Category Archives: Inspiration

When Advocacy Becomes Inspiration

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I have discovered that some of the most meaningful artworks I make begin not with my own ideas, but with an invitation to serve. A call for a themed exhibition (like Celebration Circle’s Altar Show). A collaborative project. A request from an arts organization. These opportunities often seem like small commitments—one more piece to make, one more deadline to meet. Yet time and again, they have introduced me to new histories, new communities, and unexpected teachers.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a members’ project sponsored by the Women’s Caucus for Art. The concept was fascinating: artists were assigned, at random, one of the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award honorees and asked to create a “Zoom-style” portrait imagining that woman appearing on our computer screens today.

I was assigned Lorraine O’Grady. At first, I knew almost nothing about her. What a gift that turned out to be!

As I began reading her essays and studying her photographs, performances, curatorial projects, and activism, I found myself in conversation with an artist whose ideas feel astonishingly contemporary. O’Grady challenged exclusion in the art world and insisted upon the complexity and visibility of Black female subjectivity.

Again and again, she asked essential questions: Who is seen? Who is heard? What remains outside the frame?

The encaustic mixed-media “pop-art” portrait I eventually created (the size of a Zoom frame, 10.5” x 6”) became more than an image of Lorraine O’Grady. It became an act of listening.

The Women’s Caucus project asks us to imagine contacting the past through contemporary technology. What might these remarkable women tell us about the path ahead? What might we learn by looking more closely at their surroundings and their work?

Artists spend so much time alone in our studios that we can begin to believe our journeys are solitary ones. They are not.

This is one of the benefits of belonging to organizations and solidarity groups such as the Women’s Caucus for Art, Fiber Artists of San Antonio, GAGA, or other creative communities. We often join because we want to support advocacy, education, and collective action. We want our voices to be stronger together than they are alone.

But there is another gift. These organizations continually lead us beyond ourselves.

They introduce us to artists we might never have encountered, histories we were never taught, and communities of makers whose concerns resonate deeply with our own. They remind us that our work exists within a much larger lineage.


Photo by Kamil Kalkin

The Women’s Caucus project particularly reminded me of the remarkable legion of women artists whose names may not be widely known outside art circles, yet whose contributions have profoundly shaped culture and social change. Their stories deserve to be revisited, shared, and carried forward.

Maybe that is one of the reasons collaborative projects matter so much.

We agree to make a small artwork, and in return, we inherit an ancestor.

We offer our time and talents to a community, and in return we are reminded that we belong to something larger than ourselves—a vast, interwoven history of artists who have used creativity not only to make beautiful objects, but also to question, advocate, preserve memory, and imagine more generous futures.

Lorraine O’Grady’s Zoom portrait is now waits to travel to the exhibition in the Salmon Library Gallery at The University of Alabama. But the real gift is already here.

I know her work now. I have spent time with her ideas. I have listened to her questions.

Read the article about O’Grady in Harper’s Bazaar, written just after her death in 2024

I said yes to the WCA request because I wanted to support an organization I value. I did not expect to come away this inspired.

But perhaps that is one of the unexpected miracles of artistic advocacy: when we step outside our own studios to contribute to something larger, we often return carrying new stories, new influences, and new companions for the journey.

Sometimes, in saying yes to a small project, we discover a larger world. And sometimes, if we are fortunate, we discover a new teacher waiting there.

 

Good Enough Is a Devotion

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This week I had grand plans. I imagined sitting down with a cup of coffee (or a Diet Dr. Pepper) and writing one of those thoughtful blog posts that wanders through ideas before gently arriving somewhere meaningful. But another project had other plans for me.

I was determined to finish Tokens and Talismans before the end of the month, and every spare hour found its way into filming, editing, photographing, writing lessons, and making tiny objects filled with meaning.

So this isn’t the fancy blog post I imagined. And maybe that’s exactly the point!

One of the hardest lessons for artists is accepting that we don’t have to do everything perfectly all the time. We spend so much energy trying to make the work just right that we sometimes forget to be kind to the person making it.

I’ve come to believe that one of the most important Objects of Devotion we can create or care for is ourselves — not in a grand or self-important way, but in small ways.

