I am an Irish born illustrator with a degree in visual communications from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland. For nearly thirty years I have been freelancing as a graphic designer specializing in illustration. The outdoors and especially wild flowers and gardening have always been a passion of mine so in the mid-nineties I went back to college and studied horticulture at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin, Ireland.

During those studies I interned in the United States of America at several public gardens in the Washington D.C. area including the Smithsonian Institute’s butterfly garden. While there I met Adrian Higgins, the Washington Post Gardening Editor and in February, 2000 I started illustrating the new gardening column “Digging In” in the Lifestyle section of the Washington Post. I now combine my love for gardening with native plants and environmental education with my design and illustration work.

In 1998 I moved to the United States, living first in Washington D.C. In 2000 I moved to Salem, Oregon and I’ve been living there ever since with my husband and our 10 year-old daughter.

What’s in a name?

When I was young very few people had the name Aislinn. It is an old Irish (Gaelic) word meaning dream or vision. It is also a genre of poetry. Although my name is spelled Aislinn, it is pronounced Ash-ling. This pronunciation comes from  the southern Irish province of Munster where words ending ‘inn’ are pronounced ‘ing’ in their particular Irish (Gaelic) dialect. I was rather embarrassed by my name’s meaning when young. I loved the idea of it but at the same time it seemed a bit grandiose for me. To make matters worse my brothers would like to tease me about it, saying I was more like a nightmare than a dream! It was especially embarrassing in those awkward teen years when practically anything said about you could cause embarrassment.

Then one day in my late teens while on my first solo adventure traveling in Greece I met a Canadian fellow traveler and, while explaining my name to him he said “Oh! You mean as in; I have a dream?” Perfect! I thought. Why didn’t I think of that? I immediately loved that explanation and that’s how I like to interpret my name ever since. For me it means an aspiration or dream I want to realize — a vision of something I want to work towards and achieve.

My name has influenced me. I don’t agree totally with Shakespeare. Of course a rose would still be sweet if it had another name but I think it would have a different perfume possibly. Names do matter. Because my name carries with it so much meaning in Irish history and culture it sparked in me, from a young age, an enduring interest in and love for the Irish language and culture. It is because of this interest that I collect old Irish proverbs and why I’m creating an Irish sayings greeting card series.