Scorpio Season in the Studio: Creative Alchemy & Transformation

Abstract mixed-media: layered textures of paint, thread, and paper forming a circular mandala or spiral. One half is dark and moody (Scorpio), the other warm and luminous (Beltaine). Symbols of the moon, sun, and water subtly appear in the design.

Hello creative alchemists,

Welcome to the Libra New Moon edition of The Art Witch Journal and to a full turn of the wheel.

A year ago, I began this journey beneath the same sky, not knowing where it would lead. What began as a simple act of staying connected to my art through the cycles has become something deeper, a practice of creative alchemy, ritual, and remembering.

This edition feels like both a return and a renewal, a gentle invitation to begin again, with all the wisdom this past year has offered.

Cuppa & Catch Up: Reflections on a Year of Creative Alchemy

It’s hard to believe it’s been a full year since I began this blog. My very first post was published on the Libra New Moon and now, here we are again, circling back to where it all began.

In the early days, I shared new and full moon reflections, but as we descended into the darker half of the year, I slowed my rhythm. I began focusing on the new moon, creating deeper, more intentional editions and so, The Art Witch Journal was born. The full moon updates continued over on Facebook through my Cycles of Craft deep dives, where I explored the planetary movements and their influence on our creative and spiritual cycles.

This year also saw the birth of my Art Witch Musings, a seven-part series exploring my practice of Art Witchery: where art becomes ritual, resistance, and spiritual inquiry. Across each chapter, I journeyed through liminal spaces, symbolism, disability, alchemy, dreamwork, and the unseen currents that shape my creative process. It has become part memoir, part manifesto, and part spell for becoming.

I began this project after being discharged from hospital, as a way to continue my art practice when I could no longer pursue my studies. It became my way of staying connected, of working out what art looked like for me now, in this new body and new life. That’s still something I’m discovering.

Lately though, I’ve felt a disconnection from my art and my spirituality, a kind of creative numbness, so I’m tracing my way back to what once ignited that spark. I’m returning to the magical space where the occult, the esoteric, and creativity intertwine. I want to reconnect with the sense of wonder I felt at art school, when art and spirit spoke the same language.

I’m revisiting the artists who first inspired me: Hilma af Klint, Georgiana Houghton, Rosaleen Norton. I’m delving back into the teachings of Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant, exploring the worlds of Occult and Symbolist Art. It feels like a return to my creative roots and, perhaps, the beginning of something new.

As this cycle around the sun comes to a close (my birthday is next month!), I’ve been reflecting on how much I’ve outgrown my old life. My body works differently now, and I’m learning how to fit into the world again, how a disabled artist, and Witch, shows up. First for myself, and then for the world. I’ve been exploring ways to infuse my everyday life with magic again, finding the small rituals that help me feel connected, grounded, and whole.

Alongside all this deep contemplation, I’ve also started venturing out more, which has been huge for me. I’ve begun using community transport for appointments, a big step toward reclaiming my independence. I’ve been learning how to navigate public transport and taxis with my electric wheelchair and adjusting to this new rhythm of movement.

I even attended an art workshop at the local community house, my first in quite a while, and it felt wonderful to spend time creating with others again. I’ve also made two trips to the NGV this month: first for the Kimono exhibition, and later to see the French Impressionists. That second trip was especially special, I took the train in, met friends, saw beautiful art, and went out for dinner before meeting my driver to come home.

I also had my first hydrotherapy session in months, I’d forgotten how much this Scorpio needs the water. In the pool, I feel free again; the water holds me, allowing movement that my body can’t manage on land.

Closer to home, our community garden is thriving. I love rolling down to pick something fresh for dinner or grabbing a handful of herbs to make a cuppa. These small moments bring so much joy and connection to my days.

I also have some exciting news, my new piece “Suspended” has been accepted into this year’s Summer Show! I can’t wait to share more about it soon. The work explores the theme of coercive control, and I’ve launched a petition calling on the Victorian Government to make it a criminal offence. I’d love your support in signing and sharing it.

It’s been a big month, and an even bigger year. I still feel like I’m in this liminal in-between space, unsure exactly what my next steps look like. But for the first time in a long while, I feel ready to start finding out.

What does that mean for The Art Witch Journal and my other offerings? I’m not quite sure yet. I can feel change is in the air and I’d love for you to come along on the journey with me.

Art Witch Musings: The Alchemy of Creation and the Turning of the Wheel

Chapter Seven

The artwork is not the beginning. It is the residue of a long alchemical process; the ashes left behind after something invisible has burned itself into being. By the time a piece reaches the wall, it has already lived a thousand quiet lives. It has been dreamt, dissolved, forgotten, reimagined, layered, and reborn. It carries every fragment of the journey that brought it here. In this sense, the finished work is not a product. It’s a record. A relic. A witness. The visible evidence of an unseen pilgrimage. What the viewer sees is only the surface; beneath it lies the compost of emotion, intuition, and ritual that shaped it into form.

I’ve always felt that art-making is a kind of conjuring, a process of calling something from the invisible into the material world. But what comes through is not always what I expect. The act of creation often feels like holding open a doorway, letting something ancient and wordless speak through pigment, thread, texture, and symbol. I do not control it. I collaborate with it.

Each work begins as a whisper: a colour that won’t leave me alone, a recurring dream, a line of poetry, a symbol that keeps reappearing in my periphery. These small obsessions become anchors. They draw me in. They ask to be made visible. I move through the process like ritual, slowly, deliberately, with reverence. Materials are chosen intuitively. I let them speak. Sometimes a piece demands to be rough, unpolished, unfinished. Other times it calls for precision and layering, as though each mark is sealing a spell. What matters most is that I listen. That I allow the piece to tell me when it’s ready, or when it needs more time in the dark. In truth, the artwork and I transform together. Every creation reshapes me, as surely as I shape it. We meet in the middle, me, the maker, and the work, the mirror. Between us lies the threshold where meaning is born.