Giving ourselves permission to stop for the day, or to leave something “good enough.” To make something just because it brings us joy. To trust that not every painting, collage, vessel, or talisman has to carry the weight of the world. Whew!!

The funny thing is that when we stop demanding perfection, our work often becomes more honest. We’ve talked about this before. The work becomes more personal. More alive. Perhaps that’s why this new workshop has become so dear to me.

Tokens and Talismans is all about creating small objects that hold memory, intention, hope, gratitude, protection, or simply delight. They’re humble little pieces—made from found objects, handmade clay elements, paper, thread, fiber, and whatever treasures have been waiting in your studio for the right moment.

They’re reminders that meaning doesn’t come from perfection — it comes from attention, from choosing, and from caring.

So instead of polishing this blog post for another day or two, I’m sending it along just as it is and inviting you to see what I’ve been working on.

I hope you’ll join me for Tokens and Talismans: Personal Objects of Meaning and Small Devotional Collections. I think it may be one of the most joyful workshops in the Objects of Devotion series so far.

And if this week’s post feels a little less polished than usual, perhaps that’s my newest devotional practice. 

More About Choosing: The Dreaming Witness

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Making art is largely a matter of making choices.

Last week, when I wrote about the Lifedance series—three small encaustic collage studies—I promised to share some thoughts about making choices in more three-dimensional work. This Crow Reliquary, one of a group of four, seemed like a good example.

Some choices are conscious, but many emerge from a mysterious mixture of accumulated experience, personal taste, visual memory, and happy accidents. I rarely begin with a fixed plan. Instead, I gather fragments—rusted metal, bits of wood, shells, old photographs, clay forms, found objects—and let them wait patiently until they reveal their purpose.

Perhaps that’s why I collect so many things—and maybe you do, too. A studio full of possibilities makes the act of choosing less about invention and more about recognition. Eventually, one piece simply feels right.

The four new Crow Reliquaries taught me that lesson again. All four reached that awkward late stage when they seemed to need “something” to become complete.

Before arriving at its final form, I tried several different solutions for this piece, The Dreaming Witness. Looking at those alternatives now, I realize that every discarded choice helped lead me to the one that stayed.

By this stage, I had already made some major decisions—a deeply textured surface on a stretched canvas, an altar-like top, and a crow shrine box attached to the center. A band of printed mulberry paper ran across the bottom. It could have been called “finished,” but somehow it wasn’t complete.

So I thought it might be fun to take a little photo tour of what I tried—and what I finally chose.

First, I experimented with a few small charms and tokens attached to the shrine box. They looked more like decorations than meaningful additions, but the idea of small treasures stayed with me.

Next, I pulled a rusted tin nautilus shell from my metal pile. It was close—the shape worked beautifully—but somehow it didn’t connect with the themes of watching and dreaming, nor with the rough beads and clay face above.

Then came a piece of driftwood laid along the bottom of the reliquary box. Again, the shape felt right: rustic, weathered, and quietly beautiful. But it lacked a story of its own. Even so, it gave me an “Aha!” moment. If that shape worked, what else might have the same proportions?

And then I found a small wooden box that had been waiting patiently in the studio for years.

It turned out to be the answer. Its shape echoed the shrine box above, and, as a bonus, it offered a place to hold small objects that connected visually with the rough beads and clay face.

Attaching and engineering is always a part of any assemblage decision. I punched three holes with an awl through the back of the box and through the canvas.

I attached three metal brads through the holes and spread the clasps out on the back of the canvas, but before i did that, I added some E6000 adhesive to the back of the little box for stability.

After attaching it securely, I added tiny clay birds and another rough bead. Final touches included a metal plaque, a few straight twigs, and a sheet of mica that gives the bird a slightly dreamlike presence.

Crow Reliquary: The Dreaming Witness

Looking back at the photographs, I realize that none of the earlier attempts were mistakes. They were stepping stones. Every rejected choice quietly pointed toward the one that belonged.

That’s one of the things I love about making art. So much of the process is simply paying attention and trusting that the work will eventually reveal what it needs.

