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 Musings: Embracing Rest and Visibility This Leo Season

An Art Witch’s Desk covered in Art Journals and Art Supplies

Hello, my Radiant Creative Alchemists,

This month, under the Leo New Moon, I’ll be thinking about what it means to be seen and what it means to refuse visibility on someone else’s terms. I’m sitting with the tension between being overlooked and being hyper-visible, especially as I navigate the world as a disabled artist. How can I reclaim space without performing? How can I honour slowness, rest, and deep presence as sacred acts of resistance?

As I sink further into winter, I’m letting these questions shape me, not with urgency, but with care. Letting the unseen speak. Letting new forms of magic rise from the quiet.

Cuppa & Catch-Up

This month, I’ve been steeped in change, the kind that feels both tender and expansive. I officially handed back the keys to my old flat. That little space held me through some hard seasons, and while it no longer met my needs, I’ll always be grateful for the safety it offered when I needed it most. My landlords were incredibly supportive, helping make it as comfortable as possible, but it was time to move on.

And move on I have. I’ve now settled into my new, accessible apartment and I’m slowly beginning to stretch back out into the world again. One of the biggest changes has been the arrival of my new chariot, a Quickie Q100 R electric wheelchair! I haven’t been able to go out alone in over a year, and this chair marks the beginning of a new chapter of independence. I’m already imagining all the little adventures ahead. It hasn’t been the smoothest start (is it ever?), and I’m still navigating the barriers that come with living in a world not designed for bodies like mine. But there have also been some really beautiful moments and kind humans along the way.

One of the highlights of this month was finishing the Speakers Bank Content Creation Workshop I’ve been doing over the past couple of months. We explored storytelling, filming, lighting, and editing, all through the lens of advocacy and lived experience. A huge moment for me was meeting Carly Findlay, who spoke to us about the power of telling our own stories as disabled people. We each filmed moments from our daily lives, and the final short film will be released soon, I’ll make sure to share it across my socials when it’s out.

Another exciting moment, all three of my pieces in the Incognito Art Show have sold! I’m so proud to be part of an initiative that raises money to support other disabled artists doing what they love. It’s such an honour to contribute in this way.

I also celebrated my third singleversary. Life doesn’t always unfold the way we expect it to, but there’s something wild and freeing about carving out a new path. I’m embracing the adventure, even if I don’t always know where it’s headed.

There were moments of connection too, a warm Tetula Zoom catch-up with my Collective 24 crew, and a lovely afternoon spent with neighbours through the Residents’ Community Garden Group. We planted out some new beds, and I can’t wait to watch them grow.

I also had a brilliant night out with a dear friend at the State Theatre’s Playhouse to see Julia, an incredible performance by Justine Clarke about Julia Gillard and her iconic Misogyny Speech. Highly recommend if you get the chance, it was powerful, moving, and deeply resonant.

My first big adventure with the new chair was to Lightscape at the Royal Botanical Gardens. I got a taxi with my new driver Jama to the train station, met my sister, and we made our way into the city. It was cold but magical, Melbourne knows how to do winter well.

Back in the studio, things are gently unfolding. At the start of winter, I pulled out an older painting I hadn’t touched in a while and placed her back on the easel. I let her sit quietly for a while to see what she might have to say. Slowly, she started whispering again, and the brushes have found their way back to the canvas. It’s felt like catching up with an old friend, reacquainting ourselves and seeing where the conversation wants to go next.

I’m also working on several new pieces for upcoming exhibitions, one for the Eckersley’s Art & Craft Prize 2025, and another for the No Vacancy Annual Group Show (fingers crossed!). Wild Empress, my sculptural mask piece, has been submitted for the Metro Art X 2025 exhibition, and I’m keeping an eye out for the Merri-bek Summer Show, this year’s theme is Love in Crisis. Bonus points if you can guess what I’ve got in mind for that one…

All of these shifts, the move, the new wheels, the quiet return to old works, have had me thinking more deeply about the spaces I inhabit, and the ones that are still closed to me. As I navigate this next chapter, I’ve felt a quiet pull to begin weaving together parts of myself I’ve often kept separate, the artist, the witch, the disabled woman.

This month’s Art Witch Musings is the beginning of that braid. It’s a chapter about thresholds, visibility, and the quiet magic of saying no to systems that weren’t built for us. It’s about reclaiming space, on canvas, in ritual, and in the world.

Art Witch Musings

Chapter Four: The Unseen Realms—Disability, Visibility, and the Magic of Refusal

There is a strange alchemy that takes place in the space between invisibility and hyper-visibility, a dance I know all too well as a disabled woman. When I used to walk with my cane, the world pretended not to see me or told me to get out or the way. Now I’m in my wheelchair, it stares, or worse, speaks to me as though I’m not fully there. In these moments, I become both too visible and entirely unseen.

