For Ali Montgomery, imagination is not an escape from the real world. It is something worth keeping alive.
“Are these 3D printed?” There is a particular kind of magic hidden in the question. Ali Montgomery loves it.
She has heard it many times while selling her work at the Renaissance Faire and Causeacon, where visitors encounter her Dragonspirations booth filled with small, hand-sculpted dragons nestled among gemstones. When someone asks the question, Montgomery sees an opportunity to inspire.
“No,” she tells them. “They’re all hand-sculpted.” Then she watches their eyes light up. “It’s like a light goes on in their head,” Montgomery says. “‘-Oh! this is actually something real!’”
That moment gets to the heart of what Montgomery does. She makes dragons. But, as a mixed-media artist, she also makes something increasingly difficult to find. Real, passion-driven art that takes time, skill, and vision to create.
“I think to be an artist in a world where things are mass-produced is kind of an act of defiance, almost,” she says. “To say, ‘I want to do this the hard way because there’s value in it, even though there are easier ways out there.’”
For more than a decade, Montgomery has been creating dragons from polymer clay. But the creatures themselves have been with her much longer.
“I’ve been obsessed, since… I want to say the third grade,” she says.
For Ali, dragons have been a lifelong passion. The obsession began with a documentary, or, more accurately, a fake documentary. She remembers watching an Animal Planet program that presented itself as a serious investigation into the discovery of a dragon living in a remote cave.
For a young Ali, the possibility was thrilling, and her fascination with dragons was locked in.
“One of the first chapter books I ever read was Eragon,” she says. “I fell just head over heels.”
From there, she began researching dragons, and that never really stopped.
“I still consider myself researching, because I always learn something new.”
Montgomery’s interest in dragons might have remained a childhood fascination, but instead, it followed her to college. She earned her BS in Marine Biology and a BFA in 3D Media Art from Old Dominion University. She recalls that her professors were not always convinced that dragons belonged in the serious study of art, but Montgomery made them anyway. In every class.
“I run on spite! I’ve got dragons that I created out of blown glass,” she says. “I’ve got dragons that I made in a blacksmithing class, ones that I carved out of plaster, ceramics, metalsmithing, and silversmithing. Every class that I took, I managed to fit a dragon in somewhere.”
It is a funny story, but it also reveals something important about Montgomery’s work. She does not seem particularly interested in being told what her art is supposed to be. Her work has moved through glass, metal, plaster, ceramics, illustration, plush design, and polymer clay.
“I don’t lock myself into any one category,” she says. “I’m a mixed-media artist.”
Clay is her primary medium today, but the other materials have not disappeared. The diversity of materials and the free movement between them still influences her creative process. “Sometimes a sculpture begins with an idea. Sometimes it begins with a gemstone. Sometimes it begins with another creature entirely, a lot of them are actually hybrids,” Montgomery says.
Her creations include the luna moth dragon, the possum dragon, and, because she is a true West Virginia artist, there is a Mothman dragon. At the Renaissance Fair, the possum dragons became particularly popular. “People absolutely love them,” she says.
The designs can begin with a sketch, but not always.
“Sometimes I’ll start without an idea, and the dragon will come to me as I’m making it,” Montgomery says.
Other times, she begins with an illustration. However, drawing a dragon requires thinking about what the finished object will eventually have to become.
“Sculpting something limits what you can do in an illustration,” she says, “because I’m cognizant of the limitations of the clay versus the limitation of what I can draw.”
The same is true of her work designing plush animals for Charlie Bears. An idea that works beautifully on paper still has to survive contact with the real world. Somewhere between imagination and material, the dragon has to become something that can actually exist in the physical world. This is exactly where Ali’s work lends insights into her impressive vision and success as a true mixed-media artist.
Success, however, can create its own problem.
Montgomery has spent approximately 11 years creating her clay sculptures. Over time, she has learned that the thing people love most is not always the thing she wants to create.
There were several years at the Renaissance Faire when her little possum dragons became especially popular. For roughly three years, she says, “that’s all anybody wanted.” At first, the response was gratifying. Then it became an obligation.
“People start to expect an item, people come up and ask me about it, and so now I have to have it because it’s expected of me,” Montgomery says. “That does definitely take some of the joy out of it when I’m not being creative; I am filling something that somebody needs.”
