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