Yesterday evening I headed into the pottery studio for week 2 of a 4 week class on hand building. This is my 3rd round with this class because it takes me a while for things to really sink in AND I was totally hyperfixated on pinch pots during the first two rounds. This time, I’m fully embracing all of it because making anything saves my bacon *every single day*.

Last week, I learned a new way to pinch and coil and both came easily to me – probably because I did the ground work in the first two rounds. My teacher, Paul, makes everything we do super fun and has a knack for encouraging people like me to go ahead and make mistakes in the learning process – something I really appreciate. Coil building still isn’t my favourite thing, but at least, thanks to him, I can now roll an actual coil where before I would try to roll something round and smooth, but would end up with something flat and misshapen. He also made pinching so much easier with just a few tweaks and I was able to bang out a pot in no time flat.

Last night, we tackled slab building, which is something I really want to master because you can make so many different forms from slabs, and it’s something I can do with very little space at home. All you really need is clay, a surface to work on, a rolling pin and some width guides. You can even buy rolling pins with width guides built in from any good purveyor of baking supplies, so that makes things even easier.

Anyway, this is what I made:

I’m planning on glazing the little rose medallion at the bottom of the handle red and the rest a glossy black and I can’t wait to see how it comes out!

Something happened last night that I want to document because it while it might not seem like that much of a big deal to you, it was a huge deal to me. When I got home from the studio, I grabbed all the recycling, compost and garbage that I’d rounded up the day before and shuttled it all out to the curb before doing anything else. I didn’t even thing about it. I just grabbed it and set it out.

If you know me personally you know what a struggle that’s been for me over the last few years while I’ve been in the thick of executive dysfunction, task paralysis, and a freeze trauma response that would not quit. MAKING myself do these simple tasks was a little like what I imagine it must be like to climb a mountain, so I’m very grateful for this evidence of progress.

Sometimes proof of healing is in the most mundane things. A shiny sink. A freshly folded load of laundry. A willingness to pick up the phone.

I’m noticing it all.

In Other News

I’m happy to report that GG is back in touch via phone, which does my mama heart a lot of good. We’re not out of the woods yet, and frankly, we will never be because this illness is chronic and degenerative, but for right now, he’s alive, he’s coming back into lucidity, and he’s making better moves for himself now. By the way, I have permission to share about his illness, but he can withdraw that consent any time so if I suddenly stop mentioning him, or if my sharing about it gets cryptic, that would be why.

Meanwhile

It’s good to be typing furiously into this box of light even though it is very hard on my wonky eyes. I need this as part of my own set of tools I use to help me keep my head above rough waters and while video sharing has been helping with that, there’s nothing quite like writing to “get things off my chest”. A friend on Facebook said that the videos help her feel closer to me, though, so that’s good data and I get it. Typed words on a screen lack tone of voice or body language, where video gives you a more complete sense of who a person is and how they’re actually doing.

The more ways I’ve got to navigate this stormy time, the better, so I’ve pulled out all the stops. Writing, video, art, pottery, moments of silent reflection, sobriety support meetings, all the ways I touch in with the invisibles…

…times like these require stacks and oodles of coping mechanisms, especially when one is used to defaulting to really unhealthy ones.

Samhain Is Upon Us!

It’s Samhain Eve (<—click the link in case you have no idea what that is)and the veil seems thinner this year than in years past. Perhaps because we are all in such disarray and the ancestors know we’re in need of their guidance now more than ever. I’m glorying in the sense of connection, the whispers on the wind, the easy awareness that I am never alone.

I am SO looking forward to connecting with you live on Zoom on November 1st to talk about all of this, and to paint with you! Registration for this special event is open and I’m so looking forward to welcoming you into my community of art witches.

The Art Witch Familiar, Sybil, is sure to be in attendance, too!

And that’s it for me for now. I’ve got a ton of work to do to claw my way back from “overwhelmed and behind” and I’ve got the life force available to do it so with coffee in hand, I’m off to make some headway!

Sending love to all the places that need it.

P.S. If you’d like to get updates on things like when new classes are available or when I’m going live on YouTube, subscribe to my newsletter by clicking here. 

Oh HI FAM it’s been a while. There are reasons for that, so let me do a bit of what I like to call a purse dump, which is basically a listicle of things that are going.

