Fragments, Forms & Layers, Part One

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Series Introduction 

This week, the remarkable artist and teacher Crystal Marie Neubauer invited me to talk with her online group about my work. It was an honor — Crystal’s influence on my creative life goes back years — but it also presented a surprising challenge. How do you describe an art practice that moves through so many materials and forms? Encaustic, collage, fiber, clay, found objects… I’ve never been a one-medium artist, and trying to explain everything at once felt impossible.

Then I realized that my work isn’t united by medium at all. It’s united by object and intention — by the forms that keep reappearing no matter what materials I’m using. And when I stepped back, three clear paths emerged:

  • Santos & Shards — guardians, icons, and the stories held in fragments

  • Vessels — boats, bowls, pods, and the metaphor of holding

  • Layered Images — collage, wax, and the quiet revelations inside transparency

These three paths intertwine across everything I make. They shape how I think about narrative, memory, devotion, protection, and the unseen layers beneath the surface.

This three-part blog series grows out of that conversation with Crystal and her community — an invitation to look more closely at where my work comes from, how it evolves, and how other artists might find echoes of their own practice in these structures.

Taos Ceramic Center Workshop – Shards and Santos

Part 1: Shards & Santos — Stories from the Broken and Blessed

A three-part series on Fragments, Vessels & Layers

We rarely begin with a whole story. More often, meaning appears in pieces — a scrap of paper, a chipped relic, a bit of fabric softened by time. Over the years, I’ve learned that these fragments are not the leftovers; they’re the invitations.

This first post in my three-part series returns to the roots of an idea that has shaped much of my work — and shaped the work of many artists I’ve taught, especially during my Shards & Santos workshop in Taos. That circle of students helped me see just how universal the language of fragments can be.

How Shards Become Stories

In my own practice, fragments arrive like clues: a small clay face, a scrap of rusted tin, a wooden bit that once held something together. But in Taos, I watched my students discover that same moment of recognition — the instant a found object becomes a story seed.

One student picked up a cracked porcelain doll arm and immediately said, “She’s reaching for something… I don’t know what yet.” Another wound red thread around a bundle of broken twigs, transforming it into a line of healing. Someone else combined milagros and fabric scraps into a small guardian who looked both ancient and brand new.

Their work reminded me that the power of fragments isn’t personal to me — it’s common to all of us who rely on intuition, accident, and memory to guide the creative process.

Santos, Spirit Figures & the Art of Devotion

My own santos and spirit figures grew from this love of broken, found, and humble materials. They echo the devotional folk traditions of the Southwest and northern New Mexico, where handmade imperfection is embraced as a sign of humanity.

In Taos, my students instinctively reached for the same archetypes — watchers, keepers, protectors. Their figures weren’t copies of mine; they were something deeper: their own histories embodied in small forms. Some appeared fierce. Some gentle. Some humorous and unexpected. But each one performed an act of trust and devotion: taking what is overlooked and turning it into things that matters.

Teaching in Taos: A Circle of Making and Mending

The workshop gave me a front-row seat to the creative courage required to work with fragments. No one started with a clear plan. Everyone started with pieces.

And I saw how quickly the shards guided them:

  • An animal bone became the spine of a tiny santo.

  • A found seed pod became a symbol of protection.

  • A scrap of handwritten ledger paper held the echo of an unknown voice.

These transformations reminded me that assemblage is not just a technique — it’s a way of mending meaning.

Inviting You Into the Studio Conversation

Even if you weren’t in that room in Taos, these ideas belong to you too. Artists everywhere — no matter the medium — work with fragments. Sometimes they are literal (material scraps, failed starts, bits of old work). Sometimes they are emotional or intuitive (memories, glimpses, unfinished thoughts).

From the presentation to Crystal’s Group

So here are some invitations for your own practice:

  • What three fragments are asking for your attention right now? Do they go together or are they separate stories – a series, perhaps?

  • What part of something incomplete could become the beginning of something new?

