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.

Crossing the Threshold: Art, Magic & the New Moon in Gemini

Witch in a Wheelchair - Monthly Musings from Ange’s Studio

✴︎ Cuppa & Catch Up ✴︎

Greetings Creative Alchemist,

Welcome to the very first edition of Monthly Musings from Ange’s Studio! This new journal-style format will land with each new moon, weaving together studio updates, witchy wisdom, seasonal shifts, creative reflections, and artist inspiration, all brewed up with a little magic and a lot of heart.

After months of planning, the gallery doors are officially open for the Creativa Exhibition by Collective 24, "an eclectic group of emerging artists here in Melbourne/Naarm! Opening Night is Friday, May 30 and I’d love to see you there. I’m beyond excited to share that alongside my newest work, The Crow Cycle has taken flight once again and landed at Kindred Cameras, Docklands, for the exhibition. The crows will be watching from the walls, and this time they’ve brought friends. Limited edition crow-themed journals and postcards will be available at the gallery, along with creations from other artists in the show. (You can also find my crow-themed creations online via my Redbubble shop.)

Keep your eyes on my socials in the lead-up to the event, we’ll be sharing sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes moments, and maybe a crow or two.

In other news… I’m moving! Over the next few weeks, I’ll be packing up both home and studio to settle into my new forever home, a beautiful brand-new wheelchair accessible apartment that I can’t wait to make my own. There’ll be boxes, chaos, and copious amounts of tea, but I’m so looking forward to sharing more as things unfold.

With the studio in flux, I’ve embraced a slower rhythm and turned my creative focus inward. This winter, I’m stepping into a long form writing project, something I’ve been dreaming of for a while. It’s a way to keep the creative fire burning while my art supplies are packed away, and it’s also a gentle offering to my body, which is calling for rest.

I’ll be diving deeper into this new seasonal writing practice, what it means, why now, and how it’s all unfolding, in this month’s Art Witch Musings. So, grab a warm cuppa and keep reading...

Creativa by Collective 24 exhibition flyer

✴︎ Cycles of Craft — Seasonal & Celestial Shifts in the Studio ✴︎

As we settle into the last weeks of autumn and tiptoe toward the winter solstice, the energies around us shift dramatically. What was outward now draws inward. And the skies above? They’ve got plenty to say about our creative rhythms, emotional landscapes, and inner growth this month.

Gemini Twins

♊ Gemini Season (from May 21)

The Sun breezed into Gemini, and were invited to lighten things up, get curious, and explore new ideas. This season encourages us to ask questions, write, speak, and connect in unexpected ways. It’s a great time to journal, brainstorm, or dive into something new and mentally stimulating, perfect energy for the start of a fresh creative chapter.

🌑 New Moon in Gemini – Tuesday, May 27 at 1:05pm AEST

This is your cosmic permission slip to reset your mindset. A great time to set intentions around learning, sharing your truth, or trying out a new practice (like a different medium or creative tool). Gemini New Moons favour flexible thinking and starting things that involve writing, teaching, or speaking your truth.

♃ Jupiter in Cancer – from June 9 to June 30

Jupiter, the planet of growth and abundance, moves into the deeply emotional sign of Cancer. This transit draws us back to our roots, our families, our ancestry, and our need for safety and belonging. It’s also a powerful time for inner expansion through care, tradition, and gut wisdom. You might feel called to rework your physical space (hello, nesting vibes) or tap into the stories held in your lineage.

🌕 Full Moon in Sagittarius – Wednesday, June 11 at 5:43pm AEST

This full moon brings a burst of fire into the cooler days. Sagittarius energy asks: What do you believe in? Where are you being called to stretch beyond your current limits? This is a beautiful lunation for releasing old dogmas or fears around following your own path. Rituals around fire, freedom, or setting bold intentions are well supported.

❄️ Winter Solstice – Saturday, June 21 at 12:41pm AEST

The turning of the Wheel. The longest night. The sacred pause. Solstice invites us into a moment of stillness and deep inner knowing. This is a time to honour what you’ve let go of and gently begin to dream the next cycle into being. Consider lighting a candle, writing a list of things you’re grateful for, or simply resting. You’ve earned it.

✨ Deep dives into these themes will be shared over at Ange’s Studio on Facebook, so keep an eye out there if you’d like to go further into the energies of each event.

🌌 And don’t forget, there’ll be a Special Edition Post for the Winter Solstice with reflective rituals, journaling prompts, and seasonal musings.

✴︎  Gemini Season Art Journal Prompt ✴︎

An Art Witch’s desk with a journal and art supplies

✨ “How can I embrace curiosity and duality in my creative practice this month? What stories am I ready to tell, and which voices within me need to be heard?”