Living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, chronic pain, and fatigue means I exist in a liminal space of endurance. I occupy the threshold between worlds, the world of the "well" and the world of the "unwell," the seen and the unseen, the valued and the discarded. This is a haunted place, echoing with the footsteps of those who came before me and those still navigating these thresholds. It is a place of immense magic.

Art Witchery, in this context, becomes more than creative expression, it becomes resistance. My art is a reclamation of space in a world that would rather I shrink. It’s the slow stitching of stories and symbols into existence when my body won’t let me move fast. It’s a sacred NO. A refusal to be erased. A refusal to perform productivity, neatness, or linear healing.

Invisibility is not just a social experience; it is a sensory one. It wraps itself around the body like fog, muffling and distorting perception. The way people speak to you changes. The way institutions treat you changes. Even your mirror, at times, turns away.

But in the studio, whatever form it takes in that season, I become visible to myself again. I don’t have to explain or justify. I don’t have to pass. My mobility aid isn’t a symbol of failure; it’s a throne. My slowness is not laziness; it’s ritual. My body is not broken; it’s a channel. The pain becomes pigment, the fatigue becomes texture, and the tremble of my hands shapes the lines of the piece. The mess is holy.

There’s a peculiar kind of power in seeing the unseen. In spending so much of my life being overlooked, I’ve learned to notice what others miss. The way a shadow curls around a rusted nail. The way certain colours feel like grief. The way silence hums with memory.

This attention, this devotion to the overlooked, is where my Art Witchery thrives. My materials are infused with presence. Fabric, thread, clay, bones, paper, rust, they all hold stories, and I listen. I don’t just work with materials; I commune with them. I ask what they remember. I ask what they want to become. In that exchange, I am reminded that I, too, am a material. I, too, am becoming.

To be disabled in a capitalist society is to be constantly reminded of what you cannot do, what you cost, how you slow things down. But in the rhythms of the wheel of the year, in the gentle waning of the moon, slowness is sacred. Rest is necessary. Wintering is part of the cycle.

So, I choose to live seasonally, not systemically.

This chapter of my work, of my life, is rooted in winter. Not just the external season, but the internal one. The long night. The liminal pause. The tender frost of recalibration. This is not a time for bloom or performance. This is a time to tend the roots, to compost the shame, and to find magic in the dark.

From this place, new work will emerge. But for now, I am learning to stay in the unseen spaces. To honour them. To let them shape me. Because even in the dark, perhaps especially in the dark, I am still here. I am still an artist. I am still a witch.

And I am watching.

Art Journal Prompt: Seen & Sovereign

This month, reflect on the parts of you that have been overlooked, by others, by systems, or even by yourself.

• Where in your life have you felt unseen?

• What would it look like to reclaim that space with love, not performance?

• What parts of your body, story, or spirit have been told to shrink and how might they take up space in your art?

Use collage, paint, or pencil to create a portrait of your unseen self — not how others see you, but how you feel yourself in your own truth. Let it be messy. Let it be slow. Let it be sovereign.

For me, my wheelchair can be a throne. My space can be a ritual. My body, a living altar.

Start from here and see where it can take you.

Art Journal Prompt response showing a wheelchair as a throne

Artist of the Season: Maria Kozic

This Leo Season, I honour the fierce and visually electrifying work of Maria Kozic, a bold and uncompromising artist whose practice sits at the intersection of feminist critique, pop culture, and deeply personal storytelling. Born in Slovenia in 1962 and raised in Australia, Kozic emerged from the vibrant 1980s Melbourne art scene with a practice that pushed against the grain, mixing high-gloss aesthetics with low-brow references, punk sensibilities, and a fearless feminist edge.

Her iconic Kozic Kulture series fused painting, installation, and commercial-style graphics into works that confronted how women’s bodies are seen, sold, and mythologised. With a strong visual language rooted in cartoonish iconography and pop surrealism, Kozic’s work plays with sugar and spice, bright, fun, even humorous on the surface, but layered with deeper explorations of trauma, identity, violence, and defiance.

A migrant, a mother, and an outsider to traditional art world norms, Kozic has described her practice as a means of “telling the truth through fiction.” Her art becomes a space of reclamation and reinvention, a self-mythologising gesture that says: I will not be defined by you.

