Carmen Bouldin works as an English teacher. She has worked in education since 2004. In her spare time, she writes gothic romance, mystery, and poetry. Much of her writing and art is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Her poem, “The Raven’s Mourning,” was nominated for a Saturday Visiter Award in 2020. This poem was also published in Raven’s Quoth Press’ poetry anthology, Evermore, in 2024. She also cohosts a podcast, The Six Degrees of Edgar A. Poe, where she and her POEcast partner, Jeanie Smith, discuss Poe’s influences on multiple genres. She also enjoys creating visual art. Her painting, “There’s no Place like Poe,” was nominated for a Saturday Visiter Award in 2019. A native Memphian, Carmen, resides in Middle Tennessee with her husband, Jeff, and their two cats, tuxedo cat-Mitt and solid black cat-Poe. Carmen and Jeff love to travel and wear vintage inspired attire Carmen creates through the art of sewing. “I hope all who enters my page leaves with at least a smile, chuckle, or deep thought from the enjoyment of my creations.”
Artist Bio
Carmen Bouldin, a Memphis, Tennessee native currently living in Middle Tennessee, specializes in acrylic painting with themes of landscapes, animals, and literary connections as well as recently extending her artistic skills into photography. She is a self-taught artist receiving third place for her representational painting, There’s No Place Like Poe, in Damico Frame and Art Gallery’s 1st Annual Art and Photo Contest in 2017 shown at Outdoor Classic Structures at the Franklin, Tennessee Art Crawl; additionally, her work has been shown at the Smyrna Depot Days Art Exhibit in 2017, the TN State Fair in 2017, the Smyrna Town Hall Gallery in 2018, and the Smyrna Art Crawl in 2018. During Spring 2018, three of her photos were on display at the Rotunda in City Hall in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. From September through October 2018, three of her works were on display at Todd Art Gallery at MTSU. At Todd Art Gallery at MTSU, she provided an Art Demonstration with acrylics in October 2018, and taught a class on acrylic basics and mixing paints in February 2018. Her painting, There’s No Place Like Poe, was nominated for the Saturday Visiter Awards at the International Poe Festival in Baltimore, MD in October 2019. Her poem, The Raven’s Mourning, was nominated for the Saturday Visiter Awards at the International Poe Festival in Baltimore, MD in October 2020.
Artist Statement
The content of my work focuses mainly on actual experiences I want to bring to life on canvas. I mix all my paints from primary colors until I find the exact color I want for each part. With colors, I try to blend them to feel as real as they are in the trees, animals, and items I am inspired by for each work. I use a combination of blending colors and utilizing a variety of brushstrokes to create the image I have developed in my mind. Most of my work contains elements of impressionistic art and texture. With the character of my pieces, I use realism and fantasy based on what I am trying to accomplish. The inspiration for my landscapes comes from traveling and hiking where I have lived in the scenes I paint; for literary connections, I infuse literary elements, such as the author Edgar Allan Poe, into real life components to create scenes that intertwine the real and the fictional. When I paint animals, such as pets, I try to capture the very soul of the animal based on pictures of them in everyday life.
The Quotable Raven 