I’m curious—if you had been standing beside me in the studio, would you have chosen one of the earlier versions instead? Which solution speaks to you most? There are no wrong answers, and I think it’s fun to imagine the many directions a piece might take.

I’d also love to hear about the choices you make in your own creative work. Do you sketch out a plan and follow it faithfully, or do you, like me, collect possibilities and wait for the right one to announce itself? Have you ever changed course at the last minute and discovered that the “almost” version was simply leading you toward the one that truly belonged?

After all, perhaps making art isn’t so much about making perfect choices as it is about recognizing them when they appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is “Mono no Aware”?

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In my last post, I wrote about the question artists are often asked:

“Is it archival?”

Since then, I’ve been thinking about a Japanese phrase that offers another way of looking at value and permanence.

The phrase is mono no aware (moh-noh noh ah-WAH-reh).

It is often translated as “the pathos of things,” but that translation feels a little formal to me. I prefer to think of it as an awareness that everything changes—and a tenderness toward that fact.

At first, I thought mono no aware was simply about fleeting moments: a cherry blossom that blooms for only a few days, a sunset that fades before we are ready, or a song that ends too soon.

Those examples certainly fit. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that mono no aware isn’t only about being present for a fleeting moment. It’s also about honoring the fleeting moments that have already passed.

A faded photograph. A handwritten recipe card. A child’s drawing. A worn quilt. A shard of pottery. An old letter tucked inside a book.

None of these things are fleeting in themselves. In fact, they may have survived for decades. Yet they move us because they carry the memory of something that was fleeting—a conversation, a childhood, a relationship, a season of life that can never be repeated.

The object becomes a vessel for memory. And perhaps that is where art enters the conversation.

Many of the things I create are assembled from fragments: old papers, bits of cloth, found objects, rusted treasures, broken pieces that have already lived another life. I’ve often wondered why I am so drawn to these materials. Perhaps it is because they already carry evidence of time.

A shard is not simply a broken object; it is a reminder that something once existed in another form. A worn piece of cloth speaks of the hands that touched it. A rusted object quietly marks the passage of years. Even a simple vessel suggests stories that were held, shared, and carried forward.

These objects become meaningful not because they have escaped change, but because they reveal it.

As I’ve been developing my Objects of Devotion series, I’ve realized that many of these pieces function in exactly this way. They are not meant to preserve a particular moment forever. Rather, they honor the traces left behind by moments that mattered.

A Listening Vessel may hold memories of conversations spoken and unspoken. A Guardian may embody someone who protected us, guided us, or encouraged us along the way. A shard may become a reminder of resilience, transformation, or healing.

Lyn Belisle, 2026

The object itself becomes less important than the human experience it carries.

That realization helped me understand something important about the question of whether art is archival.

The archival question asks, “How long will the object survive?”

Mono no aware asks, “What human experience does the object carry?”

Both questions have value.

As artists, we want our work to be well made. We want it to endure as long as reasonably possible. There is honor in craftsmanship and care. But permanence is not the only measure of worth.

A conversation may last only a few minutes. A song only a few moments. A friendship a season. A life a handful of decades. Yet their influence can remain with us forever.

Perhaps the deepest purpose of art is not to defeat time but to bear witness to it. Art holds memory. It honors connection. It reminds us that what is fragile is often precious.

The Japanese seem to understand something that many of us spend years learning: the awareness that things do not last forever does not diminish their beauty. It deepens it.

The photograph matters because the moment is gone.The shard matters because it remains.The artwork matters because it helps us remember.

And maybe the feeling at the heart of mono no aware is not sadness at all. Maybe it is gratitude—the silent gratitude that comes from recognizing that something beautiful passed through our lives and left a trace behind.

Thanks for reading
— Lyn

More on Mono No Aware:

https://www.toki.tokyo/blogt/mono-no-aware-aesthetics-of-a-fleeting-word

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/untranslatable-words-mono_b_9292490

Gratitude for the Creative Life

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I’ve been thinking lately about how extraordinary it is that so many of us continue to make art at all.

Life does not exactly clear a path for creativity. Most artists I know are balancing family, caregiving, work, financial worries, aging parents, endless errands, world events, uncertainty, exhaustion — all the ordinary and extraordinary weights of being human. And yet somehow, in the middle of all that, we still feel the pull to make things.