“I take what’s in the world, cartoons, fashion, symbols, toys, and I distort them until they speak my language. Until they tell my story.”
— Maria Kozic

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and while she has lived in both Castlemaine and New York, her practice resists easy categorisation. Maria Kozic is a perfect embodiment of Leo energy, dazzling, daring, and never afraid to take up space.

This season, she reminds us that art doesn’t need permission to be powerful and that we, too, can distort the symbols of the world until they speak our language.

Little Witchy Things

This winter, I’ve been learning what it means to truly rest, not just collapse, but consciously choose softness. To not see stillness as stagnation, but as slow repair.

The energy is subtle this season, like roots weaving beneath the surface. It’s not showy or dramatic. It’s warm socks, afternoon sun on the floor, long cups of tea. It’s the small spells that help me return to myself when I’ve wandered too far, because I do. I forget. I push. I burn out.

This cycle, Little Witchy Things is a quiet ode to the slow work of reweaving. To creating space for nourishment, not productivity. To remembering that the body is not an obstacle to magic, it is the magic.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not always inspiring. But it’s real. It’s necessary. And it’s where the healing lives.

This month let’s start with the magic of doing less. Imagine what would happen if you didn’t have to catch up, fix everything, or have all the answers right now. What if less is enough? Try lighting a candle at dusk and simply saying aloud, “I release the pressure to perform. I honour the wisdom in rest.” Let that be your only spell, a quiet surrender to softness.

Next, I invite you to see your body not as an obstacle but as the altar of your witchery, the spell itself. Our bodies carry so much: stories, strength, vulnerability. Gently run a warm cloth over your hands, heart, or feet, and whisper, “Thank you for carrying me.” This simple act is a ritual of gratitude and acceptance.

Slow movement is also a form of magic. When your body asks for gentleness, listen closely. Try shifting your pace, whether that means stretching mindfully, sitting with intention, or simply breathing deeply. These small acts reconnect you to the flow beneath the surface and nurture your inner fire.

Finally, sometimes the most powerful magic is simply choosing to sink into the season’s quiet call. It might be a single candle’s glow, a moment of stillness, or the gentle recognition that slowing down is not a loss but a rhythm to be honoured. Each evening, notice one small thing that brought you a sense of calm or ease. Let these moments become your seasonal offering, a way to rest with the wheel of the year, not against it.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… including you.”
— Anne Lamott

This season, may we all learn to unplug gently. To choose warmth. To choose ourselves.
To light a candle not for manifestation, but just to remember the light.

Cycles of Craft — Leo New Moon & August Astrological Highlights

The Leo New Moon arrives on July 25 at 5:11 am AEST, ushering in a season of bold creativity, self-expression, and the courage to shine your unique light. I’ll be sharing a full, detailed New Moon report over on my Facebook page soon, keep an eye out for insights on how to work with this potent lunar energy.

As we move deeper into Leo season, mark your calendars for a very special Imbolc edition of the blog, dropping August 1. Imbolc is a sacred threshold between seasons, a time to kindle new beginnings and honour the returning light, perfect for grounding your creative intentions for the months ahead.

But August brings even more cosmic excitement with a dazzling Six-Planet Parade around August 10, 2025. Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn will align in the morning sky, a breathtaking celestial gathering. Among them, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn may be visible to the naked eye, making this an awe-inspiring moment to connect with the wider universe and your own expansive creative spirit.

Adding to this, the Jupiter and Venus conjunction on August 11 promises an amplified energy of abundance, harmony, and artistic inspiration. The Moon will join this duo between August 19 and 21, making for a stunning triple alignment that invites deep reflection, relationship magic, and new opportunities for growth.

If you’re a night sky watcher, don’t miss the Perseid Meteor Shower peaking August 12-13. Known as one of the brightest meteor showers each year, it’s a powerful time for wishes, release rituals, and connecting with cosmic rhythms. Although the full Moon on August 9 may obscure some of the fainter meteors, the shower’s activity extends beyond its peak, offering darker nights around the August 23 New Moon to catch its magic.

Speaking of lunar events, the Full Moon in Aquarius will occur August 9 at 5:55 pm AEST. This air sign energy encourages us to embrace innovation, community, and forward-thinking ideas, perfect for charting new creative paths or breaking free from old patterns.

Between August 19 and 21, the Moon’s journey will take it close to Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury, creating a beautiful celestial dialogue that can inspire communication, connection, and creative collaborations.

Together, these planetary events invite us to harness the fierce Leo fire alongside expansive and visionary energies, a potent mix for growth, healing, and bold artistic expression as we move through late winter and into the light of spring.

 Oracle Insights: For Leo Season

This Leo Season, invite yourself to slow down and connect deeply with your inner fire, the quiet spark that holds your creative magic steady through winter’s stillness. Use this simple 3-card oracle spread as a gentle guide to explore your path in the weeks ahead.