When the piece finally leaves the studio, it carries with it the imprint of all that it has absorbed: my thoughts, my body, my breath, my pain, my tenderness, my resistance, my devotion. It carries the energy of the symbols, the moon cycles, the dreams, the spells, the long nights of listening. To stand before the work is to stand before the echo of all that unseen labour. I think of each piece as a kind of altar, something that holds space for what words cannot contain. They are offerings to the collective, to the invisible, to the great mystery that animates all creative life. They are portals through which others might glimpse what I have glimpsed. There is humility in this process.

Once the work is finished, it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to the world, to whoever meets it with open eyes. It continues to evolve in the gaze of others; in the energy of spaces, it inhabits. Like any living thing, it changes with time, light, and perception.

This is the strange paradox of being an artist-witch: the making is intimate, solitary, inward, but the result is an act of offering, a reaching outward. What was once private becomes public. What was once alchemy becomes artifact. To release the work is both loss and liberation, but that is the nature of cycles. Creation, transformation, release, rest. The wheel turns again. The artwork is not the end of the journey, but a threshold into the next one. Each finished piece is a seed for what comes after, a signal from the unseen that the conversation continues. So, it does.

Even now, as I sit with words instead of paint, the winter that wrapped around me like a cloak, I can feel the next work stirring beneath the surface. It waits in the silence, patient and knowing. When the time is right, it will emerge, carrying with it everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve shed, everything I’ve dreamed. When it does, I will meet it once again at the threshold, maker, medium, witness, ready to begin the ritual anew.

Epilogue:

The Turning of the Wheel, every cycle ends where it began, in the quiet. The threshold that opened months ago now begins to close, not with finality, but with a deep exhale. The words, the art, the slow revelations of this season have all been part of one long conversation with the unseen. Now, as winter loosens her hold, I can feel the faint hum of something shifting beneath the surface. This work, these chapters, this unfolding, has been an act of devotion. A listening. A mapping of the unseen landscapes that shape both art and life. Each piece of writing has been a spell of its own, a reflection of the cycles that govern not just the natural world, but the creative one too.

As I look back across this body of work, I see it for what it truly is: a record of becoming. Each chapter carried a piece of my voice, a fragment of my practice, a seed of my transformation. They form a constellation of moments that speak to the rhythm of living and creating in alignment with something larger than myself. Now, the energy begins to turn again. I can feel it in my bones, in that subtle stirring that comes before a new season, before a new chapter of life and art. I don’t yet know what form it will take, and that’s the beauty of it. Mystery is a necessary companion to creation. The unknown is fertile ground.

So, I close this cycle with gratitude, for the stillness that held me, for the magic that revealed itself through the quiet, for the way art continues to find me even in the dark. The wheel turns. The next season waits. And I, once again, stand at the threshold.

An Art Witches Studio

Little Witchy Things: Everyday Rituals for Balance, Renewal & Transformation

The Alchemy of the In-Between

This cycle invites us to linger at the threshold, that liminal space between endings and beginnings where art, intuition, and transformation quietly converse. Creation doesn’t always arrive as a burst of inspiration; sometimes it hums beneath the surface, asking only that we listen. The following practices are ways to honour that quiet alchemy, to nurture your connection with the unseen as it moves through your daily life.

Begin by noticing what is shifting within you. Libra season asks for balance, while Scorpio teaches us to surrender. Between them lies a subtle point of transformation, a moment to breathe before the next becoming. You might mark this by creating a small altar or workspace that mirrors that balance: light and dark objects side by side, soft and textured materials sharing space. Let it be a reflection of your own in-between state, a visual echo of your unfolding.

You can also tend your creative flame through acts of gentle devotion. Before you begin any creative work, pause to acknowledge the unseen labour already woven into your art, the ideas dreamt, the emotions composted, the invisible threads that brought you here. A simple bow of the head, a hand over your heart, or the lighting of a candle is enough. These small recognitions anchor your practice in reverence.

As the Sun moves into Scorpio, allow water to become your teacher. Creativity, like emotion, needs movement to stay alive. Stir a bowl of water clockwise before beginning your work, imagining it awakening your inner current. When you’re finished, pour it out under the sky in gratitude. This act reminds you that release is as sacred as creation, that every piece, every season, must one day flow back to the source.

Around Beltaine, when the air warms and the earth hums with new life, invite pleasure back into your process. Choose materials that delight your senses, colours you love, textures that feel alive beneath your fingers. Let joy be your offering to the fire of creation. Beltaine reminds us, that art, too, is an act of desire, a way of saying yes to being here, in this body, on this earth.

Finally, as the Taurus Full Moon rounds the cycle, return to your body. Rest your hands on your lap, close your eyes, and feel the quiet pulse of your own life. This is where all creation begins, not in striving, but in remembering that you are part of the rhythm. Let this be your ritual of renewal: a moment of stillness that says, I am ready for what comes next.

Artist of the Season: Claude Cahun – Transformation, Identity & Creative Rebellion

Claude Cahun (1894 – 1954)

Born Lucy Schwob on October 25, 1894, in Nantes, France, Claude Cahun was an artist, writer, and performer whose work blurred the boundaries between identity and illusion, masculine and feminine, self and shadow. She adopted the gender-neutral name Claude Cahun in her early twenties, signalling a lifelong rejection of fixed categories. From the beginning, her life and art were acts of transformation, a quality that makes her an ideal muse for Scorpio season, a time of shedding skins and revealing deeper truths.