  • How might you create your own guardian figure — a studio santo — from the materials around you?

The beauty of working with shards and fragments is that nothing has to be whole to be meaningful. The “broken” thing is already full of story. Your job — our job — is simply to listen and find its true companions.

Looking Ahead

Next week, in Part Two, I’ll share the second path in this creative trio: Vessels — how boats, bowls, pods, and containers have shaped my work and helped me think about what we hold, carry, and protect.

Places That Remember Us

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On Taos, Mulranny, and the Quiet Mystery of Recognizing Home

 

By Ernest L. Blumenschein –

There are places in the world that carry such a strong sense of identity that when we arrive, we don’t feel like visitors at all. We feel like returning.

Taos, New Mexico is like that for me. So is Mulranny, on the western edge of Ireland where the sea meets the boglands in a quiet, ancient conversation.

These places hold themselves with a kind of certainty. The land is layered with memory—geological, cultural, artistic, ancestral. You feel it in the air, the light, the way people move through their days. There is a coherence, a gatheredness, as though the place has been simmering itself down for centuries into something clear and undeniable.

When we step into such a place, something inside us recognizes that clarity. It’s as if a previously silent part of ourselves suddenly speaks up and says, Oh. Here. I know this.

This is different from nostalgia. Nostalgia is longing for something we remember. This is longing for something we have never remembered, but somehow always known.

Taos has that feeling. The Sangre de Cristo mountains rise behind the town like a presence, not a backdrop. They don’t frame Taos—they hold it. Even before I learned the stories of Taos Pueblo, the artists who came seeking mystery, and the long river of history flowing quietly there, I could feel it. There’s a strong connection to the San Antonio Art League here, too – many of the artists who are in the permeant collection of the Art League Museum were among those who began the Taos Society of Artists, founded in 1915.

Mulranny is similar, but in a softer, tidal way. There, the land whispers instead of declares. The beach stretches long and pale, seaweed and shells lining the tidemarks like messages. Every time I walk there, I feel I am being given something I once lost. Not returned in full—just enough to say, Keep looking. You are close.

Maybe this sensation comes from memory embedded in the psyche—our ancestors moving across continents, carrying landscapes in their bones. Or perhaps we simply recognize places that mirror the interior geographies we already carry.

Some of us have mountains inside us.
Some of us have coastlines.
Some of us have deserts.
Some of us have peat bogs and tide pools and drifting fog.

And when we find the physical counterpart to our inner landscape, it feels like home.

Last night, here in Taos, the idea revealed itself all over again. We stopped at a tiny wine bar tucked inside an old adobe building just off the plaza on Ledoux Street. The room was dim and candle-warmed, plaster walls worn smooth by decades of hands and weather. A traditional Irish band was playing—fiddle, guitar, bodhrán—music that rose and curled into the thick air like smoke. And there it was: Taos and Mulranny, braided together. The mountains outside, the sea in memory. Two places I love, both concentrated with history and spirit, appearing in the same breath of song.

We don’t need to live in these places to be shaped by them. Sometimes it is enough just to have stood there, breathed that air, walked that shoreline. They become part of our internal compass—a direction we can return to whenever we need to remember who we are.

We carry them with us.
Or perhaps—they carry us.

John O’Donohue
“Landscape is the firstborn of creation. It was here long before we ever arrived, and it will continue to be. When we walk on the earth, we are walking on the ancient body of our grandmother.”

I’ll be back home in San Antonio soon with Taos stories to tell, one that involves another “home” I found in Santa Fe that feels like it is in Japan.

How do you journey?

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“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” — Lewis Carroll

I’m getting ready to leave for Taos, New Mexico, to teach a class called Shards and Santos at the Taos Ceramics Center. We’re driving from San Antonio, and my husband (and beloved traveling companion) has already checked the road for both traffic construction and upcoming weather conditions. He knows where we will stop and how long it will take to get there.

This is hugely reassuring! I’d probably just hop in and head northwest. And this topic a perfect lead-in to reflecting about how differently we chart our artist’s journey. I actually created two Oracle Cards to express this.