• I am 121 days sober as of today, and that part of my life is actually a lot easier than I thought. I love being clear and unaltered. I love being reflective and non-reactive. I love being able to press pause in any given moment and sit with what I’m feeling before I make a move.
• I am broke. This is frustrating, but this is also what happens when one’s life will not stop lifing long enough for one to market and open programs. I’m living off my credit at the moment, and while that is terrifying, I have a lot of optimism that things will get better.
• My middle kid is in the middle of a psychotic break. He lives several thousand miles from me and there’s nothing I can do but hope someone who loves him catches him in this freefall and gets him the help he needs. This is the “life lifing” part of this equation since I’ve been doing a lot of talking people off ledges and arguing with people about the reality of cannabis psychosis WHICH IS A REAL THING Y’ALL. This is deeply personal and painful and stressful and I am terrified every moment of every day, but I did hear from him yesterday and he has gotten back on meds, so my hope is that he will return to lucidity and reality soon.

• I am ok. Truly. But I have a list of complaints that I’d like to lodge with the manager including that my vision is so bad that it is very difficult to type up content of any kind without giving myself a headache. If you’re new here, let me give you some context: I have cataracts so bad that I am completely blind in my left eye and legally blind in my right. I can paint because I can stick my face two inches from whatever I’m working on but reading and writing text on screens is really difficult no matter how big I make the font. My eyes simply can’t focus well enough. My eyes are constantly fatigued, and I’m carving deep elevens in my forehead what with all the squinting and scowling. My surgery is scheduled in July of 2025 for the left eye and August of 2025 for the right eye. If I had ten grand, I could probably get it done at a private clinic, but I don’t have ten grand, so we wait.
• Despite the GG thing and the blindness thing, I am in good spirits. Some people have side eyed me for this. Like, how can she be so upbeat when her kid is wandering around the arctic in a psychotic state? How can she smile at all? Ten years of therapy, that’s how. Ten years of learning how to hold what’s mine to hold and release what isn’t. Ten years of getting solid boundaries in place and learning how to self-soothe and self-regulate. Also, I’ve been sober for 121 days and that has helped enormously because where I’d be sent spinning into a reactive tizzy by the least inconvenience while I was still drinking, sober me knows how to feel the thing as it happens, discharge it using all the skills in my tool box (journaling, art, talking about it in safe spaces), pick myself up, dust myself off, and get on with the next thing in front of me.
• It is shocking to me that this year is almost over. WHAT IS TIME ANYMORE ANYWAY?
• In the realm of grief and loss and sorrow and anger about ex friends and lovers, in the words of Taylor Swift, I am finally “Clean”.
• I’ve sold about $1200 worth of art this year and that’s $1200 more than I sold last year so that’s exciting and gives me incentive to keep working on canvas.
• I’m planning a depth year in portraiture. I’ll be doing Let’s Face It*, which is hosted by Kara Bullock (a fellow Canadian who I adore) and I’m really excited about it. You should check it out if faces are your thing!
• Despite everything that’s been going on (cacklesobs), I am caught up on all work that was due for collaborative e-courses this year and I am so relieved I could cry.
• I haven’t opened registration for the programs I’ll be teaching in 2025 because LIFE KEEPS LIFING. OMGDOOM.
• That being said, I do have a free network wide “Samhain Day With The Art Witch” upcoming on November 1st, and it is FREE!

• I’m currently enrolled in a four week hand building class and last week I learned a new way to pinch and coil. I am SO INSPIRED. Look at this adorable pinched pot:

• This is Paul, one of my favourite humans and my hand building pottery teacher.

• I can’t wait to see this pot clear glazed and fired:

