The Make(Her) No. 3: Tanya Hughes, Alchemist & Plant Devotee

WE ARE SUPPORTED WITH GOODS MADE BY OVER FIFTY HUMANS. TO BETTER UNDERSTAND WHO THEY ARE, WE’RE SPOTLIGHTING ONE ARTIST MONTHLY. AS 98% OF OUR MAKERS ARE WOMEN, WE’RE SHINING A LIGHT ON WHAT’S MADE HER, THE MAKER.

Found’s Make(Her) Series No.3 spotlight lands on Tanya Hughes (TH) —Alchemist and Plant Devotee— interviewed by Found Natural Goods Founder, Jacqueline Smith (JS) to simply get to know what has lead Tanya to building her passion and business, Amulette Studios. A theme of seizing opportunities, staying true to her desire and intrinsic nature to create, and a call to be of service seems to be the reoccurring fire beneath all that she’s done and continues to do.

The two met up in mid-March 2019 and had some healthy Mother’s Café takeout at Tanya’s studio beginning this interview halfway into their lunch. Tanya and Jacq have had the good fortune to be at several pop-up markets together over the past three years, have collaborated on client work together and now in the realm of Found with Amulette Studios’ nearly full line being offered at the shop while Tanya so generously offers chance Self-Care Sunday pop-ups where she mixes custom sprays and oils for lucky Found patrons intrigued in her plant magic.

JS: I’m going to record now to begin catching your words. So, I have your official title as Plant Formulator and Alchemist...

TH: Hmmm, Formulator?

JS: [laughs] I knew I’d get pushback from you!

TH: [laughs] Well, I like it. But I’m not sure what it means, you, know? I’m not formulating the plants—they’re already formed. Plant Devotee, maybe? I think it’s something about how the plants are already doing their thing. How about Plant Interpreter? ‘Cause I’m just picking up the vibe and putting them together which is the alchemy part, right?

JS: The assist.

TH: Yeah. Absolutely.

JS: What is your earliest memory of plants or your art form coming into your world?  

TH: I definitely sought refuge as a child in nature. I had a really challenging childhood and so, nature was the place that I would run to —literally— and it was the place that I felt safe. Where I felt connected to something bigger than myself. Even as a child, I would have never languaged it that way, but looking back that’s what it was. I constantly had my feet in the earth, my hands in the earth, climbing trees —wild in a lot of ways— I’m surprised that I got away with what I got away with, you know? Hours at a time of being gone and just lost in the woods. And so I think that was really what my foundation as a young person and I never left it. I always knew moving into adulthood it was very important for who I was to maintain a very deep and very real connection with my environment, my surroundings. At that time it wasn’t a conscious decision to work with plants, it was more a feeling. I think nature is, it is just so wild and there is so much we don’t know about. I feel like one of the things I receive from nature, especially as a child, is an increase in my imagination. I think a lot of my artistic lean really came from that wild-ness, from these things that felt sort-of unexplainable, mystical or unknowable and yet completely tangible, it all just helped to breed more imagination within me, more curiosity. I don’t really know how to language it other than that because we’re talking about such a felt sense and certainly non-linear experience. But, I knew, very early on, that I wanted to create a life that was ultimately about being a creative person. In my world as a young person, everyone around me was very much in readily identifiable professions and everyone was miserable. There were no adults in my life that I remember as being super psyched about their work and what they were doing. They were making decent money and they would go fulfill their obligations, but as soon as they got home they would just be like, “Thank God I’m not doing that.” And I thought, “No way. Why would I choose to do that?” So that was part of my impetus to choosing more of a creative path in life in terms of my focus and also as a profession.

JS: What is our setting here?

TH: I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle called Lake Forest Park and this was early to mid-’70s. So there’s a lot of these properties where you’d have one, two, and three acres that were outside the city limits that you’d have all this space because it wasn’t developed yet. It’s not like that anymore, but back then it was really wild and overgrown with Douglas Fir, Cedar Trees, Salal, mosses, ferns, classic PNW native plants.

JS: Did you have siblings?

TH: One sister. Two years older.

JS: Was it a big family or a pack of wild neighborhood kids?