Cahun grew up in an intellectual Jewish family connected to the publishing world, her uncle was the Symbolist writer Marcel Schwob, and her father ran a newspaper. As a teenager she began writing essays that questioned social norms and photographed herself in theatrical guises: a boy, a saint, a doll, a dandy. These early images foreshadowed the themes that would define her life’s work, metamorphosis, defiance, and the search for an authentic self beneath imposed identities.

In 1909 she met Suzanne Malherbe, who became both her life partner and artistic collaborator. Malherbe later adopted the pseudonym Marcel Moore, and together they formed one of the most fascinating creative partnerships of the twentieth century. Their bond transcended the boundaries of romance, art, and activism, an alchemical fusion of two souls devoted to freedom of expression. The pair moved to Paris in the early 1920s, immersing themselves in avant-garde circles that included André Breton, Man Ray, and other Surrealists and Dadaists. Although never fully embraced by those male-dominated movements, Cahun shared their fascination with the unconscious and the dream world, yet her approach was distinctly personal and political.

Her photographic self-portraits, produced mainly between the 1910s and 1930s, are now considered precursors to contemporary performance and conceptual art. In them, Cahun stages herself as multiple beings, androgynous, masked, vulnerable, confrontational, challenging the viewer’s gaze and dismantling the certainty of gender. Each image is a ritual of transformation, an invocation of the inner and outer selves in dialogue. Her written works, including Aveux non Avenus (“Disavowals,” 1930), blend autobiography, manifesto, and prose-poetry, rejecting the idea of a singular, stable identity.

In the 1930s, Cahun and Moore left Paris for Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, seeking a quieter life. Then, when the Nazis occupied the island during World War II, the two women turned their creativity into resistance. Using pseudonyms, they produced and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, surrealist collages of text and image meant to demoralise the occupiers. Arrested in 1944, they were sentenced to death, but the war ended before the sentence was carried out. Their courage and subversive imagination exemplify Scorpio’s shadow-side strength: fearless, strategic, and transformative even in the face of destruction.

After the war, Cahun’s health declined, and she died in 1954. For decades her work was largely forgotten, overshadowed by the Surrealists she had influenced but never fully joined. It wasn’t until the 1980s that her photographs were rediscovered and celebrated for their radical exploration of identity and resistance. Today, Claude Cahun stands as a visionary figure whose work bridges art and activism, ritual and rebellion, a forerunner of queer and feminist art who made her own life a spell of transformation.

Claude Cahun feels like the perfect companion for this Scorpio season, an artist who understood transformation not as metaphor, but as lived truth. Through her lens, identity became ritual; self-portraiture became an act of rebellion. Scorpio teaches us to strip away illusion and confront what lies beneath, and Cahun embodied that descent with fearless devotion.

Her work invites us to ask: Who am I beneath the masks I wear? In her shifting forms, we glimpse a kind of creative alchemy, the courage to dissolve and re-emerge, again and again, truer each time. As the wheel turns and we emerge into the light half of the year, Cahun reminds us that the process of becoming visible often begins in the shadows.

Art Journal Prompt: The Threshold Between Worlds – Exploring Change & Becoming

The Threshold Between Worlds

This cycle invites you to explore the spaces between, between endings and beginnings, shadow and light, seen and unseen.

In your art journal, create a page that reflects your own threshold moment.

• What are you shedding?

• What are you stepping toward?

Use mixed media to layer these ideas, perhaps collage two contrasting images or colours to represent what was and what is emerging.

Write a single sentence or phrase that feels like your guiding spell for this next chapter.

Art Witch Desk and open Journal

Cycles of Craft: Libra New Moon to Taurus Full Moon – Astrology for Creative Flow

As the Libra New Moon rises on October 21st, we begin a new creative cycle under the sign of balance, beauty, and renewal. This is the Moon that asks us to soften into harmony, to find equilibrium between giving and receiving, doing and being. It’s a tender reminder that artistry, like life, flourishes when we move from a place of grace and inner peace.

That same night, the Orionid meteor shower lights the sky as Mercury and Mars meet in conjunction, igniting sparks of communication and action. Words become wands, thoughts become catalysts, and ideas rush forward with clarity and urgency. This is a moment to speak your truth, to write, paint, or craft from instinct, but also to pause before reacting. The stars are alive with movement; choose yours with intention.

By October 22nd, the Sun slips into Scorpio, guiding us deeper into the realm of shadow and transformation. Here, creation becomes alchemy, a descent into the underworld of feeling, mystery, and magic. Scorpio season asks for honesty and depth: to shed old skins, to honour what’s dying away, and to create from the raw, untamed parts of ourselves.

As Beltaine approaches, here in the Southern Hemisphere, celebrated on October 31st but astronomically falling on November 8th, the earth hums with life. It is a festival of passion, pleasure, and creative fire, the dance of desire made manifest. This turning of the Wheel celebrates fertility and the blooming of ideas sown in earlier months. It is an invitation to move, to make, and to celebrate the joy of being alive in your body and your craft.

On November 4th, Mars enters Sagittarius, shifting our creative flame from introspection to exploration. After Scorpio’s depth, this transit brings expansion and vision, a wild spark that seeks adventure and truth. Follow curiosity wherever it leads; it may guide you to new mediums, fresh inspiration, or unexpected collaborations.

Finally, the Full Moon in Taurus on November 6th steadies the pulse of all this change. Grounded and sensuous, this lunar light invites us to slow down and savour what we’ve cultivated. Taurus reminds us that art, like the body, needs care and consistency. Celebrate what has bloomed, your progress, your persistence, and the quiet beauty of your becoming.

We have a busy couple of weeks in the sky coming up, make sure you’re following me over on facebook for more in-depth reports.                                                                            

A circular seasonal collage representing the journey from the Libra New Moon to the Taurus Full Moon. Half the image glows with warm Beltaine light, flowers, sunlight, and creative fire, while the other half rests in Scorpio’s mystery, dark water, moonlight, and shadow. Subtle symbols of balance, transformation, and renewal appear around the circle: the moon phases, stars, and botanical motifs. Soft, ethereal, and textured, blending earthy tones with gold, rose, and indigo.