Use this prompt to explore contrasts, conversation, and playful experimentation in your art. Try layering text, symbols, or fragments of writing to capture Gemini’s lively, restless energy. Let your pages become a dialogue between your many creative selves.

✴︎ Art Witch Musings – Embracing the in-between ✴︎

An Art Witch’s desk with Grimoire and laptop

Chapter One: The Threshold is the Work

As the nights draw longer and the wind hums her secrets through the trees, I find myself slipping gently into the space between. The season invites stillness, reflection, and retreat, so I’m heeding her call. This winter, my studio will be a cauldron of words, warmed by endless cups of tea, witchy tunes on repeat, and bowls of soup stirred with intention. The paintbrushes are resting. The clay sleeps. But something deeper is waking in the pages.

This new section of my Journal, Art Witch Musings, will be home to a different kind of creative work, a long form unfolding. Think of it as the beginning of a book that hasn’t yet decided what shape it wants to take. A zine? A grimoire? A manifesto? All I know is that the first sentence has arrived, and I’m following her down into the dark.

This chapter marks the beginning of a larger body of work that will evolve slowly over the next few moon cycles. It’s part essay, part invocation, part love letter to the liminal. A deeper dive into who I am as an artist and a witch, beyond the social media snippets, beyond the finished artwork.

Because the truth is, what you see, the art, is only the echo. The real work begins in the unseen places. The threshold. The fog. The marrow. Art witchery, for me, isn’t just about aesthetic or vibe. It’s not all herbs and candles (though there are plenty of both). It’s a way of being. A way of listening. A sacred creative practice that weaves together magic, feminism, disability, intuition, spirituality, and the radical act of slowing down.

I work in the liminal spaces that are neither here nor there, moments between moments. This is where my best work brews. As someone living with disability, I already inhabit a different kind of rhythm. Time bends. Energy moves like a tide. My creative process is never linear. It spirals. It rests. It returns.

To live and create in this way is both political and spiritual. It’s a reclaiming of body and voice. A refusal to conform to capitalist productivity or ableist ideals of what a “working artist” should look like. It’s also deeply mystical, a communion with unseen forces, ancestral memory, and archetypal wisdom. I draw as much from the occult, dreamwork, and spiritual alchemy as I do from my physical materials. My art isn’t just inspired by these things; it’s made through them.

The studio becomes a sacred container. The page is an altar. My materials are spell ingredients. Symbols emerge like whispers. Archetypes show up in my dreams and then appear in my work. I marinate in every corner of these liminal spaces, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, until the art reveals itself.

This slow, chaptered unfolding is an offering, a way to honour the parts of my practice that often go unseen. The compost. The spellwork. The quiet why behind the what.
This winter, I’m letting the words do the heavy lifting and I’d love for you to walk this path with me.

So, light a candle. Pour yourself a cuppa. And join me each moon cycle as I write my way deeper into this practice.
Because sometimes, the most powerful creation happens when we are still.
When we let the fog settle.
When we honour the threshold as sacred.

✴︎ Witchy Little Things ✴︎

An Art Witch’s desk with a journal, candles, crystals and herbs

Resting at the Threshold

This season, I’ve been thinking a lot about thresholds, those in-between spaces that don’t quite belong to one thing or another. The doorway. The dusk. The inhale before the exhale. The moment when you're no longer who you were, but not yet who you're becoming.

Winter, in all her quiet wisdom, is a threshold. She invites us to step away from the noise, to sink into stillness, to listen. Not to fix or push or produce, but simply to be. That is not lazy. That is ritual.

When we choose to rest with intention, we reclaim something that capitalism has tried to steal from us, our rhythms, our softness, our right to pause. For those of us living with disability or chronic illness, this sacred pause is already embedded in our bones. We move with the tide. We honour the fog. But rest, when approached as a ritual, becomes something even more powerful: a spell of resistance, a threshold into deeper creativity, a homecoming to ourselves.

So, this month’s Witchy Little Things is all about resting at the threshold, finding magic in the stillness, the in-between, the quiet moments that hold everything.

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

1. Thresholds Are Sacred
A threshold isn’t just a place, it’s a moment. When I moved from painting into writing this winter, I realised I wasn’t just changing mediums, I was crossing a threshold. These liminal spaces hold potent creative energy if we allow ourselves to pause and listen. You might be in one now. What are you crossing into? What are you leaving behind?

2. Rest as Ritual, Rest as Resistance
Build small, sensory rituals around your rest: a blanket you only use when reading tarot, a mug of herbal tea with a sprinkle of cinnamon, a playlist that signals “rest time” to your nervous system. These moments are sacred. Honour them as you would a spell.

