Early Life and Influences

Born on the Gulf coast of Alabama at the end of the Hippy era,
the son of a seamstress and welder, Len Bell began making
discernable drawing when he was only 18 months old.
Attending the sermons by his Pentecostal Holiness grandfather,
Bell's mother and grandmother kept small pads of paper
and pencils for him to draw on during the long services.

Living on a small farm surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods,
his days were filled with fantastical daydreams, tagging
behind his elder brother, Ricky, who had a prominent
influence on his life and early art.

“Even though he was six years older, I could always
draw people and animals better than he could,
though he was very good at mechanical drawings and he taught me
ways of becoming more technically proficient so I
was able to expand my early abilities.”

The elder Bell brother took his interest in mechanics
and construction toward a career in drafting and architecture,
while the younger brother found comics and the art of John Byrne,
who greatly influenced his artistic style and focus.

Then, tragedy happened.

Ricky had joined the Army, following a family tradition
of military service, but he was killed in a fatal automobile
collision shortly before leaving. The family fell into a deep depression
and within months, the family had fallen apart. A close cousin,
both to Len and to Ricky's age, stepped into the big-brother
role and for two years, he also provided a great artistic influence on the budding artist.
The grandson of a renowned Irish surgeon, Lawrence was well versed in anatomy and instructed Len on
the finer points of anatomical realism.  Additionally, Lawrence
flung open the doors to a new form of expression – music. Growing up in an ultra religious home, non-Gospel music
was completely forbidden, but suddenly the young artist's mind was opened to the sounds of U2,
The Doors, Bob Marley, and Bob Dylan.

“His entire family opened the world up to me … not just revealing the things outside the edge of our small town,
but inside of me as well.”

The guidance was not to last though, as just 2
years after his brother's death, Lawrence, now in the Marine Corps,
would perish at the hands of a drunk driver.

“I hid inside of myself for a long time after that.
I was lost doing nothing but being an aimless teenager.
By the time I graduated from high school, I had no idea what I was
going to do with my life, but I was still drawing at least.”

Careers

Entering the University of South Alabama, enrolled in
an Art program, he instantly developed a conflict with the dean
of the college, and within one quarter was asked to leave the program.
Having a love for the ocean and life guarding,
he followed those loves to become an Emergency Medical Technician.
This led him to an eventual career choice, and the fulfillment of
a family tradition as he entered the military at the dawn
of the U.S., entering Desert Shield.

Military service gave him the opportunity to travel the world
and visit countless museums, witnessing the majesty of art in
places like Rome, Athens and Paris. Likewise, distant locales
opened onto natural vistas where the budding world traveler
reclaimed a love for the outdoors, spending hours surfing
coastlines of the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Africa,
hiking the hills of France and Italy and swimming in the

Tigris and the Nile. He also developed a greater sense of his
multicultural background as he came in contact with many varied peoples.

Returning from the Gulf War, and working as a Paramedic
while serving in a reserve unit, Len immersed himself in his
Celtic and American Indian culture. He began producing
pen-and-ink illustrations of Indigenous dancers and
was quickly picked up by an agent and several galleries.
Within two years, his works had traveled to international galleries
in Tokyo, London and Berlin, where his works were
being shown as part of an Indigenous Arts Exhibition.

Despite his growing success, prior obligations with the
military dampened his ability to continue regular gallery
showings as he was recalled to active duty with the Marine Corps.

“I had continued to serve the military as a reservist after
leaving active duty, but as conflicts across the globe expanded,
I was called back to active duty. My artwork was turned over to
my manager and my sea bag was packed. I was off.”

Despite being unable to produce new works with a demanding,
world-traveling schedule, residual sales went well for some time,
but mismanagement of the portfolio caused a decline.
Eventually, the artwork would be lost, much of it still never shown publicly.

“By the time it hit that decline, I didn't have time to care.
I was bouncing around the world, working on rescue and
humanitarian missions in the Middle East and Africa.
I loved the Corps and I loved what I did for the Corps. Sure,
I felt a lot of pain at losing control of my artwork, but I was
contributing to something greater in the world
and I just didn’t have the energy to fight it.”

Bell's military career had changed as well from younger days
of running tactical assault boats. He was placed as a
Public Affairs Marine, given extensive instructions
in photography and journalism. For the artistic servicemember,
it was a new creative outlet. For seven years, he received
awards annually for his writing and photography,
but a new tragedy was on its way.

An old injury acquired while on a rescue mission had
lingered for several years, worsened by a sideline of
being an active triathlete and eco-challenger, and in 2003,
after 13 years of service, Len was released due to
a debilitating injury. Entering law enforcement
shortly thereafter, Len carried his military
skills forward and blossomed in his new career, being nominated
for a Medal of Valor within weeks of hitting the streets,
but it was not a career path to last. During a high-speed response,
his car hydroplaned, sending him into the path of
oncoming traffic, completely destroying his car and career.
He was retired in 2008, crippled by injuries, but thankful for his life.

Family

With no need to go to work the next day and a
desire to find a new, less congested home from where they
had been living near Washington, D.C., Len, his wife and son
began a 7-month, cross country journey to find a new path for their lives.

Married in 2002 after knowing each other for less than a year,
he and his wife Heather were dedicated to a lifestyle
beyond the normal American expectations.

“We decided early on that we were always going to have one parent
at home. Neither of us wanted lock-key kids. Within weeks of meeting,
we had decided to get married, and along with
that to build a family – including how we would raise that family.”

Their family began in 2005 when Liam was born, following
3 years of investigation into birthing, breastfeeding, inoculations
and other commonly accepted aspects of family.