A section in the in-progress Enso Oracle book called Subtleties and Pairings: When Meanings Overlap says, “Some cards in The Enso Oracle may appear to speak the same language, yet their tones differ quietly, like two instruments playing in harmony. The Wanderer and The Traveler, for example, both move through the world, but their motives are distinct: The Traveler walks with purpose, guided by curiosity and direction, while The Wanderer drifts in openness, allowing intuition rather than intention to lead. One seeks, the other listens.”

Take a minute to think about this, and then see which card below fits your creative “journey style” the best.

Were you able to choose your “wayfinder archetype”?

As you were reading the two cards above, which one tugs at you today?– (it may change tomorrow)

If you’re The Traveler (purposeful path):

  • Name a destination for this week’s studio time in one sentence.

  • Pick one tool or constraint that will help you get there.

  • Five-minute map: sketch the sequence—Step 1 → Step 2 → Step 3.

If you’re The Wanderer (intuitive drift):

  • Begin without a plan: choose three materials by feel, not reason.

  • Follow the most interesting accident for 10 minutes—no fixing, only noticing.

  • Three lines in your notebook: What surprised you? What changed? What’s next?

Tell Me & Tell Each Other

In the comments, share which card chose you today that describes your approach, and
I’ll feature a few responses in the next post (with your permission).

I’ll be on the road to Taos soon—channeling a bit of Traveler (routes and rest stops – thank you, Beloved Traveling Companion) and a whole lot of Wanderer (open skies, new textures). Which one will guide you this week?

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post while I’m there – I’ll send pics!! Thanks for reading!

The Honeybee: A Late Addition

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I was so close to calling the Enso Oracle finished. The paths were set, the 44 cards were balanced, and the framework felt solid. And then, almost out of nowhere, a single image and idea rose to the surface — The Honeybee.

I kept thinking about the kind of artist who thrives on exploration. Someone who moves from one material to another, from idea to idea, gathering inspiration like pollen. Their work is enriched by variety — not scattered, but woven together from what they collect. Many of us know this way of working. Many of us are that artist.

The Honeybee acknowledges the beauty of that temperament: the flexibility, the curiosity, the openness to what’s new. But it also recognizes its challenge — the risk of never landing long enough to make something fully realized. In my own practice, I’ve seen both sides of this. I’ve been down many rabbit-holes and stayed down there too long. That’s why this card felt essential, even at the very end of the process.

Some of the things that I have learned and worked with, sometimes even taught, and wished I could stay with longer –

  • Eco-dyeing with plants
  • Saori weaving
  • Silkscreen / screen printing
  • Handmade artist books and zines
  • Monotype printing

I’ve kept little shards of technique from all of these but there just isn’t time to do justice to everything I want to do! Do you ever feel that way?

This card wasn’t part of the original plan. It arrived late, quietly, but with a kind of certainty. And sometimes, that’s how the truest symbols find their way in — not with a grand entrance, but with a simple nudge that says, don’t leave this out.

The Honeybee reminds us that exploring widely can be a strength, but at some point, we choose when to stay still long enough to make something real. For all the artists who gather widely before they go deep: The Honeybee is for you.

Which of these have you sampled?

  • Gouache
  • Oil painting
  • Ink drawing and brushwork
  • Botanical illustration
  • Needle felting
  • Natural dyeing
  • Surface design on fabric (e.g., block printing)
  • Knitting and crochet
  • Rug hooking or punch needle
  • Hand-built ceramics
  • Wheel throwing
  • Cyanotype and sun printing
  • Metal clay or simple metalsmithing
  • Resin casting
  • Found object jewelry
  • Fiber + bead hybrid pieces
  • Calligraphy and brush lettering
  • Papermaking
  • Origami or paper sculpture
  • Polymer clay sculpting
  • Paper clay or air-dry clay
  • Rust printing and patina experiments
  • Ephemeral land art
  • Digital collage
  • Synthographic image generation
  • Digital drawing or painting tablets

If you’re like me, you’ve tried at least ten of these. A “Honeybee” creator often:

  • Mixes two or more of these media in one piece.
  • Returns to favorites but rarely stays still for long.
  • Values process and discovery as much as polished results.