3. The Dreaming Threshold
Dreams are threshold places too, where the conscious and subconscious meet. If you’re feeling disconnected from your creative flow, try resting with intention. Sleep with a crystal or herb bundle beside your bed, journal what arrives in the morning, or use a sigil to invite insight. The wisdom you’re seeking might be waiting in the quiet.

4. Crafting a Threshold Altar
Create a small altar or corner that holds your intentions as you rest. A candle for light, a feather for softness, a key for what you’re unlocking. This isn’t about aesthetics, it’s about energy. A place to hold what’s unfolding, gently, quietly, in its own time.

This winter, let rest be the ritual. Let the threshold be your teacher. Because sometimes the deepest magic happens when we stop trying to shape the world… and allow it to shape us.

✴︎ Artist of the Season: Johanna Warren ✴︎

Born: June 1, 1990 | Gemini Sun
Based in: Portland, Oregon
Mediums: Music, herbalism, ritual performance, healing arts

This season I’m honouring the deeply magical work of Johanna Warren, musician, witch, herbalist, and healer, as our Artist of the Season. Born under the sign of Gemini, Johanna’s music dances across realms: grief and joy, shadow and light, sacred and mundane. Her work feels like a whispered conversation at the edge of sleep, part lullaby, part invocation.

Johanna moves between worlds with ease, weaving music, plant medicine, energy work and ritual into one coherent offering. Her albums Gemini I and Gemini II embody the dual nature of the twins, not just as a concept but as an ongoing, lived experience, one of complexity, contradiction, and transformation. She describes these works as “emotional siblings,” made in response to deep inner reckoning and radical self-inquiry.

As an artist, she doesn’t shy away from pain. Instead, she crafts beauty from it, songs that feel like spells, lyrics that linger like the scent of burning herbs. She has also spoken openly about her path as a healer and witch, using creativity as both a cathartic release and an act of resistance. There’s something powerfully liminal about her work, like a doorway left ajar between worlds.

Her presence in the playlist this month is no accident, I’ve included a few of her songs that speak directly to this month's themes: rest, ritual, the sacred threshold, and the magic of in-between spaces. I hope they wrap around you like a blanket of moss and moonlight.

I hope you enjoy this month’s Winter Playlist, a little sonic spell to accompany your journal practice, your quiet afternoons, your moments of pause.

That’s a Wrap…

Thanks for curling up with this first edition of Monthly Musings, I’m so glad you’re here for the journey.

If you’re local, don’t forget: the Opening Night for the Creativa Exhibition is happening Friday May 30 at Kindred Cameras in Docklands. I’d love to see you there, come say hi, soak up the art, and maybe even take a crow (or two) home with you. There’ll be exclusive merch available from myself and other talented artists.

You can keep up with my studio life, witchy updates, and creative musings over on Instagram @angefosterart and Facebook at Ange’s Studio.

The New Moon astrology report is now live in this month’s Cycles of Craft update, you’ll find that over on Facebook, too.

And if you’re feeling the call to bring a little magic into your everyday, check out my Redbubble shop, browse prints, journals, and other enchanted goodies from the studio.

Until next moon, stay warm, stay inspired, and may your winter be filled with soft blankets, quiet magic, and creative sparks.

Some of the images in this post were created using AI. As a disabled artist living with chronic pain, I use AI tools to support my creative process when physical limitations make traditional methods difficult. It's one of the ways I continue to tell my stories, craft my magic, and share my world, accessibly, sustainably, and on my own terms.

Lammas: Honouring the First Harvest & Our Creative Cycles

Lammas - The First Harvest Festival

As we step into Lammas, the first of the harvest festivals, we reach a moment of reflection and gratitude for the creative seeds we’ve planted and nurtured over these past months. This is the time to honour both our artistic and personal growth, as well as the shifting cycles of the natural world.

The History of Lammas

Lammas, or Lughnasadh, is an ancient festival marking the first harvest of grain. Traditionally celebrated on February 1st–2nd in the Southern Hemisphere, it acknowledges the bounty of the land and the hard work that has gone into bringing the harvest to fruition. However, astrologically, Lammas falls halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, which in 2025 is on February 4th. Named after the Celtic god Lugh, a deity of craftsmanship and skill, this sabbat invites us to celebrate our own creative talents and recognize how far we’ve come on our journey.

Celebrating Lammas in the Southern Hemisphere

Living in the Southern Hemisphere, our experience of the Wheel of the Year is different from the Northern Hemisphere traditions often found in mainstream paganism. Here, Lammas coincides with the height of summer’s warmth beginning to wane, the first golden hints of autumn approaching, and a deep gratitude for the abundance that sustains us. It’s a time to slow down, reflect on what we’ve cultivated, and prepare for the shifting season ahead.

Ways to celebrate:

• Set up a Lammas altar: Decorate with sunflowers, Banksia flowers, and other seasonal flora. Include native fruits such as finger limes and Kakadu plums for an Australian touch.