How to Use:

Find a quiet, comfortable space. Light a candle or hold a crystal if you like. Shuffle your oracle or tarot deck while focusing on these questions. When you’re ready, draw three cards, laying them out left to right.

Card 1: The Spark Within

What is the quiet fire inside me that wants to be seen, nurtured, or expressed this season?
This card reveals the essence of your inner light—the creative force or passion that needs your attention and care right now.

Card 2: The Slow Flame

How can I honour the rhythm of rest and softness without losing my power?
This card offers guidance on embracing the winter’s slower pace while staying connected to your strength and purpose.

Card 3: The Roar to Come

What bold step or intention can I prepare for as this season unfolds?
This card points to the energy or action to cultivate as the wheel turns toward spring and new beginnings.

Reflection:
Spend a few moments journaling or meditating on your cards. How do they speak to the tension between visibility and invisibility? Between rest and creative impulse? How can you weave these insights into your Art Witch journey and daily rhythms?

Three oracle cards laying face down on a table with crystals and a cuppa

🎧 Late Winter Studio Sounds

This month’s playlist is a cosy companion for the slow, creative days of late winter. Think golden afternoon light, big mugs of tea, and quiet hours spent making, dreaming, and gently waking from seasonal slumber. These songs have been playing softly in the background of my studio as I ease through the final stretch of winter. I hope they keep you company too — whether you’re journaling, collaging, or just sinking into a much-needed moment of rest.

Until Next Time…

As we move through this Leo New Moon and into the heart of late winter, may you find power in stillness, magic in the quiet, and courage in your own creative rhythm. Whether you're dreaming at your altar, painting in the low light, or simply letting yourself rest, know that your presence matters, even (especially) when it’s unseen.

Remember to join me each Wednesday on Instagram for Little Witchy Things, small spells and soft rituals to help you stay rooted. You’ll find Cycles of Craft updates and astro insights on my Facebook page, along with behind-the-scenes peeks from the studio across my socials. And don’t miss the special Imbolc blog post dropping August 1, a gentle invitation to honour the returning light.

If you'd like to bring a little of my art magic into your space, visit my Redbubble store, every order supports my practice and means so much.

Thank you for walking this path with me.

With warmth, wonder, and wild art witchery,

A note on imagery:
Some of the visuals in this journal are created using AI tools. As a disabled artist living with chronic health conditions, I sometimes rely on these digital tools to help bring my creative vision to life, especially when energy, pain, or mobility make traditional methods difficult. I still guide every concept and style choice with care and intention, treating AI as a collaborator, not a replacement. It's one of the ways I adapt my practice to honour both my body and my creativity.

Creative Crossroads: Art, Ritual, and the Turning Wheel

Colour Swatches

Hello, Creative Alchemists,

We find ourselves in a curious liminal space, between equinox and Samhain, as the moon begins its quiet return to shadow. The energy is shifting, and I can feel it echoing through both my body and my creative practice.

 Cuppa & Catch-Up

Welcome back. Pour yourself a cuppa and settle in, it’s time for a little studio and life catch-up, some witchy musings, and a whole lot of creative magic. Let’s dive in.

This fortnight has been full, Easter came and went, and while it’s a big part of the broader cultural calendar, it’s also a bittersweet time for many pagans. The first Sunday after the first full moon following the autumn equinox, so clearly rooted in ancient seasonal rhythms. It’s hard not to feel the tension when the most significant day in the Christian calendar echoes such overtly pagan symbolism, especially when we remember the women and wise folk persecuted in the church’s rise to power. I always try to walk a respectful line, acknowledging the past while recognising that I have family of many different faiths.

Sadly, this time, that wasn’t received as I’d hoped. In a post on my personal Facebook page I was challenged by a prominent member of the pagan community who felt my words were gaslighting or incorrect. It hurt. Not because we disagreed, that happens, but because they chose to attack rather than seek to understand. I share this because it’s important to remember we can hold nuance. We can respect others and still speak our truth with care.

On the studio front, it’s been all systems go! The countdown is on for the Creativa Exhibition with Collective 24 next month. We’re finalising the opening event, the promo is rolling out, and suddenly it all feels very real. Months of planning are now becoming something tangible. I think part of me thrives under deadline pressure, a hangover from art school, maybe?

I’m writing this between layers drying, and I’ve got a feeling there’ll be a couple of midnight sessions coming up. Make sure you’re following Collective 24 on Facebook and Instagram and RSVP to our opening event over on Facebook, we’d love to see you there!