This is such an appealing oracle card to me – it describes both the frustration and the satisfaction of being a mixed-media explorer. 

I’m almost at the end of creating the Enso Oracle, and this unexpected addition reminded me that creative work is rarely linear. Even when we think we’ve reached the finish line, something new can emerge that feels absolutely right. The Honeybee will join the other cards as part of the Path of Discovery, honoring those whose practices are built on curiosity and connection.

Sometimes, the last piece isn’t an afterthought — it’s the one that makes the whole feel complete. Stay tuned!

The Hump, The Clock, and Creative Risk

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Jo Etta Jupe

Last Friday, three friends and I gathered for an informal studio session to test out a couple of techniques I am going to use this spring at a workshop I’m teaching at UTSA/SW. It’s called Vessel Alchemy: Tactile Poems in Fiber, Paper, Word, and Light

We had just four hours to experiment — I had “borrowed” the Semmes Studio at the Art League for our playtime .Normally, this vessel-making process unfolds over two leisurely days. So the plaster didn’t dry as fast as we expected, and while our asemic writing on tissue was ready, we still needed to try the beeswax on the vessel surface.

Remember the Oracle card called The Hump? That obstacle in the road? We were looking right at it, and the clock was ticking.

There was no time to second-guess. No time to over-plan. We just tweaked the process, took a few creative risks with the wax, and pushed right up against the edges of what felt possible. We used hot beeswax on cold plaster and fiber.

We had already put beeswax over damp “Irish paper” with good results (the hot wax dried the paper) . . .

. . . .so we rushed the process a bit. And here’s the surprising part: the results were beautiful.

Mary Zinda

I’ll admit, I worried we might have compromised good studio practices for speed. But the work told a different story. The pieces had clarity and energy — not the brittle look of something rushed, but the alive look of something made with intention and momentum. And the wax was stable.

Jean Dahlgren

That kind of creative compression can be exhilarating. It really is same energy that inspired the Enso Oracle card, The Hump  — the moment of tension before a breakthrough. When the usual pace isn’t an option, you find new ways to move forward.

You trust instinct over perfectionism. And often, that’s where the real results happen. This is one of the statements on the back of The Hump card:

“Sometimes the best work happens when you don’t give yourself time to talk yourself out of it.”

I’m reminded how much of artmaking is about risk — not the wild, reckless kind, but the kind that asks you to trust the materials, your hands, and the moment. This little four-hour experiment turned out to be a master class in exactly that.

But here’s the thing: there’s a big difference between taking a creative risk and just blowing past good sense because you’re in a hurry. If you don’t have time to do something safely or properly, that’s a sign to pause, not push. The Hump, bless its heart, will still be there tomorrow, patiently waiting. You can experiment, improvise, and trust the process without ignoring the basics that keep you and your work in one piece.

Creative bravery isn’t about being fearless — it’s about being smart enough to take the right kind of risks. And as I’m always telling you (and myself): trust the process. Or in this case, “tweak the process.”

Have you ever had a creative project come together better because of a time constraint or unexpected pressure? Some people swear they do their best work at the last minute. I’d love to hear your stories.

The Art of Magical Thinking

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“If we see three black crows, we will gain the power to fly . .”

A long time ago, I did a practicum in an inpatient psychiatric hospital for children as part of my post-grad Special Ed certification. That’s where I first heard the clinical definition of Magical Thinking. Psychologists define it as the belief that thoughts or actions can influence events in ways that defy logic.

We usually think of magical thinking as something we’re meant to outgrow. As children, we believed our thoughts could make things happen — if we wished hard enough, if we didn’t step on cracks, if we crossed our fingers just right. I have to say that I still hang on to that, because in the studio, it can be an interesting source of insight.