“We came to a lot of conclusions before Liam arrived,
mainly that the American way was not exactly the best way.
We examined a lot of practices in Europe where the infant and maternal
death mortality rates were far lower than in the U.S.
We also took a second look at vaccinations,
circumcisions, discipline and education.
In the end, we decide to do it all at home."

Liam was born at home in the company of midwives –
a point of inspiration to Heather who would later commit her
career to homebirth education and midwifery rights.
The couple also decided against vaccinations and circumcision,
and for organic food and home schooling.

Amidst this, Len was pursuing his degree in Communications
from the University of Maryland University College, and picking up
the art supplies once again.

“At that point, I really wanted to start developing a sense of the
Celtic arts. I would take Gaelige scriptures and design
knotworks around them. I also developed a drawing style similar
to what you would see from the Pictish era,
but as much as that was where I was taking my new
artistic focus, my mind kept turning to the importance of what
we were learning about what the family should be.”

The Celtic arts began to take a sideline to drawings of the
birth process and mothers nursing. Pictish characters transformed
into more realistic, beautiful women. For the artist, a decision had to be
made on where his attentions would settle.

One of their family determinations had been that Heather
would begin pursing her chosen career as a midwife after
Len’s retirement. With the end of his law enforcement
career, she began to deepen her self-education and solidified
a career path. As Len began to settle himself into the post as
stay-at-home-parent, the family decided that a major break in
routine was needed, and for Len, a time to decide
on his future influence on the artistic world as well.

“Within weeks of my retirement, we had the house up for sale,
our lives packed into a storage unit and our camping equipment
strapped to the car. We were off on an adventure and no idea where
that would lead us.”

As the Bell family began a 12,000-mile, 7-month journey
criss-crossing the United States, their conversations on Heather’s
calling to the birth culture expanded. Artistically, Len began processing
other artists and their works – from his childhood hero John Byrne,
to Alphonse Mucha, Audrey Beardsley, and on to his
favored Irish artists Barry Britton and Phillip Morrison.
With their first destination being his birthplace in Alabama,
the longing draw of the Gulf Coast began to call to him, only adding
more distress to a decision he felt he had to make about the recipient
of his creative talents.

“My grandmother was in a nursing home and we knew
it wouldn’t be long before she passed away, so we decided
to spend the summer with her. Every morning, I took my Bible
to her room and read to her and every evening, I settled
into the pages of “The Artist’s Way.”

Bookending his day with creative spiritual pursuits,
Len began a series of 14 paintings focused on the first days of
Creation as recorded in the opening chapters of Genesis.
The paintings were far from his normal creations – abstracts
filled with thousands of words, each line of the drawing a tagline
of script, each word drawn from a list of more than 11,000
words from around the world, all meaning either Peace or Love.
This visual essay on the relationship of God to Creation, led
Len on an even deeper journey into how cultures first began to portray
a spiritual relationship to their Creator and what he found was to
become the definable element in all his future works.
He discovered the spiral.

“As I looked at countless cave paintings and aboriginal
scribbles, I found over and over the pan-cultural element of spirals.
I dug into manuscripts by the Irish cultural anthropologists
George Bain and John G. Merne, I found acres of ideograms and their
links between cultures. Suddenly it all began to form in my heart that in that
simple artistic element I could link all my cultural influences, and deliver an
important spiritual message that we – and everything around us –
is full of God and every decision we make
affects the clarity of that to other created beings.”

To their beliefs, that every decision either brings Heaven
or Hell into reality, Len began to explore his own ideals
of what Heaven really meant. Therein, was born the name Loime Studios
– loime being a Gaelige word for openness and nakedness,
similar to the first created beings. His sketches
drew from the beaches of his youth to his ideals
of cool cafés with warm coffee. The family explored nature and
his photographic portfolio turned to
macro focusing on the minute details of the
created – flowers, moss covered stones and intricate barks.
As they pushed to make every aspect of their
lives about bringing forward a more Heavenly existence, a Hellish
moment would come just days before their 6th anniversary when they
lost their second child, Katrina Hope. Though devastated by the loss,
they drew closer as a family and firmer into their combined goals.

Through the following months as the family awoke daily in new locales –
from the shadows of Monument Valley, Ariz., to the breaks of the California coast,
the concept of Universalism took hold and began to exude from their lives.
Recognizing God in all that was around them became a daily focal point and the
thoughts of Creation fueled a fire to dedicate their energies toward the birth culture.
For the reemerging artist and the aspiring midwives a crossroads
had been passed – where she had once stayed at home and supported him
through military and law enforcement careers, he would in turn, focus his art toward her calling.

The Celtic influence remains in his subject matter. The first illustration to be
filled with the spirals was of a Pictish piper and the title, “Dreas do chorn pheaba,”
was taken from a traditional Irish song lyric, but over a short time,
the stiff Pictish characters transformed into life-like women and men.
The illustrations moved from strict representations of Irish songs and Gaelige scriptures,
to flowing visuals of the maternal world. Still, the titles remain steadfastly Gaelige.
Many still come from traditional tunes, others from his favorite band, Kila.
Most of the scenery around his characters also has their roots along the Celtic shorelines,
and his illustrated surfers often glide across spiraled waves atop Celtic patterned boards
. An Irish disk necklace, purchased days after Katrina’s death and worn constantly
by the artist as a reminder of his daughter, can often be seen on models
in the illustrations, with Katrina’s name in ogham written within the disk

Today, the couple reside in the mountains of Tennessee.
Heather is pursuing a career in midwifery, both as a student at Aviva Institute and as a
birthing assistant and aspiring midwife, while Len spends his day
creating new illustrations for Loime Studios, homeschooling Liam and studying Gaelige.
They are expecting their third child soon, and Len hopes to
converse exclusively in Gaelige with their future children.