connection to nature, even if just a rose. I think it helps ground the often ethereal figures. These pieces will stay with me. Thank you for the introduction to an artist I knew nothing about.

Bravo, Deanna you’ve done it again. This interview and Stanka’s art will live with me for a long, long time. It’s like enchanting gauze to soften the hard edges of my mind.

While reading this interview, my mind kept wandering to e.e. cummings and lines from one of his poems: ‘In Just / spring when the world is mud / luscious . . .’ In Teresa Elliott’s paintings of steers, it’s as though one can reach out and touch the silkiness of their fur. The texture is so inviting, with its whorls and windblown swirls

Thank you, Deanna. I’ve found out about more wonderful artists from you than from all the other sources combines.

Thank you for the interview with Icelandic drag queens. It’s really a fascinating world to me

In literature one has the luxury of objective analysis. I think that is why we feel more intellectual after reading these interviews. Thank you, Deanna, You are inspiration.

Deanna Phoenix Selene, it is a compliment the gift of seeing beyond the moment and gazing at an existential infinity. Deep sea fish have no concept of bottoms. It is your ability to engage that is the quality that makes you beautiful.

Wiesenfeld’s work is intriguing and his trait is exceptional. I’m a follower of his FB page

Art, music, poetry, theatre ~ it all adds to our stability when something or everything else in the world drives us toward the breaking point

Great interview, Deanna. And such striking art that goes deep. Aron Wisenfeld is such a powerful artist. His work is amazing. Using such finely detailed realism to create such ominous, atmospheric paintings that create a story in our imaginations. I think it would be exhilarating, but perhaps also a bit haunting to live with one of his pieces.That’s what makes great art. I love all your wonderful interviews you, Deanna.

Love Olivia Pendergast’s art. And very insightful observations about the brave life in Africa she documented versus Americans’ ‘extreme need for security.

I immediately see the powerful love and respect Gary Briechle captures in his raw, stunning photography.

Beautiful paintings and wonderful story about seeds and art.❤

I’d be lost without you . . .?

Great stuff!

Personal and refreshing interview as usual. Great job!

Thank you, Deanna. The art you post enriches my life. Your interviews go far beyond the ordinary.

This is…..incredible. I’m fairly speechless with the power of the words and images here. Well done.

One of my favourite interviews (Andrea Kowch). Your queries are always so intuitive, and elicit such deep responses. I bet you’d make an excellent psychotherapist!

I adore Andrea Kowch’s work!!!

Sol Halabi’s paintings are fantastic. Thank you for this great interview, Deanna! It was a pleasure to read! I’ve been reading & following Combustus for a long time. I always enjoy your interviews.

That was a beautiful interview… makes you think, like good art does

Combustus is one of best art sites! It gets my eyes, my mind opened. Through your site, I have learned about many outstanding artists.Thank you for your hard work, Deanna Selene!

Yet another interview nicely done, my friend. . .?

Always fascinating to look at Steven Kenny’s work and always a pleasure to read Combustus. Thank you, Deanna, for keeping up these high standard conversations in Combustus. I really am enjoying them.

Deanna, I read your article about Carolyn’s filmmaking. I was impressed and have been following her work ever since.

Thank you for sharing with us invaluable articles about art and artists! I appreciate every single article you publish and hope you’ll continue to enchant us with more high-quality articles.

Thank you, Deanna. It’s a great interview. Connor Walton is a wonderful painter. I wasn’t familiar with him until this.

This is excellent. I am moved. Thank you Deanna.

Just amazing!! The text and the art! Thank you, Deanna Selene.

I appreciate Ralph Pennel’s openness and the insights your questions elicit. You both share such lively rapport in this interview. Beautiful, powerful poems, too! Poetry heals.

Great interview.

Deanna, the woman who is my art historian and exceptional woman of everything I consider amazing. Thank you for opening my EYES Forever.

Fantastic interview! To say the least! Her paintings and words speaks of the consummate artist: ‘I will do this until there is nothing left to do.’ Nice work

A great article, and art work….can relate to it.

Oh Deanna. No words. I am just bawling. I am so honored. You made it magic! I have never seen anything more beautiful ~ put together from my raw… self. You are a wizard. I am more than impressed. You seem to know me; it’s so uncanny. I love you. thank you, thank you, thank you.

I am SO PROUD of this. Like nothing ever before. And I absolutely love the pieces you selected. More genius. I see all the connections, and…you are just magical. You are genius. And an angel.

I always enjoy your in-depth interviews and this is no exception

Well done, my dear, well done! Now I have a new artist to (joyfully) follow.

I love this, brilliant work.

Amazing how art can reach into the depths of feeling!

Wonderful article (interview with Stephen Bauman)

Especially in the paintings in the forest and in the twilight blue, there is a sense of being in someone else’s psyche, whether awake or sleeping. It is interesting that Morimoto says that he could not do without the color white (which, technically, is all colors)….yet, for me, it is the power of the blue (whether pure in itself or transformed into greens) that dominates or underlies his work. If you were asked, ‘what color is longing?’ wouldn’t you say blue? (For those who are interested in exploring the experience of longing, I would highly recommend Susan Stewart’s On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection.)

You always find the most beautiful artwork, Deanna Selene.

Fabulous interview with Maya Kulenovic. There is a special value in work involving the human form that is neither too detailed nor too abstracted. We recognize ourselves embedded within the universal. We walk away with a better intuitive understanding of who we are and the tender if restless longings of the soul, but amazingly more deeply connected. In the end it is that connection directing attention to the fundamental condition of unity where we will eventually find our resting place.

Great works don’t take us to another place, they vitalize the place we are in.

Great interview! I can’t express how much Teresa Elliott continues to amaze and inspire this old man.

Thanks to the artist and your magazine for the story behind the boy with the key painting! It touched my heart. When I saw this painting I was wondering about the story behind it. The article gave the answer, thanks again, Deanna!

I love how he gave the painting of his son to the hospital. What a beautiful thing. Our use of our most precious talents are so often to depict what we deeply love. To invest in our commitments and challenges and honor them. I was holding my breath as I read about that journey ~ and the gift of the story of survival, the emblem of hope for the other parents in that beautiful painting along with the reason behind where it hangs is important and profound. Another excellent interview, Deanna!

Deanna, I just wanted to write to let you know how incredibly grateful and indebted to you I am for that beautiful interview in Combustus. I have gotten so many positive responses already. The questions you asked were so evocative and the images you used were perfect. Thank you again for all your hard work on behalf of artists. I’m honored to know you. I continue to be a great fan of Combustus

Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful work on the interview! I am honoured to be on your site!

Majestically beautiful: the images resonate with stolid strength, energy and life. There is a power and a dignity to them. Stunning!

You’re always challenging, always thought-provoking, always affirming the exquisite challenges and remarkable beauty of art: don’t ever change, amazing woman!

Tamae Frame’s work is stunning in simple lines and graceful curves. And her remarks in this interview are true. We have lost the sense of touching and being touched xxx

Apart from being good paintings, Aleah Chapin’s works have touched me further: troubling, made me uneasy.

Quite impressive work, her approach to creating “an important painting” even moreso. Wonderful interview, Deanna.

Thank you all for such nice comments about my painting. I am humbled by them and the beautiful article that Michael Pearce wrote. I also have deep gratitude to Deanna for publishing it. The support you have giving to art goes beyond words.

Enriching commentaries AND the art is simply beguiling. My friend once said – Art should make you feel like something just happened to you.

Ideas challenge us to confront and embrace life – that is what I read from your Wiesenfeld interview, Deanna.