Alison Faris

Hi, I’m Ali and welcome to my website Simply A Joy.  I created Simply A Joy mainly as a way for me to showcase my photography to my family and friends, but also as a means to rid my piles of miscellaneous binders and organize my creative projects (diy!), successfully-attempted recipes and other random bundles of things I collect/love/do (a lot of which revolve around food) in one place.

I am from a town located all warm & cozily in the crook of the thumb of beautiful Wisconsin: Fond du Lac.  Fond du Lac is cleverly French-named “Bottom of the Lake” since it’s (surprise!) located at the bottom of Wisconsin’s largest lake (!), Lake Winnebago.  Shockingly enough, said lake is not my favorite.  Rather, it is where I grew up on a small lake called Lake DeNeveu.  One wouldn’t think that the most magical, majestic and fun place in the whole wide world would exist here, but it does.  And, as you’ll see from the vast amount of pictures I take of it, I am slightly obsessed with it.  

Maybe it’s because I grew up surrounded by this mile long, half-mile wide, 70-foot deep pool of greatness that I love taking pictures of nature, but I have always been a little artsy fartsy.  Growing up, I took as many art classes as possible.  (Remember Pappyland?  I would wake up every day before school to dive into the colorful life and drawing lessons by Pappy.)  However, I my overall love for art really started showing in middle school when I would beg my art teacher to let me come in before school, skip study hour, or stay after school to play around in the art room.

Art, to me, is a creative outlet I can plug into at any minute of any day.  It is a type of daily exercise regime and stress reliever that allows me to throw my imagination into anything and escape the crazy outside world.  I constantly catch myself trying to make a picture out of everything I see.  Due to that, I take an annoying amount of pictures (and carry my camera around with me whenever I can).  Slowly, after I noticed just how many pictures I had collecting virtual dust within my computer, I started going through and editing them to see what I could really create. Now, my apartment is a mini gallery of sorts for my favorite photos and art projects.

So, with (all) that said, welcome to Simply A Joy.  It is Simply me, Alison Joy!