TH: No, unfortunately, it wasn’t! Again it was more like suburban rural, so I wouldn’t say we were out in the country, but we had this undeveloped green space. Nobody owned it, but it was like we had an extra four acres.

JS: …to play on.

TH: [laughs] Right, yes. But we weren’t supposed to be playing on. But we did it anyway, right? It was really just me and my sister and she was very much a classic artist —where I was more physical and was all about movement and being in my body in nature— she would sit and draw for hours and hours. So we didn’t play together a lot, I would spend time alone, just out in the woods.

JS: Did you ever make potions when you were little?

TH: My potions consisted of mud puddles with little twigs, ferns, and huckleberries and anything I would find. I literally would create a hole in the ground and add a little water and stir it around, and some fir needles and some moss and I didn’t even know what I was doing it for.

JS: Was it for your dad as a gift or to eat?

TH: No I was more just fascinated by the alchemy of it. And again I wouldn’t use that word as a kid but I was fascinated by mixing things. That’s so funny I’ve never thought about that. I’m so glad you asked that question. But I just remember the idea of consistency and texture, viscosity, and color. It was more of a tactile, sculptural thing. I would rub it all over my hands. That’s so funny! [laughs] I’ve never thought about that.

JS: You were a little bit more of a tomboy?

TH: Definitely. Always. I think it was really my dad. My dad was our primary care provider, and even though he had a city white-collar/blue-collar job at the same time, he loved nature. His time after work was definitely about being outside.

JS: With you?

TH: No, it was more him doing his own thing—but I modeled it. Like he would chop wood and so I’d want to chop wood. Very dude-like things.

JS: [laughs] Oh, girl. I get it.

TH: [laughs] Yeah! And we’d spend a lot of time up in the San Juan Islands too because he loved sailing. We had this great, classic west side of the cascades experience nature-wise. We’d sail to all these different islands, and as a kid again we could just run free because it was an island and nothing was going to happen to you, you weren’t going to get lost or hit by car. We would moor offshore and me and my sister would just run free and we wouldn’t see anyone other than a deer or two until dinner time. We had a good balance of salt and earth as a kid.

JS: When did you learn there was a job as a Herbalist or that you could work with plants?

TH: You know that was a way out because I went into photography and filmmaking in my twenties. I think that observer-mind from spending time alone in nature got channeled into photography —I was pretty painfully shy, so observation was already a habit— so why not put a lens in front of my eyeball and do the same thing? I spent my twenties doing that. And then as the jobs got bigger, the money got bigger and the egos got bigger - I really got burnt out by it. So I choose to leave the profession, and the industry, and then I got into massage therapy.

Tanya mixing up a custom “everything spray” at Found during a Self-Care Sunday Pop-Up in September 2018.

JS: That is such a leap!

TH: I know. It was such a wildcard experience. A friend of mine was considering naturopathic school/massage school, and he wanted to go take a weekend “how to give a massage workshop.” He really wanted me to go with and support him. All I was thinking about was how I’d have to touch people I didn’t know. I’d never had a massage in my life, I was in my late twenties, very punk rock and again in film and music industry —still in Seattle— I end up going reluctantly and I loved it. The school was so intelligent, they talked all about the anatomy and physiology in a very available way to a pedestrian like me and everyone else in the room. Even the psychology of touch. It wasn’t at all the scheezy thing I thought it was going to be. It was really legit. And it made so much sense to me. When we actually started doing the practice —me being such a tactile person— I was like, oh I know this, it was like I’d done it before. It just unlocked a piece of my brain where it made sense. It felt like sculpture to me—like a tactile art.

JS: Oh, so maybe it wasn’t such a big jump to go from one form of art to another?

