A turkey hen has been visiting this week. She found the cracked corn scattered under the bird feeder, scratched out a small mountain of leaves to get at it, and then discovered her own reflection in the back glass door. I've had to shoo her away from pecking at it a couple of times now. There's a tom up the hill in the woods; I can see and hear him, but he hasn't come down for a closer look yet. Next will come the chicks: gray balls of fluff that can barely clear the tall grass, rolling around the hen as she forages. Spring, doing its thing.
Just pecking around
What Already Belongs to You
I keep coming back to this: you don't need to earn your way into making art. You don't need more technique, more permission, more credentials from people who decided they get to decide. The creative instinct you have is not a problem to be solved or a wound to be healed, it's yours, and it always has been. That's the whole of what I'm working with in everything I do. You already know how. I'm just here to help you remember.
Walk With Me — Come See What Members Are Getting
That's exactly what Walk With Me is built on. It's a membership, yes, but it functions more like a correspondence, a creative companionship with someone who is actively paying attention to what you're making and why.
I want you to know is that it's genuinely two-way. I check in with members actively during the month, and when you write to me — with questions, thoughts, things you're working through, work in progress — I read it, I think about it, and I reply in detail. I take an active interest in your projects, your process, your creative life. The word there is active. This isn't a place where your message goes into a void. It's a correspondence with someone who actually cares.
All of that is $9 a month, about what a pad of fancy paper runs and it comes with built in encouragement.
I've set it up so you can peek inside: this archive of weekly member emails is currently viewable, so you can get a real sense of what lands in a member's inbox each week. What you won't get from reading it is the ability to write back to me — that part only comes with membership. When you're ready: here's where you join.
Also in the Studio This Week
I shared this short video with members recently and it's also doing well on YouTube — collaging freehand-cut shapes from previously painted scrap paper onto a reclaimed panel from another artist's studio. It's one of those sessions that's satisfying to watch and even more satisfying to do. Take a look here.
What are you making this week? Hit reply and tell me, I do read every one.
Shine Your Light!
Monette
PS If you've been curious about Walk With Me but haven't jumped in yet, the member emails linked above is a good place to start — real content, real flavor of what you'd be getting.
PPS The hen came back this morning. She’s looking at her reflection with an intense curiosity that I find fascinating. It makes me wonder about how we look at our own reflections and don’t see who we really are either. Yet, we keep coming back to that glass, trying to find ourselves and making art.