• Colours of the season: Gold, orange, deep red, and earthy browns.

• Crystals for Lammas: Carnelian (passion and creativity), Citrine (abundance), Tiger’s Eye (grounding and strength).

• Herbs to work with: Native Australian bush herbs such as Lemon Myrtle (clarity and healing), Wattle (resilience and renewal), and Eucalyptus (cleansing and protection), along with traditional herbs like Rosemary (protection and remembrance), Basil (prosperity), and Chamomile (calm and success).

• Rituals & Offerings: Bake damper infused with native bush herbs as an offering of gratitude, create art inspired by the themes of harvest and transition, or write a list of your creative accomplishments since the Spring Equinox, when we planted the seeds of what we wanted to manifest.

A Lammas Altar.

Personal & Creative Reflections

Lammas invites us to reflect on our creative cycle, beginning back at the Spring Equinox when we set intentions, through Beltane where we ignited new ideas and passions, the Summer Solstice where we basked in their full light, and now at Lammas, where we harvest the wisdom gained along the way.

For me, this journey has been deeply tied to The Unseen Woman and the experience of exhibiting her at the Merri Bek Summer Show. This piece spoke to the visibility and invisibility of women’s lives—a theme that continues to weave itself through my work. Alongside this, I’ve expanded my practice, exploring watercolours more deeply and now beginning to experiment with Procreate and digital art.

Opening my Redbubble shop was a big step. This has been an exciting new way to share my art, allowing people to bring small pieces of my work into their daily lives.

I’ve also taken a significant step by preparing to apply for my first grant, a means to continue delving into the themes of the visible and invisible. These explorations remind me that our art, much like the cycles of nature, is constantly evolving, layering upon itself as we learn, shift, and grow.

I would love to hear some of your accomplishments during this cycle, please share with me over on the socials.

Honouring Women’s Stories: A Defiant Act of Feminism

One of the most powerful aspects of this cycle was taking part in the 101 Women Project, where we honoured the women killed by gendered violence in 2024. This work felt like an act of defiance, a reclamation of space for those whose voices were silenced. The ongoing cycle of remembrance, resistance, and renewal is more important than ever. We must fight for the rights that our grandmothers and mothers fought so hard for us to have. We cannot give up. We cannot let these rights be taken from us.

As Lammas teaches us, our work—whether creative, activist, or personal—is never in vain; it is part of a larger, ongoing cycle of remembrance, resistance, and renewal.

Embracing Texture & Layers: Experimenting for Creativa

Looking ahead, I am preparing for the Creativa exhibition with Collective 24, where I am focusing on layers and textures—both literal and metaphorical. This new exploration ties back to the very essence of Lammas: layering experiences, building upon past efforts, and refining our craft as we move forward.

Playing with Texture and Layers

Introducing #ArtWitchTips & #WitchyLittleThings

As part of the next phase of #CyclesOfCraft, I’m excited to introduce #ArtWitchTips and #WitchyLittleThings—practical, everyday tips for art witches. These will be small, actionable ways to bring magic into your creative practice, aligning your craft with the seasons, lunar cycles, and personal intentions. Stay tuned for more magical creativity!

#ArtWitchTips and #WitchyLittleThings

Lammas Art Journal Prompt

Lammas is a time of harvest, gratitude, and reflection. As we honour the first fruits of our labour, it’s also a time to ask: What have you created, nurtured, or learned since the Spring Equinox? What are you proud of? What do you wish to carry forward into the next season?

Art Journal Prompt: Create a page celebrating your personal harvest. Use warm, golden tones, layered textures, and symbols of abundance. Incorporate elements that represent your own creative journey—whether it’s words, images, or patterns that tell your story.

A Lammas Art Journal Page.

Additional Creative Offerings

As a special offering for this sabbat, I am releasing a free downloadable colouring page that aligns with the themes of Lammas. This is a small gift of creativity and reflection, an invitation to slow down and engage with the energy of the season through art.

Free Colouring Page for Lammas

Looking Ahead to Mabon & Aligning Art with the Season

As we move toward Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, we begin shifting our focus from outward expression to inward reflection. Just as the trees prepare to shed their leaves, we can ask ourselves: What do we need to release? What do we want to carry with us into the darker months ahead? How can we align our creative practice with the energy of this turning season?

Lammas is our moment to pause, celebrate, and express gratitude—not just for what we’ve created, but for the journey itself. The cycle continues, and with it, the ever-unfolding story of our craft, our art, and our lives.

#CyclesOfCraft is an ongoing exploration of creativity, nature, and the rhythms that shape us. As we embrace the harvest of Lammas, we prepare for the next season of change. What are you harvesting in your own life and creative practice right now? Let’s honour it together.