TH: Exactly. It wasn’t separate to me. It felt like a more physical form of art. Massage is a similar thing. To me, it never really felt like…

JS: Like you’d lost your mind? [laughs]

TH: [laughs] Hahaha, yeah exactly! Yeah, it wasn’t separate to me. Because, outside of the commercial work, a lot of the work that I did in film was documentary work which is about people. So it was constantly about trying to figure out what the important story was and how to give voice to it. And, massage is a similar thing. So what’s the story that’s going on with your body and how can we get to it, and try and address it so you can feel better. So similar conceptually but just a different approach. It was perfect timing really because I wanted to get out of the film industry. My friend ended up not doing the program. He was just the deliverer of a different chapter of my life. Not long after starting my massage career is when I started studying formally with a local herbalist who offered local wildcrafting and local medicine making apprenticeships before I moved down to Miami.

JS: So there’s not necessarily a moment when you knew what you wanted to do?

TH: No there’s never been a definitive ah-ha moment, it has always been just more about what intrigues me and makes sense.

JS: What was the job in Miami?

TH: I got this crazy job offer to help open up the spa program at The Standard in Miami. That’s what officially moved the film world away. The project was so demanding that I didn’t have any time left for film. Another friend of mine offered me the connection since I had this dual skill set of producing, managing budgets, and people plus massage. And it was so crazy. It was the furthest you could get from Seattle in the continental United States. And I loved it. I loved all the cultures that were there. It’s not just South America, or Central America, or Cuba, there’s a huge European population there, a huge Russian population there as well. It’s known as the fifth borough of New York. And then the tropical weather, and the sun, and the amazing ocean. It was the hardest gigs I’ve ever had though. Sixty hours a week, five days a week for four years—I think it literally took ten years off my life. Total trial by fire. I don’t think I’ll ever do something like that again unless it’s my own project.

JS: You didn’t stay in Miami.

TH: No, it wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle. It takes a lot of money to live there well. And it was just time. I had a good six-year stint. Then I had to figure out who I was again. I didn’t plan on spending that amount of time there, it just happened. I just kept saying yes. Because it was interesting! That’s who I am! If I haven’t tried something, most of the time I’ll say yeah ok I’ll try that. Why not? It’s a life experience. But I think the shadow side of that —I’m more discerning now— is that it can derail you from your specific focus.

JS: But it takes bravery to say yes.

TH: I think so. But at that point I was so invested, there was no plan B but I knew it was over. I ended up deciding on Salt Lake City, Utah to study with a couple of spiritual teachers that I had worked with throughout the years. When I was trying to decide what was next for me, I just felt like I needed to be a student again and to fill my cup. And so these two teachers I’d met years ago both happened to live in Salt Lake. All I knew is that I needed to receive. They both said the same thing, come, but let go of any expectations. I set up my life, a really quiet life where I’d hike in the hills almost every day. Take trips down to Zion and Moab, a pretty monastic life—total opposite experience from Miami. Almost a detox from the noise of it all. And then I studied with both of these teachers for about six months and it became clear that you can’t really do very deep spiritual work if you’re trying to work two spiritual paths at the same time. You have to choose one.

JS: Who were your teachers?

TH: One was a Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton, and the other was a Hermetic Alchemy teacher, Sylvia Bennett. It became clear that I needed to choose one, and have that be my primary teacher. Just getting re-centered. So for me, it was about doing healing work.

JS: In the west.

TH: But, after a few years I returned back to Seattle to help with some family challenges. Set up my private bodywork & breathwork practice. And when everything settled with my family, it was time once again for me to figure out where next. And I was doing design  and consulting work at the time, so I could kind-of be anywhere as long as I had an internet connection. So I sold all my stuff, got the Element so I could camp out of it, and then spent a year driving around the United States—stopping to see people along the way. I was just about to settle into New Mexico and found out that my Dad was sick. So back to Washington I came. That time period was so weird because I just kept getting called back to the Pacific Northwest, even though I kept trying to get further away from it because I love the sun so much. I settled in Bellingham, set up my practice again. My Dad passed and moved to Bend shortly after and attempted to launch a private practice. I thought it would be much easier that it proved to be. I’ve lived in so many places and have pretty easily set up shop, but in Bend it wasn’t working. I kept thinking, oh my God, I think I have to reinvent myself. That’s where Amulette really came out of, that place where I had to ask myself Who am I now? What’s the next version of myself? What do I have to offer?

JS: How did you know to ask that question?