  • We still stop to notice light falling across a table.
  • We still save interesting scraps of paper.
  • We still arrange objects on a shelf without quite knowing why.
  • We still feel that quiet inner nudge that says, “Look at this. Pay attention. This matters.”

Lately, that has begun to feel less like ambition and more like gratitude.

Not gratitude in the greeting-card sense, but something deeper than that. It’s more like a recognition that the creative impulse itself is a kind of companionship we carry through life. It stays with us during difficult seasons. It waits for us when we are distracted or discouraged. And sometimes it rescues us by reminding us that beauty and meaning still exist, even in small forms.

I suspect many artists understand this feeling without needing to explain it to one another.

Even when I’m not actively working in the studio, I realize I’m still moving through the world with an artist’s eye. I’m noticing patterns in shadows, strange color combinations in peeling paint, bits of conversation, fragments of memory, little visual coincidences that feel oddly significant. The world continues to offer things up, and some part of me continues to gather them.

Maybe that’s one of the real gifts of a creative life — not just the art we make, but the way art teaches us to remain awake to the world and to one another.

And honestly, these days, that feels like something worth being deeply grateful for.

I’ve also been wondering if gratitude needs expression — not in a grand public way, but in small personal rituals. Perhaps gratitude for a creative life can take the form of making something that doesn’t need to be sold, exhibited, or even explained. A tiny offering. A stitched fragment. A small clay token. A paper bundle holding kitty fur tied with thread. Something made simply to acknowledge the mysterious fact that our creative spirit is still here with us.

Not a masterpiece. Not content. Not productivity.

Just a silent, heartfelt gesture of thanks.

I love the thought that artists throughout history may have done this in one way or another — making small meaningful objects not for an audience, but for themselves. Little reminders of wonder. Proof of attention. Tokens of survival and delight.

Maybe gratitude itself can become part of the creative practice: not only making art about life, but making something in thanks for being able to see life through the eyes of an artist at all.

Grateful for you –

♥Lyn

Building a Portrait

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An Encaustic Collage of Sam Takeuchi

One of the most delightful things that came out of our recent “Encantos” exhibit at the  Taos Ceramic Center was a commission request. Sam Takeuchi, architect and artist from Santa Fe, requested that I create a portrait of him in the same style as the Santo Niño collages in the exhibition (below).

Talk about an intimidating request! Sam is a master of so much – pottery, woodworking, antique Japanese crafts, architecture. I featured a short video of his Santa Fe studio in an earlier post. How would it be possible to capture the essence of a multifaceted person like Sam in an encasutic collage?

The answer, I realized, was not to try to show everything about him. Instead, the portrait had to grow step by step from a few meaningful clues. That’s actually a wonderful way to approach any portrait collage.

But first, I needed a photo of Sam, so he obligingly stood against the gallery wall while a took some pictures with my phone. Sam has a wonderful face – wise and humorous and lived-in.

It’s a good idea to take several versions. Expressions can change the whole feel of the work – see how different smiling Sam and serious Sam appear.

When I got home from Taos and started working on the collage, I realized that I could incorporate bits of the images I had taken at his studio to deepen the meaning. His workspace is filled with beautifully worn wooden tools, carpets, pottery forms, and objects that reflect his deep connection to Japanese craftsmanship and architectural design. Those images gave me a visual vocabulary to work with.

So, if the first step was to choose a photograph of Sam that felt natural and contemplative, the second step was to look closely at the studio photos and ask myself:

What elements here represent Sam’s world?

Wood grain.
Asian Carpets.
Handmade vessels.
Architectural structure.
Quiet, thoughtful spaces.

Those became the first building blocks of the collage. I even made a tear-up collage sheet of some of the assorted details from his studio elements:

Once I had those elements, the process became almost like assembling a small stage set. The background design echoed the textures of his studio. Shapes and lines hinted at architecture.But I also included other “encanto” elements from the Santo Niño collages to connect them back to Sam, like fantasy patterns and icons.

This is that in-between stage before the wax that always makes me stop and pause:

When I started applying the clear wax, the encaustic layers softened the edges so the images felt woven together rather than pasted together.