Creativa by Collective 24

Art Witch Musings

This week’s Witchy Little Things was all about cleansing and clearing our art spaces, something that felt particularly timely as I recently had to reset mine to make space for my new electric wheelchair. It was more than just a rearrange; it was a full energetic clearing.

I talked about calling in the elements:

• Earth — placing grounding crystals around my space.

• Air — incense smoke curling through the air, shifting the energy.

• Fire — lighting a candle with intention.

• Water — misting with moon water I’d infused with lavender oil.

As promised, here’s my simple Lavender Moon Water Spray recipe:

1. Start with moon-charged water (leave a jar of water out under the full moon overnight).

2. Add a few drops of lavender essential oil.

3. Drop in a couple of clear quartz chips for extra energetic amplification.

4. Pour into a spray bottle and shake gently before use.

I use it to cleanse my space, my tools, or even myself when I’m shifting from mundane to magical.

Art Journal Prompt

Taurus New Moon Prompt:
Taurus invites us to slow down and reconnect with the physical world, to root into what feels nourishing and real.

Where in your life are you craving more stability, beauty, or comfort? What would it look like to honour your creative practice as a sacred ritual of embodiment, not just something you do, but something you feel?

Use this moon to ground yourself in your creative desires and don’t rush. Taurus teaches us that what grows slowly, lasts.

Art Journal Page

Artist of the Season: Yayoi Kusama

I had the absolute joy of seeing her work at the NGV recently, and it was like stepping into another universe, one where repetition becomes rhythm, and colour becomes incantation.

Even more special, I took my grandkids with me. Mr 3 was totally captivated by the colours, dancing through the space with wide-eyed wonder. Miss 7 asked such incredible questions, curious about the artist, the meaning, the why. Watching them engage with art in their own ways made the whole day unforgettable. That’s the magic, watching creativity spark across generations.

Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan. She began painting as a child, channelling the vivid hallucinations she experienced polka dots, infinite fields, strange patterns that engulfed her vision. Her art became her sanctuary.

In the 1950s, she moved to New York, a woman of colour in a deeply racist, male-dominated art world. And yet she carved out space with her mesmerising Infinity Net paintings and radical performance art.

Her work tackled trauma, mental illness, the body, and the oppressive systems around her, often decades ahead of her time. Many of her ideas were mirrored (and sometimes outright copied) by her male contemporaries. Still, she persisted.

In the 1970s she returned to Japan and checked herself into a psychiatric hospital where she still lives, continuing to create from a studio nearby.

Now in her 90s, Kusama is an icon, her mirrored rooms and giant pumpkins attract global audiences. She is a symbol of radical creativity, endurance, and the magic of trusting your inner world.

Her work reminds me that art can be loud, messy, obsessive, deeply personal and still powerful beyond measure.

Cycles of Craft Update

As we move closer to Samhain here in the Southern Hemisphere, I’ve been feeling that subtle shift, the soft thinning of the veil, the pull toward memory and honouring.

It always strikes me how this aligns with ANZAC Day, a moment in our national calendar where we collectively pause to remember those who served and sacrificed. In my family, this is deeply personal. Every generation has had someone step forward during times of conflict, believing they were protecting their families and their way of life. Some never returned. Others came back with the ghosts of war in tow.

For me, ANZAC Day and Samhain sit side by side, both rooted in remembrance. Both asking us to honour our ancestors, their choices, their burdens, their dreams.

This will also be the theme of my Samhain Special Edition blog post next week, where I’ll go deeper into ritual, remembrance, and the creative magic of this liminal time. Stay tuned.

Dawn Service

Before you go

Want to wear a little Samhain magic? Head over to my Redbubble store and check out my Crow Series — inspired by this season of shadow and mystery.

For a deeper dive into the Taurus New Moon, head to my Facebook page, where I’ve posted my latest astrology insights as part of the #CyclesOfCraft series.

And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Facebook to stay in the loop with daily updates, behind-the-scenes chaos, and sneak peeks of what’s on the way.

Thanks for spending some time in the studio with me. However you’re moving through this season, I hope you’re finding ways to honour your own pace. I hope to see some of you at the Creativa exhibition, it’s going to be such a celebration of creativity and community. Until then, keep crafting your magic the world needs your light.

Wishing you a grounded, creative, and nourishing Taurus season. See you next week for the Samhain Special Edition.

P.S. If you haven’t yet, I’d be so grateful if you could vote for my torso sculptures in the Stop It Before It Starts Art Show’s People’s Choice Awards. Voting is open until April 30, and every vote truly counts. You can view all entries and cast your vote here.

Kintsugi of the Soul