In the beautiful sprawling pixel grass of Personaland hide many artists. From the same dimension as us, all humans, all armed with wildly different perspectives, new kinds of art to be shown to and enjoyed by the masses. The Personas carefully curate such a space, their attachment to the natural and the intuitive allowing them to seek out creative souls that undoubtedly value the world around them. Those who seek to tell the stories of nature writ large, like other artists we’ve examined, Maryse and Stewart himself. But instead of photography, or print pastels and colored pencils, Victor Leger’s weapon of choice are oil paints.

An innovator, philosopher, and creative all his life, Stewart Wilson would do many things before he ever created the Personas or Personaland. He’s been all over: hails from Connecticut but born in North Carolina, and found himself moving around a lot as a kid. He moved to Florida, first at Coco Beach, then Fort Lauderdale, where he got used to the feeling the sand in between his toes, hot sun, and low adult supervision.

Do you know of the early morning chickadee tweets, chirping cicadas and the hot sting of the sun- the sweat that sticks your clothes to your skin, your hair to your forehead? Or maybe you are, perhaps, more familiar with late evening buzz of fireflies, asps slithering through the grass, scratchy-scratching of the marsupials, as they scrounge around in the bushes for another bite to eat?

An idyllic setting, perhaps too whimsical for some, but the space where Maryse is likely to feel most at home. A green-thumbed artist in her own right, with a deep-seated affinity for the flora and fauna of her home Australia, Maryse shares with the Personas that intuitive call to nature, and responds with a resounding hoot, thump and holler of her own!

Personaland receives another grant from the Agnes Gund Foundation

The creation of the Personas spurred Stewart toward welcoming community service.

For 40 years, Stewart Wilson has been creating Personas, tiny, whimsical sculptures of humanoid figures made from fabric and wire. He sold them in high-end shops in New York City and elsewhere. Over the years, Wilson has made about 31,000 Personas. Wilson’s latest project is to give his Personas a place to live: Personaland. On the animated website personaland.com, Personas roam the terrain. Advertisement

The site features interactive games, art galleries, a shop and virtual tours of the fantastical world where the lively, magical Personas live with horses, dragons, and other animals, and where the rules that govern the real world don’t apply.

Personaland blog launches by introducing the Personas