Sam and I emailed back and forth after this stage – here was the photo that I sent him when I thought the portrait was probably finished:

Encaustic work is notoriously difficult to photograph, but you can see hints of the complexity of the layers of wax and mulberry paper. Sam make some very small final suggestions befroe it was completely finished.

It’s good to share the process with the subject. This is the final piece that was shipped to Santa Fe (and arrived safely – hooray!).

Sam told me he has the perfect place for his new portrait. We’re trading work for payment, which is my favorite kind of arrangement. I loved this project—but this is still how I picture Sam when I think of him: sitting serenely in his studio.

As you can see, the portrait wasn’t just Sam’s face—it was Sam’s environment, his mythology, and the atmosphere of the place he built..

If you’d like to try something similar, here’s a simple approach:

  1. Choose a photograph of the person.
    Something natural and expressive works best.

  2. Collect visual clues about their world.
    Photos of their studio, favorite objects, tools, landscapes, or materials.

  3. Select a few elements that feel essential.
    Not everything—just the things that carry the strongest sense of the person.

  4. Build the collage around those clues.
    Think of it as creating a small visual story rather than a literal portrait.

  5. Don’t be afraid to add touches of myth or magic.

What began as an intimidating commission turned into something much more interesting: a reminder that a portrait doesn’t have to explain a whole life.

Sometimes it only needs a few well-chosen fragments. And when those fragments are right, the person appears almost by magic. I’d love to see what you do with the concept a personal collage portrait.

Two posts, two portraits — From the courageous gaze of Susie King Taylor in the previous post to the thoughtful presence of Sam Takeuchi in his studio, these portraits remind me that a face is never just a face—it is a doorway into a life, a story, and the fragments that help us see it.

Thanks, as always, for reading SHARDS!  ~~Lyn

A Story for Women’s History Month

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If you’ve traveled along with me on my artist journey for a while, you know about my fascination with images of human faces. I return again and again to the Library of Congress and Flickr Commons to examine the expressions of people who lived ordinary and extraordinary lives, whose faces were captured in the moment with tintype photographs and sepia processes.

If a face is particularly striking, I save it to a special folder to use in my work – this one, for example, is an encaustic collage I did in 2015 featuring the mesmerizing image of an Australian World War One soldier, probably taken in 1917:

There are hundreds of thousands of photographs to explore on these sites. I generally limit my search to “portraits,” often of women or children like those taken by Lewis Hine.

So, on with the story – here is a photographic portrait that literally took my breath away when I found it in the archives of The Commons about eight years ago:

I had no idea who she was, but researched her name and found that Susie King Taylor served more than three years as nurse with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. She also taught children and adults to read while serving with the regiment. You can read more of the story here.

Her portrait inspired this encaustic collage.

Susie
Encaustic Collage, 2021
by Lyn Belisle

_____________

Description: This encaustic collage honors Susie King Taylor, the first Black Army nurse during the Civil War. I discovered her photograph in the public archives of The Commons, where her presence immediately caught my attention. As I learned more about her life, I was deeply moved by her courage and service tending soldiers of the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. In this piece, layers of encaustic wax, vintage text, gauze, and horsehair evoke both the fragility and resilience of that moment in history. The materials reference the field conditions of wartime care while honoring the strength and dignity reflected in Taylor’s portrait. Creating this work became a way of acknowledging a remarkable woman whose story deserves to be remembered and shared.

______________

I never offered this work for sale (it just didn’t seem right),although I wrote a blog post about her in 2021.Susie has been on a shelf in my studio for the last four years. I also ordered the book that Susie King Taylor wrote in 1902 called Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops to learn more about her experiences.

If that had been the end of the story, it would have been enough just to know about this remarkable woman.  But wait – there’s more!!

