About

 ARTIST STATMENT  | ARTIST BIO  | ARTIST & COMPANY NAME

~buffy

My name is Buffy (yes, my real name), ~buffy is my artist name. The tilde (~) is a remnant from my web dev days. I used ~buffy to sign my electronic communications in that career because essentially, what one was looking at was virtually linked to me...

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I started signing my completed art works with ~buffy because they too were a reflection of me. They came from within. A manifestation of my imagination that sometimes represented personal experiences, emotions, or observations.

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Other times, my art results from the vision of the clients – filtered through my creative lens – flowing reimagined into my art.

Cope Aesthetic

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I chose to use Cope Aesthetic Design during my senior semester of college in the Spring of 2014. I had to build a website for my Senior Portfolio Design class and wanted to use a name that would communicate that I was a design professional. 

I have always had an affinity for phrases that have multiple meanings. In the case of Cope Aesthetic, phonetically: "Cope Aesthetic" sounds like Copasetic - a fun way to say “it’s all good” - and that was my original inspiration. 

Breaking Cope Aesthetic down into it's components: 

1. Cope was my last name.

2. Aesthetic is a core design principle that defines a design's pleasing qualities. In visual terms, aesthetics includes factors such as balance, color, movement, pattern, scale, shape and visual weight. Designers use aesthetics to complement their designs' usability, and enhance functionality with attractive layouts.

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When choosing a name, I was developing principles guiding my aesthetic creativity in the artistic realm with a focus on web and graphic design.

Finally, an aesthetic attitude involves appreciating artwork for its own sake, and that is my personal approach even more so now, as a visual artist and fine art photographer. I’ve often said my paintings are complete or my photographs are composed just right because when I look at them, I don't just see it, I feel it – visual aesthetics bring me pleasure. 

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As I was transitioning to a full-time artist in 2017, I received feedback that the name Cope Aesthetic Design was too long so I dropped "Design" and have been using Cope Aesthetic ever since.