TH: I’ve done enough work to know when something feels like you’re trying to swim upstream, it’s just not working, your forcing it. It’s time to reassess.

JS: So why not go bag groceries or get a job at a spa?

TH: Oh, I see what you’re saying. I think because I’ve worked for myself for so long, it’s just not in my lingo to even do that. And it’s not because I’m above it, it’s just that I don’t know any different. I’m a creator, and it’s part of my wisdom and life experience and what I’m figuring out while I’m in this body and on this planet—what can I create? What is possible?

JS: You’d said that when you were a little girl in the woods that you decided you were going to have a creative life.

TH: Yeah so Amulette came from that question of what do I create next. Also wanting to be of service still. Wanting to not just scrap everything I’d learned. You know, what’s the next thread in me? I use that phrase at nauseaum. Where is it leading me next? And that just felt like the next step. Even with the spa consulting work, I’d created custom back bars before, I’d made body care products, I’d done topical work, I’ve made my own remedies both for in and out––so I wondered if it could work? As you know, it started at your first marketplace (INTO the WOODS Holiday Market).

JS: With a deadline. [laughs]

TH: Yeah that was the heat that I needed. Then I didn’t even know what I would do with it. I didn’t know that I’d make it a full-on business business. I said let’s just see if people like this and do this one market and see what happens. And then I saw that people liked it, and started treating it more like a true business.

JS: What’s behind the name?

TH: Amulette. Of course, the spelling is my own creation— I call it the feminine version of A-M-U-L-E-T —that’s the traditional spelling of an amulet, something that you wear. It means protection to the wearer. So I feel like, with all the topicals, that’s the intention behind it. It’s something that’s offering you protection, shelter, it’s offering you healing.

JS: That’s beautiful.

TH: Thank you. And I liked that word studios because I am a creative person and you never know where this is going to go.

JS: Just in case you wanted to pivot and start making films… [laughs]

TH: [laughs] Exactly!

JS: Awe that’s cool.

TH: Don’t box myself in, you never know what’s going to happen next.

JS: What would your advice be for your younger self?

TH: Don’t worry so much, it’s all going to turn out fine. Enjoy the ride. It seems so cliché, but all you have to do is keep trusting and moving forward.

JS: So now you’re in the pretty isolated, small, desert town.

TH: Yeah.

JS: What challenges does it bring a small business getting off the ground?

TH: I feel like for me it was easier to get a small business off the ground here and I think for me it’s because I didn’t have as much distraction here––personally because there are maybe fewer things I’m interested in doing per say other than being outside that I could just focus on creating the things. And I feel like the nature of a small community is that I’ve met some amazing people that have been wildly supportive in terms of their dollars, feedback, and emotional support. Even more than when I was creating in Seattle, and we had a pretty awesome set of collaborators. But it still would be so hard to get stuff done because you would be spread so thin. The nature of this place for me was a great crucible. It’s the nature of your business though, right? My overhead was a lot smaller than other businesses may have in front of them.

JS: What’s in the future for Amulette?

TH: I really want to cultivate my one-to-one experience. So that’s something I’ve really been promoting––the custom work, and really trying to reach out to people to let them know they can ask me questions and that I’d like to help people partner what product would be best for them and why. That’s the healer-bodywork archetype in me that wants to connect in that way. I’m also really into infusing oils and potentially getting away from so much lean on essential oils. Because it takes so much plant material to create an essential oil. A cornerstone of my being is to do less harm, is to kind of live very lightly on the planet while I’m here. So I can’t not look at that. The essential oil companies as an industry, they’re really taking a lot more than they’re offering. Even though I’m a very small, small, small, small part of that—I still am conscious that I’m apart of that.

JS: Visually it sounds gorgeous.

TH: You won’t see plants actually in the oils. I won’t do it that way since most people have their oils for more than four to six weeks, and they begin to break down after that. Even though it looks great at first, with mine you’ll see the color implication of whatever the plant was. So if it was comfrey, it’ll super green or calendula, it will be orange. That sort of thing.

JS: That’s smart. Ok, last call for why we’re here today.  