Recently, I came across Susie’s book about her life in the Civil War, and was thinking about her when an email came in from the contact form on my website:

“Good Afternoon, Ms. Belisle. I am Hermina Glass-Hill the founder of the Susie King Taylor Gullah Geechee Museum in Midway, GA – Mrs. King’s hometown. I came across your wonderful artwork that includes a likeness of her. I would like to know if it is for sale. The museum has a collection of artwork in which she is the focus. I would be honored to hear from you. Respectfully Yours, Hermina”

Hermina Glass-Hill, MHP
Executive Director, Historian, Environmental Scholar-Activist

Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center
Midway, Georgia

_____________________________________

I was stunned at the synchronicity of the timing. After four years of living in my studio, this is where Susie belonged! I wrote back,

Dear Hermina,

This is such a wonderful letter and a strange coincidence. Today I was replacing some books on my studio bookshelf and one of these was My Life in Camp. I was looking at it and thinking about Susie King Taylor and her remarkable story – and then came your letter!

I’m attaching an image of the encaustic collage I did of her in 2020. Here is an excerpt from an article that I wrote for the Winter Issue of Encaustic Arts Magazine that year which explains how I work with historic images and how that image of Susie King Taylor just grabbed me when I saw it in a library archive.

It would be my honor to make a gift the original work to the Susie King Taylor Gullah Geechee Museum. You are doing a magnificent job of preserving and celebrating the memory and accomplishments of this remarkable woman.

___________________________________________

Hermina answered: Wow! Thank you for connecting with me so quickly. Isn’t it amazing that out all the things that could possibly happen in the universe that two people could connect thoughts like this. My heart is filled with so much gratitude for your kindness and generosity.

With joy, I prepared the artwork for shipping to send Susie on her journey home to the Institute that bears her name and to Hermina, its founder.

We continue to email, and I continue to explore the Institute’s website and learn even more about this remarkable woman – here is an excerpt about Susie’s early education:

“I was born under the slave law in Georgia, in 1848, and was brought up by my grandmother in Savannah. There were three of us with her, my younger sister and brother. My brother and I being the two eldest, we were sent to a friend of my grandmother, Mrs. Woodhouse, a widow, to learn to read and write. She was a free woman and lived on Bay Lane, between Habersham and Price streets, about half a mile from my house. We went every day about nine o’clock, with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them.” 

Even as a child, Susie understood that knowledge was power—and that learning carried risk. The simple act of carrying books wrapped in paper so they would not be seen speaks volumes about the courage that shaped her life. Education, healing, and service would become the threads that wove through her extraordinary story.

When I read passages like this, I feel even more grateful that her portrait found its way into my studio all those years ago. Sometimes an image calls to us before we understand why. Something in the gaze, the posture, the quiet dignity of the person reaches across time and asks to be seen again.

And sometimes it takes years for that story to unfold.

What moves me most about this experience is not just Susie King Taylor’s bravery—though that alone is remarkable. It is also the intuition that guided Hermina Glass-Hill to reach out across the digital world to a stranger who had once felt the same pull toward Susie’s story. Hermina has devoted her life to preserving the history and legacy of the Gullah Geechee people and of Susie King Taylor in particular. Something led her to search for images, to follow a trail, and eventually to my website.

That kind of intuitive curiosity is something artists understand well.

We follow threads that we cannot fully explain. We collect images, fragments, and stories. We assemble them in our studios without knowing where they may eventually belong. And sometimes—if we are fortunate—those pieces find their way back to the places where they can speak most clearly.

Sending this artwork to the Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center feels less like giving something away and more like completing a circle. The portrait that once spoke to me in an archive will now live in a place dedicated to honoring her life and educating future generations.

Art has a quiet but powerful way of creating these connections.

A photograph taken more than a century ago.
An artist working in wax and collage.
A historian preserving a legacy in coastal Georgia.
An email arriving at just the right moment.

It reminds me that when we make art from the heart—and when we share it openly—we never really know where it might travel or whose story it might help tell.

Sometimes a face in an archive is not just an image waiting to be discovered.

Sometimes it is a messenger.

And sometimes, if we listen closely enough, it finds its way home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Studio to Printed Page: The Vessel Alchemy Catalog

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The space inside the vessel
is not absence —
it is invitation.

I am genuinely delighted to share this catalog of my students’ work from last week’s Vessel Alchemy workshops. Each time I teach, I am reminded that learning moves in both directions. My students bring courage, curiosity, humor, tenderness, and insight to the table — and I leave each session changed by what they discover.