Scorpio Season in the Studio: Witchy, Sultry, Moody Tunes for Creative Transformation

The vibe for this month’s playlist, Scorpio Season in the Studio, a potion of old and new to keep the creative cauldron simmering. Expect witchy, sultry, moody textures and a heartbeat you can work to: Fleetwood Mac’s steady spellcraft, Patti Smith’s raw incantations, Lorde’s lunar pop, Florence + The Machine’s fever-dream swell, and more shadows-and-spark in between. It’s music for thresholds and late night making, a soundtrack to slip you into deep focus, soft rebellion, and slow-burn devotion while the season does its alchemy.

Closing the Circle & the Cycle: Reflections on Transformation & the Turning Year

As we close this Libra New Moon edition of The Art Witch Journal, the wheel continues to turn. The air carries the first whispers of Scorpio’s depth, and the earth begins to warm with Beltaine’s promise. It’s a season of balance tipping into transformation, a reminder that endings are never endings at all, only doorways to new beginnings.

This cycle invites us to move slowly, to trust the unseen process of becoming. Whether you’re resting, dreaming, or creating, know that your art and your life are always in motion, even in stillness. Honour the quiet stages of your journey. Let your rituals be gentle, your intentions soft, and your creativity guided by curiosity rather than certainty.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more reflections and updates over on my facbook page with Cycles of Craft, where we’ll explore Scorpio season, Mars in Sagittarius, and the grounding magic of the Taurus Full Moon. Little Witchy Things will be continuing over on the socials too. I am experimenting with Substack at the moment so I will continue to share things over there but will keep you posted on the Instagram when I do this. You can also get 25% off over at my Redbubble Store too, there’s still time to grab something in time for Halloween.

Until next time, may your art be your ritual, your rest your devotion, and your days woven with quiet magic.

 A Note on the Imagery

Some of the images in this journal are created using AI-assisted tools. As a disabled artist living with chronic health conditions, I use AI as part of my creative process, a way to visualise ideas that my body can’t always physically bring to life. It allows me to keep imagining, storytelling, and sharing my vision when traditional studio work isn’t always possible. Every image is still part of my craft, guided by my words, intuition, and artistic direction, another form of creative alchemy that helps me stay connected to my art and community.

Art Witch Journal: Cancer New Moon Rituals, Retrogrades & Creative Rest

An Art Witch desk with candles, tea and open art journal on the night of the New Moon.

Hello creative alchemists,

I hope you are enjoying the new, slower pace journey we are sharing here. As we descend into the winter months of soup season and bottomless cups of tea, the Monthly journal feels right, especially for this Cancer Season. It is giving me the space to breathe and sink into this beautiful time of the year of long nights, short days, brisk mornings, sunny afternoons, fluffy blankets and slippers. Grab a cuppa and join me for some musings from my new studio.

✴︎ Cuppa & Catch Up ✴︎

Although in saying that, what an amazing, crazy, hectic, exciting cycle Gemini Season was. Where do I start? We had a hugely successful Creativa Exhibition with Collective 24. Opening Night was amazing, about a hundred people joined us at Kindred Cameras in the Docklands for wonderful night of Art, conversation, connection and celebrating the joy of Creating. On a personal note, I’m excited to let you know one of my Crow’s sold, Lunar Accent is flying to her new home where she can be loved and admired.

The other amazing news I have is that Kintsugi of the Soul, won the People’s Choice Award in the Stop it Before it Starts art completion run by Violence Prevention Australia. So, it’s with a full heart I thank everyone who voted for them. I am honoured that they have touched so many people and their message connected with so many. Thank you. There is some more exciting news that hopefully I can share with you next month about Kintsugi of the Soul.

If all of this wasn’t crazy enough, I have moved this month. I am now settling into my beautiful new apartment. I can embrace the Cancer energies begin creating my new, forever home. While I was packing, I came across some of my old New Moon Manifestations. Reading through these I realised that this is something I have been dreaming into reality for over 5 years. The safety and comfort of my own little sanctuary. It definitely hasn’t happened the way I would have planned or ever wanted but regardless, I am here. It is wheelchair accessible and I can live here, independently and grow as a disabled artist for many years to come. Next week I am having my electric wheelchair delivered. This is going to open the world up to me again. Giving me the freedom and independence to venture out into the community after over a year of isolation. So, watch this space for more art witch adventures

✴︎ Art Witch Musings ✴︎

Chapter Three: Art Witchery as Practice

Art Witchery, for me, is not a title. It’s a way of being in the world. A rhythm. A ritual. A relationship with the creative process that is intuitive, reverent, political, and deeply spiritual. It’s not something I perform. It’s something I live.

It begins with listening. Before the page, before the paint, before the idea, there is always a moment of tuning in. Not to what I should make, but to what’s already stirring below the surface. Sometimes it comes as an image in a dream. Sometimes it’s a phrase I can’t stop hearing. Sometimes it’s a texture, or a symbol, or a sense that something is waiting to come through.

I work slowly. Ritualistically. I don’t rush the magic. I let it unfold.
Tea is brewed. Music or silence is chosen with intention. A candle may be lit, or an altar cleared. I might draw a tarot card or reach for a stone I’ve been carrying in my pocket. These small gestures ground me, call me in, make space for something sacred to happen.

The studio becomes a liminal space in itself, part sanctuary, part cauldron, part dream chamber.
My materials are more than tools. They are collaborators. Paper, ink, thread, glue, bones, fabric, feathers, wax, each holds its own spirit, its own memory. I let them guide me as much as I guide them.