A bit of “magical thinking” allows us to trust the invisible steps of the process: that one step will lead to another, that an image will unfold as it’s meant to, that meaning will appear when we stay open to it. We let imagination do the work that logic can’t always reach.

And honestly, I still do it outside the studio too. I’ll catch myself thinking, “If that stoplight doesn’t turn red before I get to it, that means I’ll get into the juried show.” Or “If the cat jumps on the table before I finish this email, it’s a sign I should change the title.”
It’s funny, but I suspect I’m not the only one.

This isn’t superstition. It’s pattern recognition — an intuitive attunement to the subtle cues that guide creative flow. Artists notice coincidences, accidents, and repetitions, and interpret them as meaningful rather than random. That interpretive act — seeing meaning where others see chance — is our version of magic.

When practiced consciously, this kind of thinking deepens our connection to both process and perception. It reminds us that artmaking is not only about control but about collaboration — with materials, with time, with uncertainty itself. We may not believe that the brush has a will of its own, but we do believe that if we listen closely enough, it will show us something we didn’t expect. Did you ever try mark-making with your non-dominant hand or with your eyes closed? Do you ever choose an Oracle card?

Even neuroscience nods to this kind of enchantment. Studies show that creativity lights up the brain’s default mode network — the same system that activates when we daydream, imagine, or find patterns in randomness. So when we follow an intuitive hunch in the studio, it’s not superstition. It’s the mind’s natural way of finding meaning in chaos.

In that sense, magical thinking isn’t about bending reality. It’s about perceiving more of it — noticing the signals, patterns, and echoes that point the way forward when reason alone runs out of language.

Magical, 2021

Maybe the real magic is that moment when everything suddenly feels connected — when a found object, a stray mark, or a line of color speaks back to you and says, yes, this belongs, when an answer magically appears. Remember the original Pendulum Post from Ireland? Real-life example!

For fun, checkout my Substack post – there’s an “artist-brained” guide to magical thinking – and thanks for reading!

Juried Shows and Oracle Cards

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When I started developing the Enso Oracle Cards as a tool, I realized that they they can be a very practical resource. Beyond intuitive revelation, these cards offer metaphors that help us navigate the day-to-day challenges of studio practice. They remind us, in a humanistic and positive way, that perspective matters as much as process.

Just last week, I was accepted into the Fiber Artists annual Juried Show with my piece called Woolgathering — wonderful news, because this piece was unconventional enough that I wasn’t sure it would be understood.

Lyn Belisle. 2025

So I also know the outcome could just as easily have been a polite “not this time.” That is the nature of juried competition. When the stakes feel high, reading an oracle card can provide a way to step back, breathe, and reframe the experience.

For example, The Pendulum card offers exactly this kind of perspective: a reminder that acceptance and rejection are simply two ends of the same swing, part of the rhythm of creative life.

When we draw this card—or choose it intentionally in a moment of reflection—it reminds us that the back-and-forth is not personal, it’s part of the rhythm of being an artist in the world. The swing of the pendulum is natural, inevitable, and temporary.

Juried shows are not a verdict on the value of your art. You know this.They are a reflection of one juror’s perspective, shaped by their own experiences, tastes, and the constraints of the exhibition. Just as a pendulum does not stop at either extreme, the outcome of any one competition does not define your entire creative practice.

In fact, The Pendulum asks us to look at where we stand in relation to those swings. Are we letting a rejection pull us too far into self-doubt? Are we letting an acceptance push us into overconfidence? The wisdom of the card is found in the center—the still point at the bottom of the swing—where we can observe both movements without being carried away by them.

As a practical exercise, if you’re entering a show or waiting on results, you might place The Pendulum card on your studio table. Sit quietly with it and ask:

  • What am I letting swing me off balance?

  • Where is the calm center I can return to, regardless of outcome?

  • What steady rhythm of making can I trust more than the verdict of a juror?