What follows in this post are a few reflections and observations about this collection of vessels — forms that began as simple structures and became layered, personal, and deeply expressive works. At the end of this post, you’ll find a link to view the complete catalog as a flipbook, where you can explore the entire collection in sequence.

First observation: When I first began teaching vessel workshops in Ireland three years ago, I noticed a shift in purpose. Students were not simply building forms that could hold something — they were building forms that already held something. The vessels were not empty containers waiting to be filled; they arrived filled. Words were tucked into scrolls. Fragments of memory were embedded in plaster. A scrap of handwriting, a small relic, a suggestion of something once carried — each vessel became a small assemblage, a layered narrative.

The vessel, in other words, became less about function and more about meaning. It became a site of gathering — of memory, of language, of intention. Even the simplest forms carried interior lives. You can see so much of this is our new catalog for the Vessels Alchemy class.

Secondly, when I began assembling the catalog, I took a small liberty. As I laid out the pages and lived with each photograph, I found myself responding to the pieces as a viewer as well as a teacher. So I gave each vessel a title — and three words that, to my eye, seemed to describe its spirit. I claimed this as a prerogative of the teacher :). Not to define the work, but to honor how it spoke to me.

It felt fitting. If vessels can hold memory and meaning, they can also hold interpretation.

As you turn the pages of the catalog, I hope you find sparks of inspiration not just for making vessels, but for discovering what creativity means in all its many forms — and that this journey invites you into your own act of making, curious and wholehearted.

CATALOG LINK

So many thanks to the students for sharing their narratives and creative skills!

♥

On the value of a Circle

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There’s a moment in creative life when nothing looks complete, but something feels undeniably alive. The work on the table may feel uncertain or oddly formless—but underneath that, there’s a hum.

In my last post, I wrote about the imaginal disc stage—that mysterious phase when a future form already exists within us, long before it’s visible. I’ve been thinking about how often artists arrive here not because something has failed, but because something has completed. A body of work ends. A show closes. A direction resolves. And suddenly there’s space—an in-between space that eventually became the foundation for The Enso Circle.

Over time, I’ve noticed that artists often reach out during this phase—not asking what should I make next? so much as how do I stay with what’s forming? There’s a desire for thoughtful conversation, for a few steady points of reflection, for reassurance that “not knowing” is not a failure of practice, but an essential stage of it.

This is where the idea of a circle becomes important. This is why the Enso Circle exists.

Applications open Feb. 1

The Enso Circle began taking shape in conversations that Michelle Belto and I started having back in 2015—ongoing conversations about creative practice, community, and what artists actually need. From the beginning, it wasn’t about acceleration or productivity, but about honoring a particular path of becoming.

It’s now in its 11th term. Since 2021, artists from five countries and 20 states have participated in The Enso Circle, forming a supportive creative community grounded in shared inquiry, reflection, and growth.

Each Enso Circle term unfolds over twelve weeks, allowing time for ideas to surface, shift, and deepen without being rushed.

  • It’s long enough for real momentum to build, and gentle enough to accommodate the realities of life and studio rhythms.
  • The residency fee is intentionally modest—comparatively less than many single weekend workshops—because sustained support should feel accessible and humane.
  • Throughout the term, artists stay connected—to one another, and to Michelle and me—through ongoing conversation on Zoom and Slack with shared reflection, and consistent support as the work takes shape.

In the Enso Circle, twelve artists artists come together with work that is unfinished, unresolved, or perhaps changing direction. Some are beginning something new; others are letting go of what no longer fits. What they share is not a style or medium, but a willingness to stay present with the process and let the work reveal itself over time.

The clearest expression of what happens in the Enso Circle has come not through description, but through the residents’ work itself. The Enso Circle residency catalogs—created at the end of each term—speak quietly through the residents’ artwork. They reflect many individual paths, shaped by time, reflection, and community. You can explore those catalogs here.

If you find yourself here now—between what was and what’s coming—know that you’re not alone. This stage isn’t something to fix or solve. It’s something to tend. I’ve just put together a little video on Advice for Enso Circle Residents – if you become one of the twelve new residents, this will be for you!

