Lyn Belisle Studio

art, life, mixed media

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Saying Yes, Receiving More

Last week, I wrote about discovering the work of Lorraine O’Grady through a Women’s Caucus for Art project and about the unexpected gifts that come from saying yes to creative communities. This week, I find myself thinking about that idea of saying “yes” again. This Saturday, I have the pleasure of volunteering with a community of Prayer Flag makers. This remarkable group already does such…

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When Advocacy Becomes Inspiration

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…

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Finding Your Artistic Vocabulary

Walking The Labyrinth, Lyn Belisle 2026 One of the questions I’m asked most often is, “How do you know what to make next?” Most of my new work doesn’t begin with something completely new. It begins with something I already know. This altar, Walking the Labyrinth, was created for the annual Celebration Circle Altar Exhibition at the San Antonio Art League + Museum. While the piece reflects the…

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Good Enough Is a Devotion

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,…

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More About Choosing: The Dreaming Witness

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,…

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Choices, Choices

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about ideas—questions of permanence, memory, meaning, and even the Japanese concept of mono no aware. Those ideas matter to me. They help me understand why I make things.But eventually, every artist arrives at the same place: The studio — and the work.(Remember that country song, A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action? 🙂 Right now, I’m preparing for a…

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What is "Mono no Aware"?

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…

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Is It Archival?

I just returned from Colorado where I saw some wonderful art, like these ephemeral, powerful fiber art garments by Wendy Mike at the Auric Gallery that floated like magical gossamer armor. While I was walking, fascinated, through this amazing exhibition, I heard someone ask the gallery owner, “Is It Archival?” It’s one of the most common questions artists hear. The question usually arises when…

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The Myth of Originality?

Every Artwork Has Ancestors A Resident in the Enso Circle just today asked a thoughtful question while preparing work for our final catalog: “Is it okay to include a piece that began in one of your workshops?” The question stopped me for a moment—not because I doubted the answer, but because it touches on something many artists wonder about. If we learned a technique from a teacher, borrowed an…

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Gratitude for the Creative Life

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…

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What Kind of Vessel Would You Be?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about vessels not as objects that speak, but as objects that listen. That idea is the basis of my upcoming workshop, The Listening Vessel, which will be released later this month as part of the Objects of Devotion series. I’m right in the middle of filming it. And as usual, there are lots of surprises and revelations. So with all that on my mind, I asked our recent Enso…

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Does Everything Feels Too Precious to Use?

The Keeper of Fragments by Chaska Peacock. She wrote, “Oh, and I wanted to tell you about the stars.  15 or so years ago I met with a shaman while in Peru. He named me “Chaska” which means “star” in the Quetchan language.which is still spoken in Peru by the elders.  I felt intimidated, but gradually rose to the name.” Conversations about The Keeper of Fragments, the first workshop in the Objects…

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When the Work Feels True

Objects of Devotion and the Joy of Making Yesterday, I received a note from a student in The Keeper of Fragments workshop. She wrote not to complete an assignment, but because something had shifted for her—and she wanted to share it. She said this: “Instead of asking is this good, ask is this true?This really spoke to me… it stopped me in my tracks.” That moment is at the heart of what I’ve…

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The Keeper of Fragments

The First OBJECTS OF DEVOTION Workshop Is Now Available I’m so pleased to share that the first workshop in my new online series, Objects of Devotion, is now available on my Teachable studio classroom site.  It’s called The Keeper of Fragments—and in many ways, it feels like a beginning that has been silently forming for years. Here is the link. If you’ve followed my work over time, you may…

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Objects of Devotion

. . . a new series of monthly workshops inspired by Encantos and the quiet, meaningful objects that shape a creative life After writing about stepping back from Painting with Fire, I found myself reflecting on the arc of my own work—what has remained constant over the years, even as materials and methods have shifted. But it was during my recent exhibition, Encantos, that something became…

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Three Minutes of Courage

The other afternoon, I stood in Gallery Prudencia surrounded by artwork by other artists I deeply admire. What a delight to be in this show with them! The show is called Piecework, a fitting title for a collection of collages, each one built from fragments, intuition, and time. The artists in the room? Extraordinary. The kind of artists (and friends) who make you pause… and then quietly wonder…

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Listening for What Comes Next

(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…

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