TH: [thoughtful pause] I guess my big plug in why I’m interested in offering Amulette is because I’m interested in offering people the chance to slow down and remember why we’re here and what it is that they want to create. And that’s a big ask but why not? There’s so many of us that are just operating day to day as a reaction and on autopilot. But I honestly believe that we are here to do more, and to experience more than the vocation, than the house you want to build or the house you want to buy, than the trip you want to take. This is such a crazy experience. Wake up to it. Wake up to yourself. Wake up to whatever it is that really makes your heart beat. And I believe that plants and aromatics have the capacity to help open those inner doors. They can help us connect and they really can help rewire consciousness with intent. You can smell something and think about the thing you want to create or let go of and it will help create a new structure within your brain. I guess with Amulette, that’s the not-so-secret underlying piece that I would like for people to feel like it’s a resource —that if they feel attracted— they can use to become more awake to their own being, to their own magic, to what it is they’re doing here––and why they’re here.

Amulette Studios organic body care products (with the exception of select oils only offered directly) are available inside Found Natural Goods’ new brick-and-mortar downtown Bend, Oregon on Brooks Street. For all those in Central Oregon who order from her site directly, you can save on shipping and materials with a local pick-up option at Found, or do even more by ordering refills to save on glass bottles, lids and labels—get all the details at AmuletteStudios.com.

Read the rest of our Make(Her) Blog Series

• Make(Her) No. 6: Carol Arnott, Picker & Stylist

• Make(Her) No. 5: Marité Acosta, Potter & Chef

• Make(Her) No. 4: Paige Bruguier, Accessory Designer

• Make(Her) No. 3: Tanya Hughes, Alchemist Plant Devotee

• Make(Her) No. 2: Morgan Miller, Painter & Midwife

• Make(Her) No. 1: Emily Gibbons, Jewelry Designer

The Make(Her) No. 2: Morgan Miller, Painter & Midwife

We are supported with goods made by over fifty humans. To better understand who these people are, we’re spotlighting one artist monthly. As 98% of our makers are women, we’re shining a light on what’s made her, the maker.

Found’s second Make(Her) Series spotlight lands on Morgan Miller (MM) —Painter & Midwife— to better understand what drives Morgan to paint, what we can expect from her paintbrush strokes to come, why she chooses to paint naked women and nudes in the colors that she does and other insights from this smart, complex, talented human.

Interviewed by Found Natural Goods Founder, Jacqueline Smith (JS) —who funny enough, looks like Morgan’s long lost sister— these two arrive on time for their third attempt at this interview, to sip on a decaf cappuccino and loose leaf herbal tea inside the cozy, snow-covered coffeehouse, Crow’s Feet Commons, discussing the wonderful world of Morgan Miller's electric women.

If you haven’t had a chance to see Ladies of the Night hanging at Found, come down anytime or watch Morgan Miller’s Artist Profile, it’s a solid insight coming in at under three minutes. Or, get a small token of hers — we’re offering Morgan Miller postcards at $4 each, and the last two original Ladies of the Night paintings on wood that have graced our space since we opened under a year ago; see them here.

JS: Hello! You look like me.

MM: Do people tell you that too?

JS: Often, yes.

MM: Ok, what are we doing today, remind me.

JS: Well, let’s ask the obvious. Why women?

MM: I’ve always had a fascination with bodies and peoples ownership over their own bodies. And in portraiture, I try to play with that idea of how people in our western world consume bodies.

JS: What do you mean by consuming?

MM: Visually. Or, you know, through media, through advertising in the world how we present each other to each other. What it’s all supposed to mean.

JS: What do your paintings mean to you?

MM: Um, it’s so hard to answer.

JS: Is it because they each mean something different?

MM: No, I think it’s because it’s all so broad to me — it’s hard to pinpoint it all into a one sentence answer. I guess for me there’s not so much of an answer as a question. The paintings to me are a continuation of asking these questions — around what are the boundaries of these definitions we give one another with identity, and sexuality, and how we engage with each other.

JS: In your video profile, I thought it was so interesting how in one show you were able to hang the portraits higher than normal and the response was entirely different from the viewers. Less “funny” and out of reach. It’s as if they were revered…

MM: Differently. They were consumed differently. They can’t do it anymore.

