Creative Altars: Visual Spells & Art Witchery
From the Desk of Caitlyn Holowaty-Barone
Creative Altars: From the Desk of Pointy Hat Press is a collection of musings, memories, and creative seeds from the desks of Pointy Hat Press co-founders, Caitlyn Barone & Kristin Lisenby. In this series, two witches share their current inspirations, works in progress, and other glimmers of everyday magick. Questions for Pointy Hat Press? Send a DM or leave a comment for Kristin and Caitlyn below.
From the desk of Caitlyn Holowaty-Barone…
“Women who render their deepest inner experience in visible forms may articulate and clarify what, for many women, remains unsaid.” -Patricia Ariadne
In her essay “Art is a Spell,” Pam Grossman writes, “Like a witch, the artist conjures, shapes reality, manifests. The practice of magick is sometimes referred to as “the arte magickal” or “the dark arts.” One makes magic. One engages in “the craft.” That there is a kinship between those who craft magick and those who conjure art is undeniable.”
The Artist and the Witch are conjurers, creators, alchemists, and activists. Bending materials to our whim, we use color, line, shape, and form, and more, to transmute the unseen to the visible world, to bring forward the unconscious to the conscious mind, the immaterial to material.
Both Art and Witchcraft deal in feeling, belief, and action. This is how we both conjure and create. Artists alchemize abstract feelings that dwell inside us and they give language to them through symbols and images.
For me, the creative act is a ritual, a spell, a prayer…
Does art and witchcraft intersect for you? How?
My creative life lately…
I’ve been incorporating Dream Symbols into my art and journaling.
Reading about the Hand of the Wise and how to incorporate that magick into art witchery.
Visual Spells:
Form for the Formless,
Words for the Wordless
Automatic Drawing
Experimenting with new forms of divination: Coffee Readings
Nature. Always.
The Beltane Retreat with Tamed Wild
A new offering…
Enter the Art Witch Atelier
Learn more here
Thanks for reading Creative Altars: A Witch’s Rituals of Devotion by Pointy Hat Press! Pointy Hat Press is a place for fairy tales and folklore, reimagined. Follow us on Substack and Instagram, sign up for our Moon Letters, and consider adding our original fairy tales to your library. You can also find us telling stories and talking about our latest creative quests on the Pointy Hat Press podcast.
Wow. Such beauty in your renderings! Do your dreams play a big part in your art? My dreams are just so real, so vivid, involving interaction with people I don't know.