• Signing up for hand building was my response to the way GG’s stuff was making me think things like “I should just go get a double shot of Jameson’s at Joe’s. No one will know.” That thought was immediately followed by me yelling at myself “SELF! I WILL KNOW!” and then I made sure I had something else to do that wasn’t going for a double at Joe’s.
• I’m starting to believe I can handle anything. Seriously. I’m resilient af. I am a boss.
• I used to (and by “used to” I mean as recently as last week) think that giving myself props for the shit I do well or handle well was a “Narcissistic trait”. I got shit from my students for saying that because the truth is, that’s *healthy* and not at all narcissistic. I have my family of origin to thank for the self-denigration that goes on when I talk nicely to and about myself. I grew up with a lot of “Who do you think you are” and “You’re too big for your britches” type messaging (along with emotional, physical, and sexual violence), so it is NO WONDER I offer a disclaimer every time I tell you that I am fucking awesome at a thing, but that is ebbing. I am fucking awesome. Full stop. Was I always? No. Am I perfect? Oh, hell no! But I’m also not who they told me I was or raised me to be.
• They recently threatened to have my website taken down if I talk about them, which would be great because I’d love to see them dox themselves in a futile effort to cause me further harm.
• HI MOM! Thanks for being the reason I felt like shit about myself for 56 years! Thanks for not protecting me when I was being r-worded by your boyfriend and abused by your husbands! You made me who I am today by showing me exactly who I do not wish to be.
• I am all over TikTok right now because I love it and I build my FYP brick by brick so that it’s a beautiful combination of things I really need to know about (politics, world events, social justice, autism, adhd, trauma recovery, C-PTSD) and things I really want to know about (what your dog did today, all the Taylor Swift & Fleetwood Mac easter eggs, Witchtok, Booktok, Sobertok, Arttok, etc.).
• If you’re looking for me over there, note that I have already been cloned a few times, so make sure you’re actually following me and not a bot. (No, I won’t link my profile here for obvious reasons.)
• Forgiveness is something I’m working on for the sake of my own mental and emotional well-being, but I’m not there yet and I won’t force myself to pretend I am.

I think that should cover it for now, though it doesn’t really even begin. I am hoping this purse dump will clear the way for regular posts that stick to one topic, but if you know me at all, you know that’s not likely. *Gigglesnort*

I just wanted you to know, this is me trying. At least I’m trying.

It was time.

I’m turning 56 tomorrow, and I’m 91 days alcohol free today.

Sober. Me. Yeah. I know!

California Sober, to be honest. I don’t have an issue with the other things one might enjoy – gifts of the gods, one might say, that grow naturally in nature-like. THC is medicinal for me, and I use it for pain, anxiety, and sleep, but only in delicious gummy form, and only when I need it. Fungus of various sorts are fine things for funsies, but this is not an every day or even every week thing.

These are things I can take or leave as I see fit.

Wine was not such a thing. Maybe it will become such a thing in the future as I continue to heal, but for right now? Nope.

It didn’t start out that way. It started out as me, looking for a way enjoy being a grown ass woman with grown ass kids. It started as a thing I did on Wednesday (WINESDAY) or when I gathered with witches, or when I was camping or out at karaoke or in the candlelit bath or about to have sex.

But it became a thing I did daily and “wine o’clock” shifted from “after dinner” to “after lunch” and it was an all day, every day thing because it is an addictive substance and as much as I’d like to believe I’m above and beyond all that, well…

…I’m not.

So I quit. And while the “not drinking” part is actually really easy, the “feeling everything I was numbing by drinking” thing is most decided not.

Which, I think, is why I’m back. I need a place to tell my stories so I can let whatever I’m feeling flow out of me and into this screen of light for safe keeping, because my stories?

They’d drive anyone to drink.

But today isn’t for stories. It’s for a toe dipped in the waters of writing what’s alive in me in this moment. It’s for the weekend I’ve spent painting (and selling paintings), and watching Vikings, and eating those little tiny chocolate bars that you can buy in bulk at this time of year, and swilling iced matcha or London Fog lattes (Taco concentrates are so good!) made with 5% cream because I lost a fuck ton of weight over the course of the last year, and eating homemade soup (today it’s deconstructed cabbage roll soup), and gratefully receiving well wishes on the eve of my birthday, and putting up lessons and editing video and listening to The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Abel for the eleventy billionth time.

It’s for feeling this edgy, “raw dogging life” feeling with a little bit of fear because that shit is fearsome, but zero resentment because I know this is what’s right and good for me. It’s for feeling really good about every single person I call friend (for once in my life) and knowing I’m safe with the people who have access to me. It’s for knowing that I have the right to curate my life so that I never have to feel unsafe with he people who have access to me *ever again*.

But that’s a story for another day.

Today is my birthday eve, and I’m sober. I’m alive. I want to be, too.

And that’s progress, so I’ll take it.