JS: They can’t do what?

MM: People will mock hold an image.

JS: So they can’t interact with them in a humorous way?

MM: Yeah. Which I think is a crutch when people interact that way. Because it’s not actually funny, and they feel uncomfortable. And instead of sitting in whatever reason they feel uncomfortable…

JS: So perhaps there’s a discomfort the paintings evoke?

MM: Yes.

JS: How are the juggles of your career as a midwife and your painting subject of nude women going?

MM: Better these days. I think when I first started in midwifery, having only painted bodies, I felt I had to keep my personal identity as a painter neutral and away from my clients. I think I had these fears of my clients feeling like they were going to be seen or viewed in a different way because I see and view people in this other perspective. But I think that’s my raw fear that I have with that — which is maybe silly. The more I’ve stood in being a midwife, I feel stronger through that process and I don’t think any of my clients see that. I have a painting in my office and people ask about it. I think if anything they connect with me on a more human level — just knowing that I’m an interested person that does other things than just work. I’ve decided to sit in both spaces.

JS: You can be both.

MM: Yes, they’re not divided to me, they’re all kind of the same thing. The bodily autonomy and identity. It’s one of those things where you think you’re making a complete 180 with your career choices. But realistically, midwifery and art have always been the same thing. So, me pursuing the art world in a museum study curatorial realm for eight years before becoming a midwife —it was all the same thing— my interests were always in femininity and feminism and sexuality and reproductive rights. Same thing. Just different ways of using your hands.

JS: How long have you been a midwife now?

MM: Four years. But, it’s been sweet cause I feel like if anything since stepping away from the art world formally, since working in it, I’d been much more creative in painting since working as a midwife.

JS: Are you currently painting? A similar collection?

MM: Yes, but to me, they feel really different! But yes they are still bodies and nudes.

JS: Do you always paint with a model?

MM: A combination. I always paint a subject that’s an amateur model. So a photograph is often very helpful. Especially if it’s nude and people are maybe more self-conscious. I’ve kind of created this fun process with people, I’ve done portraits with people in different states or in New Zealand. I give them a prescribed direction on how to photograph themselves or have someone else photograph them. I’m asking them to do something weird and then they get to do the first filter. They send me what they’re most comfortable with, and I get to do the filter from there.

JS: And those are commissions? Or are they models?

MM: Both. But, it makes it more interesting for me to be restricted. To have parameters and think of what kind of energy that person put into that photo. I think that’s the weird strange thing that I really like about doing the focused in portraits — that you only see a portion of their body, and with that limited amount of information invoke sensations around their own body and/or engage the viewer to question their own feelings for it too. What does it do when we view each other in this really limited way. And I like the model being in control of what image that is too —they’re more involved that way.

JS: Are the Ladies in Shirts similar to this new cropped in a collection?

MM: I guess I’m not doing just nudes anymore. I think it’s just so fun, you know there’s our historical context of the partial nude is almost more nude than the fully naked person because it makes you think of the undressing. Naked instead of nude. If David had a sock on, he’s suddenly naked instead of nude.

JS: How do you choose your color palette?

MM: I would say that’s definitely where I’m much more influenced about what’s around me. Like the series that’s in Found right now, was painted in Bend during the summer and the colors are a lot of those sunsets and what was happening in life at that time. Where the previous series, I was living in the Palm Springs area, and are wildly different — just the sky and the landscape, hot desert, hot colors. So it’s less about the image and what’s happening in it and more about the space that the painting was being made.

JS: And, so now the series you’re working on is during the winter in Central Oregon?

MM: [laughs] Yeah, it’s a little harder for me.

JS: There’s a lot of white going on? [laughs] What about traveling and painting?

Morgan Miller in front of one Ladies of the Night

MM: For sure I bring the inspiration back. The only time I travel-paint is when I go home to Texas. I come from a family of painters, and they have everything there. So, my aunt is a painter who also does nudes, and portraits and primarily female nudes. So there are some pretty fun summer evenings with wine in which we’re both doing portraits of each other while doing portraits of each other. I’m pretty thankful for my bohemian upbringing where that’s a comfortable space to sit in because that’s really fun.