There are rhythms to this practice, moon phases, seasons, emotional tides. I don’t fight them. I follow them. I might sketch during a waxing moon, build altars at the full, rest and reflect as the moon wanes. I am always crafting in relationship to the world around me, the weather, the land, the cycles of my own body.

Art Witchery is not linear. There is no clear beginning or end. It spirals. It returns. It requires surrender. Some pieces take weeks; others sit unfinished for months until I understand what they were trying to say. Some never become “finished” in the traditional sense, they are offerings, spells in process, sacred scraps that don’t need to be polished to be powerful.

This practice is also deeply embodied. As someone living with chronic illness and disability, I’m always in conversation with my body, what it needs, what it’s holding, what it can or cannot do on a given day. Art becomes a place where I meet my body with gentleness. Where I honour its limitations and its wisdom. Where I can be both soft and strong.

And woven through all of this is a deep trust. Trust that what needs to be expressed will find its way. Trust that slowness is not stagnation. Trust that magic doesn’t always shout, it often whispers.

Art Witchery is not about producing. It’s about becoming. It’s about staying close to what’s real, what’s raw, what’s rising. It’s about remembering that creativity is sacred. That making is a ritual. That art, at its heart, is a spell cast in devotion to truth, transformation, and the unseen.

✴︎ Art Journal Prompt ✴︎

“What does home feel like to me now?”
Not the place, but the feeling.

This New Moon in Cancer calls us inward. It asks us to reflect on the spaces that hold us, soothe us, and witness who we are behind the scenes, without the mask, the pressure, or the performance.

In your journal this month, I invite you to explore the feeling of home. You might reflect on:

• What makes you feel emotionally safe?

• What rituals or objects bring you comfort and steadiness?

• How has your sense of home evolved?

• What does your inner sanctuary look, smell, or sound like?

Let your answers flow through image, colour, word, or texture. Paint your comfort. Collage your refuge. Stitch together the small things that bring you back to yourself.

There’s no right way to do this, just a gentle space to notice what’s rising and to honour whatever version of “home” you’re being called to create or return to.

Optional: Draw or paint a symbolic threshold, a door, a gateway, a curtain, and imagine yourself stepping through into the version of you that is most deeply held.

An open art journal with a response to what does home feel like to me now?

✴︎ Little Witchy Things ✴︎

Material Magic – Crafting the Sacred from the Everyday

This month, I’ve been thinking about the quiet rituals that hold my creative life together, the small, intentional acts that turn the ordinary into the sacred.

Cancer season has me nesting, softening, listening more closely to the whispers of my materials and the rhythm of my days. There’s something deeply magical about the way art-making becomes spellcraft, not through big dramatic moments, but through slow, repeated gestures: the brewing of tea, the strike of a match, the brushing of pigment across paper.

In Chapter Three of Art Witch Musings, I shared how I see my studio not as a workspace, but as a liminal space, part sanctuary, part cauldron, part dream chamber. It’s a place where every object holds memory. Every act is a kind of prayer.

This cycle, Witchy Little Things is a gentle celebration of material magic, how we tend our space, our tools, our bodies, and our rituals, and how these small things become the bones of our creative spellwork.

Here’s how I’m working with this energy:

Tending the Threshold

When I enter my studio now, I pause. Not to rush in and start producing, but to acknowledge the shift. To notice how I feel, how the room feels, how the light moves across the walls.
Thresholds aren’t just about crossing from one space to another, they’re invitations to become present. To arrive fully.
Light a candle. Sweep the floor. Offer a breath to the spirit of the space.

The doorway is where the magic begins.

Rituals of Beginning

Creating is never just about what we make, it’s about how we begin.
This month, try crafting a soft ritual to open your practice. Choose a sound, a scent, a gesture that welcomes you in.
For me, it’s tea in a certain mug, a few deep breaths, a playlist that holds me. Sometimes I’ll pull a tarot card or carry a stone from my altar to my desk.

Start small. Start sacred. Start with yourself.

The Body is the Spell

As someone living with chronic illness, I’ve learned to honour what my body needs, even when it asks me to do less. Especially then.
Your art witchery lives in your body. In your breath. In your heartbeat.
So this month, treat rest as a ritual. Nourish yourself like you would a tender seedling. Wrap up in blankets. Stir soup slowly. Let your movements be spells of care.

You are not a machine. You are a spell in progress.

 Material Kinship

What if your tools were ancestors? What if your thread had memory?
This month, I’ve been listening more to my materials, letting the paper guide the image, letting the glue decide the composition. When I treat them as collaborators, the work flows more easily.
Try this: Choose one material you love. Spend time with it. Don’t force anything. Ask it what it wants to become.

Magic lives in relationship, with self, space, and the seen and unseen.

A journal, cup of tea and a candle burning.

✴︎ Artist of the Season: Tracey Emin ✴︎

Born: July 3, 1963, Croydon, London, England
Sun Sign: Cancer
Mediums: Installation, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, neon text, sewn appliqué
Notable Works: My Bed (1998), Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995), The Last Thing I Said to You is Don’t Leave Me Here (1999)

Tracey Emin, born under the sign of Cancer, embodies the deeply emotional and introspective qualities associated with this water sign. Her art is a raw, unfiltered exploration of personal experience, delving into themes of love, loss, trauma, and identity. Emin's work is a testament to the power of vulnerability and the courage it takes to lay one's soul bare for the world to see.

Growing up in Margate, Kent, Emin faced a tumultuous childhood marked by hardship and adversity. These early experiences became the bedrock of her artistic expression, fuelling a career that would challenge societal norms and redefine the boundaries of contemporary art. Her confessional style invites viewers into her most intimate moments, creating a space where personal pain becomes a collective experience.

Emin rose to prominence in the 1990s as part of the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group known for their provocative and boundary-pushing work. Her piece Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with the names of everyone she had shared a bed with, garnered significant attention for its candidness and emotional depth. Similarly, My Bed, an installation featuring her own unmade bed surrounded by personal items, offered a stark portrayal of depression and vulnerability.