That may be one of the most difficult tensions for any working artist. The thing that brings people joy can become the thing the artist no longer wants to make. The pieces she loves most are not always the ones that sell.
Montgomery has learned to negotiate a balance while preparing for an event like the Renaissance Faire.
“Usually I try to power through because I know I need to make the item,” she says. “And then once I finish that item, I’ll invest time in something that I want to make, something that brings me joy, to kind of pull myself back into the right head space.”
It is a practical solution to a creative problem, and a message she has for others earning a living through their art. “Artists should remember someone else may love a piece, even if they don’t.”
Her advice: make the possum. Then make something inspired, strange or unexpected. She believes that balance always returns when creating something that’s more passion driven.
The dragons have also become part of the way Montgomery survives the ordinary demands of life. She currently carries clay with her to work. “It’s enough to break up my workday,” she says. “For a few minutes, the rest of the world recedes. I can pull myself out of it, focus on something that matters and is important to me, and then plug right back in, because I’ve had that brain reset.”
Here, her process is almost the opposite of the way most people think about making art. There is no perfect studio. No uninterrupted afternoon. No ideal conditions. Just a moment in time with a small amount of clay, and the intention to create something meaningful. That is the artist’s journey.
“I didn’t go into this for the money. I went into this for the passion of it, because I loved it, because it brought me joy.”
Then something unexpected happened. Other people enjoyed it, too.
That may be the real connection between Montgomery’s dragons and the events where many of them find their new homes. People do not necessarily go to a Renaissance Faire because they are looking for another version of everyday life. They go because they want something else, a different setting, a different set of rules. A few hours in which the ordinary world is allowed to loosen its grip.
Montgomery understands that.
“I like to think that my work brings joy and whimsy into people’s lives, especially in a time where those things are harder to come by,” she says. “You can take a minute, you can step away from the real world, step into this little bubble where there’s just happiness.”
The people who encounter her work put their own meanings to it. Sometimes, they see things she never intended. “A lot of people will tell me things that I never even considered when they look at my work,” Montgomery says. “They say, ‘This speaks to this for me.’”
After speaking with Ali Montgomery something becomes clear, the image of the dragon is unique and personal to the observer. It might be a creature of mythology or a piece of someone’s childhood. It can be a symbol of strength or simply a small, strange, beautiful thing that makes somebody happy. Montgomery does not have to determine which one it is. The work leaves her hands and begins another life.
“The dragon is one of those unique threads that kind of goes through every culture in the world.”
For Montgomery, there is a certain irony in the fact that dragons, creatures that have never been proven to exist, have become one of the most enduring creatures of human imagination. That persistence is part of her fascination.
“Dragons are the ultimate embodiment of human nature, kind of born out of unbridled imagination,” she says. “They’ve been a way for humans to express their desires, their fears, and they really represent an untamed nature found within humans.”
Every new dragon becomes part of a much older story.
“Every single person that makes dragons, that tells stories about dragons, they’re adding to this lifelong lore that humans have been cultivating about this creature since basically the dawn of humanity.”
Montgomery’s own dragons join that tradition in clay, glass, paint, and plush. Some are graceful. Some are familiar. Some are ridiculous and have the body of a possum. All of them are made by hand.
“I absolutely love that I get to bring that joy to other people,” she says. “That other people see value in it.”
She also values the community that forms around the work, the people who return to the same fairs, the collectors who come back for another dragon, and the strangers who stop to ask a question.
“I have repeat customers who come back to me and say, ‘I can’t come here without bringing something home because now I have a collection and I need to add to it!’”
In a world increasingly built for convenience, speed, and sameness, there is something quietly radical about continuing to make things the hard way. Somethings can be made faster, or more efficiently, but Montgomery keeps working with her hands, connected to her work. And often, for just a few minutes at a time, she keeps making room for something that does not need to be practical.
“It feels like I’m doing something that’s worthwhile,” Montgomery says, “something that’s keeping something alive in a world that doesn’t really cater to it.”
Maybe that is the real magic of the dragon. Not that one might exist somewhere in history, in a cave, but that people continue to find a connection with the lore that they represent. They becomes reconnected to their imagination, and thanks to Ali Montgomery, The Dragon Lady, they get to take a piece of that home with them.
