the autobiography of tess as defined by mythology
Or so says Vari.
It all started with a coloring book. And some obscure cartoon that I swear exists, though I forget the name of it. The cartoon came first, I think, and it was likely from the 1970s. It was about Bellepheron and Pegasus, and it was beautifully narrated by one of the Muses; it also featured the birth of Pegasus from Medusa's spilled blood, and I'm sure little Tess seeing a winged horse rising out of the spilled blood of a gorgon in a cartoon explains a lot.
Not to mention the childhood fascination with Medusa, which was further aided by the coloring book my aunt, who is a painter, gave me when I was 8 on the Greek myths, and my favorite pages were the one about Athena, and Medusa. My aunt in general was a huge inspiration, as much of her work leaned toward the mythological or spiritual, and she often incorporated the Tarot into it - all of which would later influence my own artwork and writing throughout middle school, high school and college.
In my pre-teens/early teens I read Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series. Pike used many Hindu gods' names and concepts, such as Sita, Kalika, Yama, Yaksha, and more. The series wasn't so much about the gods' themselves as using the names to invoke certain moods, among other things. (Kalika was the violent, destructive-demon daughter of Sita, who was presumed to be the last vampire on earth, but alas... very convoluted story, six books, I read them like four times each.) Shortly thereafter, I discovered Neil Gaiman's Sandman books, and even had the chance to take an illustration course from one of Dave McKean's colleagues at a program for high school students at an art college in California.
Sophomore year of high school, we studied Joseph Campbell's Hero Cycle.
Junior year of high school, I was on-the-side reading Robert Graves' Greek Myths and infiltrating as many art projects in school with it as I could.
At that summer program for high school students I got a tarot reading from a goddess tarot deck, and got Isis, Kali and Pele all in one reading. I'd known about Isis from 6th and 9th grade world history/mythology as well as my own books, sort of like the kind Teresa mentions up there - basic encyclopedic introduction type books. I researched Kali more and Pele and became enamored with Creatrix goddesses. And the metal music I began listening to later in high school also influenced my interests as well.
In college, I studied in Italy and Greece for a semester; Greek literature and art history alongside studio courses. (I am a huge art history geek, for those of you who don't know me.) With the same teacher I did an independent study on the works of John Keats, as I was reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion at the time, which totally blew my mind, and when I returned I read Simmons' Endymion and Rise of Endymion.
LASTLY, I did my senior thesis on myth and symbolism in art, symbolism in the works of Odilon Redon and the Romanticist search for the Sublime in landscape painting and for the research/essay part of my thesis I was reading a lot of Ovid, more Joseph Campbell, and basically anything I could get my hands on to make the work shine, which sometimes involved researching Eastern symbolism found in the images of Vishnu.
Eight months after graduating, I found FG and chose a mythology I knew almost nothing about instead of going immediately for Greek - I wanted a challenge. So I chose Lady Midday, picked up that dusty, neglected Slavic mythology book on the book shelf, and studied. Soon after with Baba Yaga, as I have an amazing edition of Vasilisa the Brave illustrated by K.Y. Kraft. And Kali had to show up eventually, since she'd been haunting me since high school. Fortunately, at the time, one of my writing partners was Hindu and so she helped me navigate the various myths and symbols.