Despite facing criticism and controversy, Emin's work has earned her a place among the most influential contemporary artists. She was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2011 and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2020 for her services to art.

In recent years, Emin has continued to evolve, both personally and artistically. After battling cancer, she has embraced a renewed sense of purpose, channelling her experiences into her art with even greater intensity. Her recent works focus on themes of love, healing, and the human condition, reflecting a journey of resilience and transformation.

Emin's art serves as a poignant reminder of the strength found in vulnerability and the healing power of creative expression. Her work resonates deeply with the Cancerian themes of home, emotional depth, and the nurturing of the self and others. Her raw, confessional style has influenced a generation of artists and continues to inspire creatives navigating their own emotional landscapes.

✴︎ Cycles of Craft ✴︎

July’s Astrological Weather for Creatives & Art Witches

This month, we’re deep in Cancer season, the most emotionally tender sign of the zodiac, and the cosmos seems to be asking us to slow down, reflect, and reassess. Retrogrades often get a bad rap, but really, they’re just cosmic invitations to pause and go within. This is especially true when multiple planets start their slow-backs during the same season.

Here’s what’s stirring in the stars this month:

Neptune Retrograde – July 4

“Let the dream reshape itself.”
Neptune, planet of dreams, illusions, and spiritual insight, begins its annual retrograde in Pisces. This is a misty, soft, intuitive energy, but in retrograde, it can also lift the veil. You might feel your illusions crumbling or realise something wasn’t quite what it seemed.

For creatives, this is a time to reconnect with why you create. What illusions about your art, your identity, or your path are ready to dissolve? What truth lies beneath the fantasy? Let your intuition be your compass and don’t be afraid to retreat inward for a while.

✧ Studio Spell: Journal or create around a dream that won’t leave you alone. What might it be trying to tell you?

Juno Direct – July 11

“Commitment doesn’t have to mean compromise.”
Juno - the asteroid of commitment, sacred partnerships, and soul contracts moves direct in Virgo after months of retrograde motion. You might feel clearer about what (or who) you’re ready to commit to, and how you want your partnerships to feel, especially the one you have with your creative self.

This is a great time to revisit your relationship with your art. Are your current rhythms truly supporting you? What boundaries or containers help you stay devoted without feeling depleted?

✧ Studio Spell: Write a love letter to your creative practice. What promises do you want to make to it, or break?

Saturn Retrograde – July 13

“Restructure with softness.”
Saturn, the cosmic architect, turns retrograde in dreamy Pisces yes, that’s a lot of Pisces energy. This retrograde helps us revise our structures, limits, and responsibilities but through a gentle, more emotional lens.

You might find yourself redefining what “success” means, questioning expectations, or feeling the need to build something more sustainable. Go slow. Saturn retrograde isn’t about pushing harder it’s about building with intention and care.

✧ Studio Spell: What creative commitments feel heavy or out of alignment? Release them with ritual, a list burned, a sketch left unfinished, a “no” whispered in candlelight.

Mercury Retrograde – July 18 to August 12

“Revisit, rewrite, reweave.”
Here we go again, Mercury retrograde returns, this time in Leo. Expect tech glitches, communication mishaps, and a general slowing of external progress. But also: a beautiful opportunity to return to unfinished work, forgotten ideas, or old journals and sketchbooks.

This retrograde can reignite your inner fire, especially if you’ve been creatively blocked. Let it be a time of revision, not rejection. Look again. The gold is there.

✧ Studio Spell: Pull out an unfinished piece and re-approach it with new eyes. What’s worth keeping? What’s ready to evolve?

Deep dives into these themes will be shared over at Ange’s Studio on facebook, so follow along if you’d like to explore each event more deeply throughout the month.

A hand drawn Lunar Calendar in a journal.

✴︎ Winter Studio Tunes ✴︎

A moody, magical mix for long nights and quiet mornings.
These are the sounds that have been swirling through my studio lately, soft, haunting, a little bit cinematic, perfect for dream journaling, slow stitching, or sipping tea while the world hushes around you.
Let it wrap around you like a blanket. Let it carry you deeper into the work.

✴︎ Closing the Circle ✴︎

As we close this month's circle, I hope something in these pages has sparked a soft kind of magic in you, the kind that starts slow and grows in the quiet.

Cancer season reminds us that we don’t always need to push forward. Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is retreat inward, nurture what’s already stirring, and trust that the work is unfolding, even if we can’t yet see where it’s going.

Be gentle with yourself this cycle. Rest is sacred. Slowness is powerful. And your creative flame, however small, is still burning brightly.

Keep up to date with the seasons and cycles by checking in at Ange’s Studio on facebook for regular Cycles of Craft updates.

For more Little Witchy Things, behind-the-scenes musings, and studio magic, come say hi over on Instagram @angefosterart

And for all your wearable art and printed treasures, head to my Redbubble store, where my creations can journey from my studio to your world.

A note on imagery:
Some of the images in this journal were created using AI tools as part of my creative process. As an artist living with chronic illness and disability, these tools allow me to bring visual elements to life that would otherwise be physically difficult or inaccessible to create by hand. They’re not a replacement for my art practice, but a way to support and expand it — helping me tell stories, set mood, and share the magic of the seasons with more ease and consistency. Thank you for honouring the different ways creativity can flow.

Art Witch Musings: Sigil Magic, Scorpio Full Moon and a Creative Descent

A cream-colored desk with an open art journal featuring a white sigil, surrounded by art tools, crystals, and candlelight, evoking the energy of the Scorpio Full Moon.

Hello creative alchemists, and welcome to my 20th blog post!