This practice shifts the experience of competition from one of judgment to one of balance. The card becomes less about predicting success or failure and more about anchoring yourself in the ongoing rhythm of your creative life.

What matters most is not the swing itself, but your ability to find stillness at the center and keep creating with steadiness and joy. It’s all perspective.

Now if only an actual pendulum could give me a positive yes or no answer about whether the piece will be accepted . . . .or maybe the waiting is part of the game 🙂

If you live in the San Antonio area and wold like to know more about the Fiber Artists of San Antonio Exhibit, here you go! Hope to see you there!

Cultivating “Enoughness”

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Every once in a while, a word drops into my lap and refuses to let go. This week it was enoughness. I first used it when talking with our Enso Circle Continuing Residents about wabi-sabi and the endless challenge of cleaning and organizing a studio.

Here were those observations about the difference between “normal” intent and “wabi-sabi” mindset:

Conventional Studio Clean-Up
  • Striving for order: Every tool in its perfect drawer, every scrap of paper sorted or discarded.
  • All-or-nothing mindset: Belief that the studio must be fully “finished” before any new work can happen.
  • Stress and guilt: Overwhelm at the clutter, shame for letting it get “out of control.”
  • Time sink: Hours (or days) spent chasing an idealized, showroom-ready workspace.
Wabi-Sabi State of Mind
  • Enoughness: Accepting that some piles, stains, or chaos are part of a living, creative space.
  • Incremental rhythm: Tidying in small, mindful gestures that create breathing room without demanding perfection.
  • Compassion for self: Seeing clutter not as failure, but as evidence of energy, exploration, and process.
  • Organic order: Letting the studio evolve toward usefulness and comfort, rather than an imposed ideal of spotless control.

Enoughness. Funny word. But the more I sat with it, the more it started to echo through my own art practice.

Enoughness is not about settling. It’s not shrugging and saying, “Well, that’s good enough, I’ll just stop here.” Instead, it’s a sense of completion that comes when a work, a studio, or even a moment feels whole—alive—without needing to be flawless. It’s the place where beauty and imperfection meet.

As I’ve been creating the shard-based assemblages for our upcoming Taos exhibition, I’ve been struck by how the broken pieces seem to carry this truth. A shard of clay, a fragment of a vessel—these are not discarded failures. They are clues. They invite me to listen and to assemble them into a new wholeness that doesn’t erase the breakage but celebrates it.

This assemblage is a conversation in fragments: a face, a hive, antlers, fish, stars. None of these pieces were “whole” when I found them, yet together they created a balance that felt complete. I remember pausing as I worked, holding another small object in my hand, and realizing that if I added more, the story would start to unravel. That moment was enoughness—when the piece declared itself “finished”, not because it was perfect, but because it had found its voice.

Here, the clay face rests beneath the word encanto and a small bird. The cracks and weight in the features carry their own gravity, so when I tried to “fix” the balance with additional adornments, the power of the piece diminished. The bird and the word were all that was needed. Enoughness is sometimes choosing silence over noise.

This assemblage reminds me how enoughness is about honoring the fragments for what they are. Rusted tin, clay shards, a hive filled with crystals—each is incomplete on its own. Together, they form a shrine that feels both fragile and eternal. Enoughness comes when the materials themselves breathe, and I don’t need to push them further.

When I’m working, there’s always the temptation to keep adding more: another layer, another fragment, another mark. But the piece itself tells me when it’s had enough. That moment of recognition—that quiet knowing—is enoughness. To go further would risk dulling the spark. To stop short would leave it unresolved. Enoughness is the balance point, the breath between too much and not enough.

This is where wabi-sabi sneaks in. The Japanese aesthetic of imperfection and impermanence reminds us that cracks and scars are not flaws to hide, but part of the story. Enoughness is wabi-sabi in motion, the living edge where a work becomes whole not despite its fragments, but because of them.

