This is a four-part post, written in August 2026, about the creative process behind Rebecca’s piece, “Carina Nebula”.

Part 1: The Beginning Sucks

August 6th, 2026

Sometimes I hate being an artist. It’s an addiction I can’t break.

My shoulders hurt. My neck hurts. I get up to stretch during projects, but the physical toll is real.

The paper I use is $25 a sheet.

The paints are $8 a piece.

And the conceptualization phase. Well, it’s a real humdinger.

It’s like a crush that ignores you. You plead and beg for attention, but the lover eludes you.

This particular crush started with the death of a relative and the words he left behind:

“Sometimes you look at life through a telescope, and sometimes you look at life through a microscope.”

I did several tarot readings for him in the year leading up to his death. He was reckoning with inner turmoil and the desire to find awe, even in his final chapter. Those words were his expression of self-study and purpose.

We never stop searching, even in the moments before death.

He has left, but his spirit and words remain. Here they are on my studio wall, a reminder of him and his poetic soul.

I am grateful they are with me.

These words became my next creative fix.

I needed to see what these words meant.

I needed to make them visual, to see them as I felt them.

And I would do anything to have those words see me back.

Thus began my journey to create a new piece.

The title for this article is The Beginning Sucks.

You have this crush, and you write love letters in your sketchbook. You court them through thumbnail drawings, research, and cursive writing. You are thanked by the torture of their words back:

“I’m sorry, I’m just not ready.”

 

Their excuse:

“This doesn’t feel right for me.”

The elusive lover is telling you the composition isn’t ready, the ideas not fully formed. Even though you have a nice little thumbnail drawing–No! It’s not enough!

That $25 you spent on paper? You want to paint THAT on it? No way!

For two months, I pushed on–relentless to win their hand. And I did. But dang it sucked.

For the month of August, I’ll be sharing my journey to win this piece over. A four-part series for a painting that took two months.

Part 2: How I symbolize
August 13th, 2026

Last week, I started a series about the process of creating my painting, Carina Nebula. I talked about how starting a new piece is super hard. To be blunt, the beginning often sucks. (Check it here.) It’s like chasing a crush that has no interest in you. But you refuse to give up!

Today I continue the journey into the torture and beauty of creating. We visit the realm of symbols.

As a tarot reader, I use symbols all the time to find meaning. But when you’re the one making the symbols, it’s a whole new game.

How are you going to convey meaning? You might feel the meaning in your soul, but what the hell does the soul look like in an image?

This question plagues me with every piece.

I knew this artwork was about seeing your soul both up close (microscope) and from far away (telescope). But what does that mean?

I began to answer these questions in my sketchbook:

The cliff notes of the messy sketchbook page:

Looking at life close up (microscope!), for me meant this:

• The scary shit: shadow work, trauma, familial stuff, issues of worth, analyzing everything to find yourself and to find meaning (what’s the point of being here?). So, the science of searching!
• The beautiful shit: cells in bodies, galaxies within them, networks of friends, circles of connection, the freedom that comes with leaning into your fears and the shadow work.

Okay! So! Now we have something to work with. Time to Symbolize. Here are the painted studies I did to convey the above:

Microscope symbol idea #1:
Maybe I could show a cell having a party with friends!

 

Microscope symbol idea #2
How about ancestral healing as a skirt-lady with tree roots? Good stuff right here.

 

Microscope symbol idea #3
Maybe I could show a slide with blood in it! I love this!

 

Microscope symbol idea #4
How about a journal, with an oxygen atom and eyes? Because the journal is where all inner-journey stuff happens. That feels pretty microscopic to me.

As you can see, I went to town distilling my microscope ideas and brainstorms into symbols. And turning them into painted studies. Kind of a pain (I love just creating the final piece!), but hey – gotta do it.

Next up! Telescope imagery.

For this, I wanted to capture the wonder and insight that can come when we look at our souls from a zoomed-out perspective. Because really, the soul is the beauty of pure light in darkness.

What better way to convey that than through the stars:

Painting the stars was the most fun.

So, now I was moving beyond the first stage of torture. Which was about being in love with something that at first has no interest in you.

The second stage (described today!) is less torturous. Because of color. Finally, color to fill up the emptiness and all my longing to see what my paramour looks like! They are starting to look back at me!

Next week, I’ll have the first big reveal: how I brought all these symbols together into a work of art.

Part 3: Starting over

August 20th, 2026

Starting over

Destroying to create something better

The messy middle.

It’s the moment you realize there’s no going back to the You before.

It’s also the same moment that you have no idea what You’re becoming.

This moment is one of the most exciting and frustrating parts of making art. You’re starting to find something finally coalescing, and then suddenly, it stops working. It’s not what you want.

Life is the same.

Suddenly, you can’t continue with the mask, costume, or version of you you’ve been chillin’ with. You need to start over.

The creative arts are a birthing of self. You are not bringing something into the world. You are bringing yourself into the world. And that means searching for the most authentic version possible.

I’m such a perfectionist that I make color swatches for my pieces.

This is why the artist is tortured (or maybe it’s just me!). The art feels like a gateway to something deeper. If it doesn’t feel profound, why continue?!? It must look amazing! It must represent some kind of bigger truth in myself!

And that’s the thing. Your truth is always changing.

Always being refined.

Art is the same way, at least for me.

It represents a truth I am trying to uncover, trying to perfect, trying to understand. The art is a mystery. It gets annoying sometimes, the addictive quality the mystery possesses. It doesn’t let you rest. Gotta get it!

Here, I thought my piece, Carina Nebula, was finally ready to let me in. The courting process was ridiculous. (Backstory here.).

Finally, we had a committed relationship! We could move to the nice 25 dollar paper!

Here’s our love child and how she grew:

1. The Start: The figures create the frame. The figure on the right holds the stars, representing moments of awe and inspiration.

2. The Middle: The figure on the left represents the inner world of ancestry, roots, shadow work, and the cellular or microscopic. It is the microscope view we need alongside the telescope’s reach.

3. And there she is! The final piece!

(Although I started over, if you notice from scrolling… I decided I wanted the figures and symbols simplified. But basically it’s the same.)

I spent a lot of time staring at my love as I came in and out of my studio. We had such a beautiful thing together!

But then things started to change. Suddenly, she was cold.

I walked in, and the magic was gone. Something didn’t feel right.

While I loved this piece, I know it wasn’t right for me. And so, I sighed, wept, and put her away. I started over.

I started over.

Text made larger for emphasis. A month of work, and I chose to start over. I must be crazy! Yes, I am!

But what came next was worth the crazy. In the actual final piece (the final for real final piece), I saw something that felt like it made me see myself.

There are moments in art and life when starting over means moving into something more authentic.

The thing that’s true and meant for you is the thing that makes you feel seen.

Sometimes you have to destroy to get to the good stuff in life; even if it means letting go of something you worked hard to build.