The Scorpio Full Moon 2025 is upon us, and as always, my full moon report is up over on Facebook under Cycles of Craft if you're craving a deeper dive into the energies. This post, however, is more personal, part studio letter, part ritual space. As we move through this season of descent, the pull to slow down is strong. Samhain marks the beginning of the dark half of the year, and with Pluto now retrograde and Black Moon Lilith both present in Scorpio, it’s no wonder we’re being asked to pause and reflect.

Cuppa and Catch Up

This fortnight I’ve been busy finishing off my pieces for Creativa, my upcoming exhibition with Collective 24. As predicted in the last blog, there were some late-night painting sessions to get everything finished in time, but I’m happy to report they are now ready to be delivered to the gallery this week!

We’ve started promoting the show too, so keep an eye out for it on platforms like What’s On Melbourne. Collective 24 members have also been dropping flyers off to art stores and cafes around town. If you’re not already, please follow Collective 24 on the socials to stay in the loop.

Now that the work is done, I’m taking a moment to breathe. I have some important medical appointments coming up over the next couple of months, and I know I’ll need to pace myself and rest where I can. My body is asking for stillness, and for once, I’m listening.

This Full Moon blog will be the last of the fortnightly updates for now. I’ll be moving to monthly Studio Letters in alignment with the New Moon. It’s not a step back, it’s a deepening. A chance to go slower, but richer. To honour the rhythm of the darker months. To follow my own energy instead of trying to keep up with the pace of the world. It’s part of evolving my intuitive art practice and making room for more authentic, sustainable creativity.

I’ve pulled out an unfinished canvas that’s been tucked away behind my desk for months. No pressure to do anything with it just yet, but I’m enjoying seeing it again. I’m also feeling the pull to journal more, privately, intuitively. A quieter form of artmaking, and one that feels very needed.

Art Witch Musings: Sigils in Art Practice

I often include sigils in my art.

They’re usually subtle, drawn with white watercolour pencil or layered into the underpainting, but they become part of the energy of the piece. A way of weaving intention into the process. This week I made one for the Full Moon using the phrase:
“I release creative fear and express my truth with power.”

Once the letters were condensed and rearranged into a glyph, I sketched it onto the canvas I’m working on. It’s hidden beneath layers of glaze now, but I know it’s there.

Historically, sigils were used in ceremonial magic by mystics and magicians who would encode spiritual or magical intentions into a single visual symbol. These weren't meant to be read literally, but felt or intuited symbols of desire, transformation, or divine protection. Today, they’re often used in chaos magic and intuitive witchcraft as a way of personalising your spellwork. I love that they’re both ancient and adaptable, there's something powerful about crafting a symbol that feels uniquely yours.

If you’ve never worked with sigil magic in art, they’re a beautiful way to combine ritual and creativity. You can write your intention, reduce it down by removing the vowels and repeated letters, and shape what’s left into a symbol. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to feel right.

You can add it to your sketchbook, your canvas, your journal, wherever you create. Let it be a quiet spell, working behind the scenes.

A gold sigil drawn from the intention 'I release creative fear and express my truth with power,' set against a textured, moody background.

Art Journal Prompt

What creative fear are you ready to release this Scorpio Full Moon?

And what truth are you ready to speak with power?

If it resonates, try creating a sigil from your answers and including it somewhere in your art or journal this week. It can be hidden, abstract, messy, or precise. There’s no wrong way to do it, only what feels honest.

This is a deep and personal one. There’s no pressure to share it. Let it be something just for you, if that’s what feels right. This type of art journaling for healing is something I return to again and again.

An open art journal surrounded by paints, tea, and candlelight—capturing a quiet moment of creative magic.

Artist of the Season: Suzy Frelinghuysen

Born May 7, 1911, Suzy Frelinghuysen was one of the first American women to work in the abstract cubist style and one of the few to be taken seriously by the movement during her time.

Suzy studied art in New York and later joined the American Abstract Artists group, working alongside artists like Josef Albers and Piet Mondrian. She brought a distinctly lyrical edge to geometric abstraction, her compositions are bold and architectural, yet there’s a kind of flow to them that draws you in.

She was also an opera singer, performing with the New York City Opera in the 1940s and 50s. For long stretches, she stepped away from painting completely to focus on music. That rhythm feels real to me, the way we move in and out of creative phases. Suzy reminds me that it’s okay to take breaks, to return, to reinvent. That your artistry is never limited to just one form.

I love discovering women artists like Suzy who shaped art history in quiet, powerful ways. They’re part of the lineage I work within as a mixed media artist in Melbourne, exploring themes of identity, voice, and reclamation.

Cycles of Craft Update

Since the last blog, I’ve shared updates on Facebook about Samhain ritual ideas, Pluto retrograde in Aquarius, and Dark Moon Lilith in Scorpio. There’s also a Scorpio Full Moon report going live the same day as this blog.

With so much intense astrology happening in the fixed signs, I’ve been feeling it in my bones. The Scorpio-Aquarius tension is strong in my chart, and it’s asking me to dig deep, to slow down, reflect, and be honest about what needs to be composted in order for new growth to take root.

Even though the blog will shift to a monthly rhythm, there will still be plenty of updates on Instagram and Facebook, especially around moon phases, seasonal changes, and behind-the-scenes moments from the studio. Think of the monthly blog as a deeper exhale. A gathering of threads. A letter from the heart. A continuation of the Cycles of Craft journey we’ve been on for the last 6 months.

Soundtrack for the Descent

If you're like me, certain songs just belong to this time of year.

Soundtrack your descent into winter with these witchy studio tunes. A mix of moody instrumentals, dreamy folk, and atmospheric soundscapes to hold you through the quiet season. Perfect for painting, journaling, or simply brewing a strong cup of tea and sinking into the stillness.