As I gather shards and build these new assemblages, I’m reminded that enoughness is not only about art—it’s about life. A studio doesn’t need to be pristine to be ready. A piece doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. And perhaps we don’t need to be flawless to be whole.

So here’s a reflection for you, SHARD readers:
How do you know when your work—your art, your home, your life—has reached enoughness? Not perfect. Not abandoned. But complete in its storytelling.

Picking Up Pennies in Your Path

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I found this penny yesterday outside of my local HEB grocery store. It looked as if it had been around a lot longer than 2010 — kinda beat-up and corroded. “Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.”

Many of us grew up hearing that rhyme, a little scrap of folklore that turned the smallest coin into a charm against misfortune. The penny has always carried more weight in symbolism than it does in currency. From thrift (“a penny saved is a penny earned”) to chance (“a penny for your thoughts”), it’s a humble token that reminds us how small things can hold unexpected meaning.

And yet, after more than a century in circulation, the U.S. Mint will stop producing pennies next year. It feels strange to think that a coin so common, so unremarkable in daily life, is about to slip quietly into history. Wahhhh!

For me, though, pennies will never be ordinary. Whenever I spot one on the sidewalk or tucked in the dust in a corner of a door frame, I immediately think of my mother, now gone, and I take it as a sign — a quiet hello, a reminder that love lingers in the smallest of tokens. These unexpected pennies can become talismans of connection, proof that influence doesn’t end with absence.

Perhaps that’s the magic of the penny: it teaches us as artists to notice. To see the shimmer in what most people step over. To remember that sometimes, the universe drops a coin at our feet just to remind us we are not alone.

That same spirit inspired me to create a new card for the Enso Oracle: The Penny. Like the coin itself, the card is about noticing the small signs that appear along your path.

In the studio, it might be the scrap of paper you almost threw away but suddenly see as the perfect starting point, or the chance remark from a friend that opens a new direction.

The Penny also asks you to think of someone who has influenced your creative journey — a mentor, a mother, or a friend — and to carry their encouragement into your work. And when the card is reversed, it calls you to face the other side of the coin: to forgive the person whose doubt or discouragement has lingered too long, and to release that weight so it no longer limits your practice.

Drawing The Penny card is an invitation to pause, to honor what has been given, and to look for small treasures hiding in plain sight that might spark the next stage of your creative journey.

The Penny

Keywords: sign • remembrance • unseen influence • gratitude • forgiveness

Oracle Message:
The Penny appears as a small but shining reminder that nothing is insignificant. Just as a coin on the ground can feel like a message from someone we love, this card invites you to notice the quiet signs and synchronicities that connect you to others. It is a call to pause and acknowledge the unseen influence of those who have shaped your journey, for better or for worse. Upright, The Penny asks you to remember and honor those who have encouraged you, to carry their love into your work.

Reversed, it points to the other side of the coin — the voices that discouraged or doubted you. Their shadow may still linger, but now is the time to release them, to forgive, and to step forward unburdened.

Reflection Questions:

  • Who in your life has left you “pennies of encouragement,” small but lasting gifts of influence?
  • What overlooked signs in your studio practice might carry deeper meaning?
  • Is there a discouraging voice from the past that you can finally let go?

Affirmation:
I honor the voices that have loved me, and I release the ones that held me back.

__________________________________

So the next time you see a penny on the ground, pause before you step past it. Pick it up, notice its weight, and let it remind you of the small but powerful connections that guide your path — in the studio and beyond. And save it, because eventually there will be no more of these lovely little copper coins.

If you find one today, know that I am thinking about you and thanking you for reading this!!

 

That’s Life!

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Michelle Belto and I are ready to begin the fall term with our Enso Circle Continuing Residents, the group that is sort of like “alumni” from our online artists’ residency program which will reopen next spring.

I am so grateful to that group because they’re often the inspiration for my Enso Oracle cards. Their questions and the information we all share within the group are things that every artist copes with or celebrates in one way or another as we try to fit in our work with our life. That can be a huge job, right?

EEEK! It’s the Death Card! Yikes!

