(On stepping back from something good to make space for something new)

The other day, I received a note from a student that touched me deeply:

“You’ve been one of my favorites in Painting With Fire, and I was disappointed not to see your name in the lineup this time. I’ve made several pieces based on your inspiration and really love them.”

I sat with that for a while.

There is no greater gift for a teacher than to know that something you’ve shared has taken root in someone else’s work—has become part of their visual language, their confidence, their creative unfolding. That kind of connection doesn’t disappear. It stays, quietly, in the work.

And yet—this year, I’ve made the decision to step back from teaching with Painting With Fire. Not because I’ve lost my love for teaching or PWF, quite the opposite. It’s because I want to return to a place of discovery.

And let me say this clearly—please don’t YOU step back from Painting With Fire. It remains one of the most vibrant, generous, and inspiring communities I know. Some of my favorite teachers are there right now, carrying forward the traditions of encaustic with brilliance, depth, and heart. You will be in very good hands, as will I, since I will be there as a learner.

But after five years of developing classes, refining processes, and guiding others through encaustic’s luminous layers, I’ve begun to feel the persistent pull toward something less defined. Less practiced. Less known. I want to teach from the edge again.

Not from a place of repetition—even meaningful repetition—but from that slightly uncertain space where something new is forming. The place where I’m asking questions instead of answering them. Here are the classes I’ve taught with PWF over the last five years:

2021
Myth and Mist
Encaustic Surface Design

2022
Gauze, Paper, Plaster and Wax
Shaman Spirit

2023
Unfolding Stories
The Birds and the Beads

2024
The Lotus Book
Diaphanous Vessels

 

2025
Sumi-e Serinity
Synthography and Wax

In many ways, stepping back for a year feels like coming back to the heart of why I began working in encaustic in the first place. The medium itself resists control. It asks for responsiveness, for intuition, for a willingness to let the work evolve in its own time.

So now, I feel the need to step back into unknown territory again. This doesn’t mean I’m leaving teaching behind (I’ll probably be back with PWF next year – those dear people are my family!). It means I’m just making space for what comes next. And I have an idea, but it’s just that — an idea.

The workshops I offer moving forward will grow out of what genuinely inspires me in the moment—whether that’s vessels and fragments, fiber and wax, image and story, or the complex language of assembled things. They will still be rooted in everything I’ve learned and loved—but they will be more exploratory, and also more symbolic.

And to those who have taken my classes, followed along, or made work inspired by something I’ve shared—please know how much that means to me. Your work is not a continuation of mine. It’s a transformation of it. And that’s the whole point.

So if you don’t see my name in a familiar place this year, it’s only because I’m in the studio—listening, experimenting, and finding my way toward something new.

As makers, we come to recognize that inner turning—the moment when it’s time to step away from what we know and trust what’s just beginning to take shape.

That, too, is a form of devotion.

You may be there, too.

Thanks for reading—
♥Lyn