🎧 Listen to the playlist on Spotify

Where to Find Me

I’ll be back with the new Studio Letter for the Gemini New Moon at the end of May. These monthly letters will continue to blend studio updates, seasonal energy, and a little bit of magic, just at a more sustainable rhythm for the dark half of the year.

Until then, you can:

• Catch the full Scorpio Full Moon astrology update on Facebook

• Follow Collective 24 on instagram and facebook for exhibition updates

• And don’t miss: 25% off everything in my Redbubble store from May 15–19

May this Full Moon help you release what’s no longer serving you and remind you of your power to begin again.

A quick note: Some of the images in this post were created using AI tools. As a disabled artist, managing my energy and chronic pain means I sometimes need to find alternative ways to bring my vision to life. These tools support me in staying connected to my creative practice, even when my body needs to rest.

Samhain: A Time of Remembrance: Special Edition Blog

New Moon's Messenger

Original Print - Ange Foster

Lunar Accent

Original Print - Ange Foster

Wings of Change

Original Print - Ange Foster

Hello creative alchemists,

The nights are stretching out longer now, and there’s that certain crispness in the air that whispers change is coming. It’s time for our Samhain gathering here on the blog, a moment to honour the turning of the Wheel and the ancestors who walk beside us.

A Cuppa and a Catch Up

In last week’s blog, I shared a little about how, living here in the Southern Hemisphere, Samhain aligns closely with ANZAC Day.
Growing up in a military family, ANZAC Day has always held deep meaning for me. It's not just a public holiday; it’s a personal day of remembrance. Since the Boer War, members of my family have been involved in almost every conflict Australia has seen.
So, when I pause on April 25th to honour the ANZACs, I’m also honouring my own bloodlines, my ancestors, and the stories they carried, stories of survival, sacrifice, strength, and deep resilience.
It feels fitting that Samhain, the festival of remembrance, weaves so closely into this sacred time.

In Flanders Fields - Original Painting by Ange Foster

Art Witch Musings: The Origins and History of Samhain

Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) is one of the four major fire festivals in the ancient Celtic calendar, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It falls halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, a true liminal space where endings and beginnings meet.

For the ancient Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and parts of Britain, Samhain was the most important festival of the year. It was believed that during this time, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin. Spirits could cross over more easily, and humans could reach across the divide through dreams, divination, and ritual.

Bonfires were lit across the hills to ward off wandering spirits and to offer light in the growing darkness. People would extinguish their home hearth fires and relight them from the communal bonfire, symbolising unity and renewal for the whole community.
Offerings of food and drink were left out for the ancestors and the 'Good Folk', the fae, who were especially active during this time.

Samhain wasn't a festival of fear, it was a deeply respectful time, an acknowledgment that death is simply part of life’s cycle. A pause. A breath. A sacred in-between.
In many ways, our modern practices like Halloween echo this older, earth-based wisdom, even if some of the nuances have been lost along the way.

Misty Samhain Morning in the Austrialan Bush

Working with Samhain in the Studio

Samhain is an incredible time to lean into shadow work and explore the themes of memory, loss, transformation, and rebirth in our creative practice.
Here are some ways you can weave the magic of this season into your art:

• Ancestor Altars: Set up a small corner of your studio space with photos, mementos, or objects that connect you to your ancestors or beloved dead. Let their energy inspire your work. Light a candle in their honour as you begin creating.

• Shadow Collages: Play with darker colours, torn edges, layered textures, and hidden imagery. Let yourself make art that feels raw, messy, honest.

• Release Rituals: Write down what you are ready to release on scraps of paper. Burn them safely in a cauldron or fireproof dish or tear them into tiny pieces and collage them into a background, transforming them into something new.

• Crows and Symbols: Crows, bones, bare branches, seeds tucked into cold earth, these are the icons of Samhain. Let them find their way into your sketches, paintings, or journal pages.

• Divination Drawing: Try pulling a card before you begin your studio session and allow it to shape your theme or palette for the day.

Remember: Samhain art is not about perfection. It’s about authenticity.
Let your hands be guided by your spirit, not your inner critic.

Art Journal Prompt

"What stories am I ready to release, and what deeper truths am I ready to honour?"

Let this question guide your next art journal page.
Work intuitively, let colour, line, texture, and symbol speak louder than words. Trust that whatever rises to the surface is exactly what needs to be witnessed.

Art Journal spread

Samhain Oracle Reading — 3 Card Spread

I pulled three cards for us, asking what energies we should honour this Samhain:

• 1. What needs to be honoured:
  The Ancestor — Your bloodline and spirit line are present. Honour the sacrifices, dreams, and love that brought you here. You carry them forward.

• 2. What needs to be released:
  The Mask — The need to pretend, to "perform" for others. Samhain calls you to lay down the masks and let your truest self breathe.

• 3. What is emerging:
  The Seed — A quiet spark of new beginnings is stirring beneath the surface. Tend to it gently. It’s not time for full bloom yet, but trust that it’s growing.

Take a moment to sit with these cards. Maybe even pull your own and see what additional messages come through.

🎶Samhain Playlist

To honour the turning of the Wheel, I’ve also created a special playlist for this liminal time — weaving together songs that speak to both the fire of Beltaine in the Northern Hemisphere and the deep introspection of Samhain here in the South.

Light a candle, pour a cuppa, and let the music guide you as you journal, create, or simply sit with the energies of the season.

A Little Reminder

If you’re feeling drawn to crow energy this season (and honestly, how could you not, crows are the messengers between worlds!), don’t forget:
🖤 My Crow Series is available my Redbubble store! 🖤
There are prints, stickers, journals, perfect companions for your Samhain altar or seasonal space.
Visit My Redbubble Store Here,

That’s it for this special Samhain edition, creative souls.
May this season bless you with deep connection, sweet remembrance, and the courage to move forward with open hearts.

Until next time,