Applications for the next Enso Circle open on February 1. If this reflection resonates, you’ll know. There’s no push—just an invitation to notice where you are, and what kind of support might help you stay with what’s becoming.

JOIN THE WAITLIST FOR INFORMATION ON APPLYING

Stay warm, stay brave. Thank you for reading. Ours is important work, and courage grows in company.  ~~ Lyn

LEARN MORE ABOUT REQUIREMENTS AND COST

 

Gifts and Presence

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17

Gifts I’m Carrying Into the New Year

As the year turns, I find myself less interested in presents and resolutions and more drawn to offerings—the thoughtful, non-material gifts that actually sustain a creative life.

It’s been a year that asked a lot of us. One that felt heavy in ways that were hard to name, where clarity was scarce and holding steady sometimes counted as progress. In moments like that, I find myself returning to the work—not for answers, but for anchoring.

Three of the Seven Messengers, Earthenware and Found Objects, Lyn Belisle, 2025

In the Encanto collection I’m creating for the Taos exhibition, nothing begins as whole. Each piece is assembled from fragments: shards of material, memory, intuition, and story. Individually, they hold meaning. Together, they become something new—a vessel, a guardian, an altar that didn’t exist before their meeting.

That feels like the right metaphor for the year ahead. Not a clean beginning, but a gathering. A year shaped less by starting over than by recognizing what is already in our hands—saved fragments, carried questions, pieces that refused to be discarded.

The work ahead isn’t about inventing something entirely new, but about listening closely enough to hear how the shards and clues want to speak to one another, and trusting that connection itself is a form of creation.

For Robert Rauschenberg, especially in his Combines series, the work was rarely about inventing new imagery from scratch. Instead, it emerged from listening to what disparate materials wanted to say together: a quilt, a newspaper clipping, a photograph, a brushstroke, a found object.

assemblage

Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955-59 Freestanding combine Oil, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber heel and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on angora goat and tyre on wooden base mounted on four casters, 106.6 x 160.6 x 163.8 cm

Individually, these elements carried their own histories. But when brought into proximity, they began a conversation that produced meaning neither could hold alone.

He trusted that relationship itself was generative. The act of placing, juxtaposing, and allowing tension or harmony to arise was the creative act. In that sense, the artwork wasn’t imposed—it was discovered through attentive assembly. This concept means the world to me.

Robert Rauschenberg, Odalisk, 1955-1958 Freestanding combine Oil, watercolour, crayon, pastel, paper, fabric, photographs, printed reproductions, newspaper, metal, glass, pillow, wooden post and lamps on wooden structure with stuffed rooster, 210.8 x 64.1 x 68.8 cm

So, about those gifts — one gift I’m carrying forward is permission—to work slowly, to trust that fragments don’t need to explain themselves right away. Shards know how to wait. They reveal their connections in time.

Another is attention, the soft, ongoing, background kind. The listening that notices how one piece leans toward another. How an image answers a question posed months ago. How intuition doesn’t hand us a map, but offers clues – “a secret handshake“.

I’m also carrying continuity. The understanding that the work doesn’t reset on January 1st. We bring our fragments with us—unfinished ideas, saved scraps, half-formed thoughts—and the new year simply offers a fresh surface on which to assemble them. It also gives us a grounded connection to where we have been.

Santa Nina, Encaustic Collage, Lyn Belisle, 2025

And finally, companionship. The knowledge that we never gather shards alone. We are guided by shared histories of making, by other artists (like Rauschenberg) working in the past or in parallel, by unseen hands that have always known how to build meaning from pieces.

  • Permission
  • Attention
  • Continuity
  • Companionship

If there is a gift in these words, it’s this: a reminder that you don’t need to arrive whole to begin the year. Thank goodness! What you carry—your fragments, saved pieces, unfinished ideas, and intuitive longings—is already enough. My hope is that you’ll treat them with the same care we give to cherished shards in the studio, trusting that when the time is right, they will find their place and become something new.

Thanks for your presence, thanks for giving me attention and companionship, and for meeting these thoughts with the intelligence and generosity that only the best readers bring. Happy Holidays!