Nobody likes to pull the Death card in a tarot spread—it sounds ominous, even though it often means transformation or release. But what about creating quieter, more complex twin, the Life card?

Life is more unpredictable, more unruly, than death. Death is final; life interrupts. Life barges in uninvited, derails studio practice, pulls us away from the easel or the loom or the kiln. Life collides with intention—family calls, health falters, bills pile up, or maybe you win the lottery?? It not always bad, but it always disrupts.

When I created the Life card for the Enso Oracle, I wanted something as profound as the tarot’s Death card, but with less fear and more practical application to the artist’s journey. Life doesn’t end things in the same way death does—it reshapes them, tests them, and insists on being part of the process.

For an artist, drawing the Life card is a reminder that we live in a field of interruptions and detours. Yet within those interruptions lies the raw material of art itself: the texture of real experience, the unpredictable weather of being human.

What the Life Card Means

When the Life card comes up, it doesn’t say, “Stop creating.” It says, “Look at what is unfolding.” Life often looks like a distraction, but in truth it is the source of the deepest work. The missed studio hours, the detour from your schedule, the unplanned season of caregiving or crisis—all of these shape the inner landscape that eventually makes its way into your art.

In this sense, the Life card is not an obstacle but a grounding force. It tells us that art is not made apart from life; it is made because of it.

An Example: Interrupted Practice

I know an artist (a painter) who had to abandon a large canvas midway because her father grew ill. The painting sat untouched for months while she traveled back and forth between hospital visits and home. At first, she resented the interruption. But when she returned to the studio, she realized the canvas had been quietly waiting. The work resumed, but it carried something new—an undercurrent of tenderness and vulnerability she could not have painted before that season of life unfolded.

The interruption had not ruined the work. It had deepened it.

Another example is my own. Several years ago, I was facing a rushed deadline for an exhibit (I’m a procrastinator by nature), when a sudden family emergency took us out of town for a week. Thankfully, all turned out well with the family, but I came back to the studio in what I thought was real trouble. What surprised me, though, was how the forced pause gave me time to think more clearly. Away from the pressure of materials and mess, I imagined new approaches, and in that space I discovered a collage technique that not only saved the project but has become a mainstay of my practice ever since.

Drawing the Life Card as an Artist

So what does it mean when you draw the Life card?

  • It may be telling you to forgive yourself for missed studio days.

  • It may be reminding you that your creative path is not separate from the messy, glorious whole of existence.

  • It may be inviting you to weave the day’s interruptions—joyful or painful—into the story your art is telling.

Because Life, for all its unpredictability, is the well from which we draw.

______________________________________________________________

LIFE

Keywords: interruption, arrival, change, reality, presence

Interpretation (Upright):
Life comes to the door without warning. You may have had plans, momentum, even clarity—but now, something is shifting. This card reminds you that your creative path exists within the greater rhythm of life, not apart from it. Whether it’s a new opportunity, a deep loss, or a sudden turn, Life is asking you to pause and open the door. It may feel inconvenient or even frightening, but this is part of being fully human. Honor the moment, even if it interrupts your art. One day, it may become your art.

Interpretation (Reversed):
You may be resisting change or holding tightly to plans that no longer fit. When Life knocks, we don’t always feel ready—but pretending not to hear the knock doesn’t stop it. Reversed, this card suggests a reluctance to surrender control, even when the path forward is already unfolding. Can you make room for the unknown without losing your center?

Reflection Questions:

  • When has life redirected your creative path—and what grew from it?
  • What might happen if you welcomed interruption as part of the journey?

Affirmation:
I open the door, even when I don’t know what comes next.

_____________________________

A Closing Reflection

The next time Life shows up, whether in a card spread or in the form of an unexpected event, pause before you push it away. Ask: What is this teaching me? How can I hold this moment as part of my practice, not against it?

The Life card reminds us that without life—its surprises, its detours, its demands—there is no art. It’s the reminder that to be alive is already to be creating. Yay for Life!