JS: I don’t know how to word this per say but do you think it’s luck that your subject, colors, and materials are so relevant today?

MM: I totally hear what you’re asking. It’s what I’ve been doing always. It’s on-trend right now, so I guess those things are aligning right now. But, I’m not new. There’s a lot of people painting this stuff. There’s a lot of overt feminist imagery if you want to call it that, that’s on-trend. It happened in the early 2000s, it happened in the 1990s, happened in 1980s, 1970s, and the 1960s — it’s definitely not a new image but it changes its relevance to what’s going on in the world at that time. It’s been interesting to see even eight years ago with the “same imagery” who was and was not comfortable with it in their house. The continued question of, “Where on earth would it be appropriate to hang this?” Where my answer has always been “How about over a couch? It looks great.” Today it does feel different —maybe more reactionary— on how people are consuming them now. People are shifting on why they’re interested in it. I think because of #metoo, etc.

JS: What’s driving you to do what you’re doing now as an artist?

MM: So, I painted in secret for most of my life. And when, say I lived with roommates in college, and a painting was hung up, I would make up that I got it somewhere else or someone else painted it.

JS: Because it was a nude?

MM: Just because I made it. But through adulthood, I made at one point an explicit decision to let go —which was, of course, terrifying— and to show. And I think maybe because I come from a family of artists and because I formerly worked in the art world, I’m capable of a lot of self-critique and having a pretty fair recognition of where one would classify in the greater “Art World.” But there was this point of, “So what?” Nobody really cares and if they do, so what. There was this ah-ha moment, of I’m just going to paint.

JS: You paint to paint.

MM: Yeah.

JS: Why did you start painting?

MM: I don’t know, I always did. It’s about the process for me, rather than the showing or the end product. I love painting on wood, especially oil painting on wood. It takes muscle and grit. It’s not as, you know… the idea of painterly. I often have a rag and putting elbow grease into it. So much is in that for me. And with the size too. I’ve tried to paint small. I know that on a consumer-level people want small paintings, especially if they’re new to buying art.

JS: More approachable.

MM: Yes, but I just don’t like it. I love painting on wood, and three feet by four feet is about as small as I can get. I like it being big and I like them being cropped in images so they’re even bigger than real life. And it just changes perspective. I want to make it big. I want to take up space.

JS: And wood is an intentional choice?

MM: I do paint on canvas too but it’s a totally different process, you can’t put elbow grease into it. It’s a gentle painting. With most of my paintings, I would never say the process is gentle.

JS: Wow, that’s so interesting knowing the end result is soft and feminine. Do you paint daily?

MM: No, I definitely brew. I brew for a really long time.

JS: Do you sketch?

MM: No, I’m a really bad drawer, occasionally I do figure drawing —it’s nice muscle memory— but wouldn’t say that I’m an artist’s artist, one that’s formally trained in that respect. I’ve only studied on museum studies and curatorial end. I think I made up my own rules on how to paint. I paint with oils but I do it wrong. I think because I grew up with so many art materials around me, I was just free to make it up and have fun. So, I did and I do. I’m not a daily sketcher, but I am a daily reader and that’s a huge thing. Most of my series come in bundles of months after brewing and reading XYZ philosopher and then just a couple of months of mad productivity. But, then spells in between of researching. Then I’ll revisit images for a series idea that I had from two and a half years ago that I didn’t do before because it wasn’t the right timing. There’s not a direct program or a daily practice. I think with most things of my life, it’s all integrated. My process is the study side for me of what am I reading, what am I consuming as a viewer, what’s happening in the world. As simple as some may think that the images are, subject matter-wise, there’s not an answer to what a painting means, obviously. But my process includes a lot of ideas that go into it, even though it’s a simple image.

JS: What are you reading these days?

MM: I’m really nerding out on some Jungian writings. There’s this psychotherapist, I think her name is Tanya Wilkinson, where she’s pulling on different mythologies where people are identifying with them as a victim-identity and as a hero-identity.

JS: That’s your natural curiosity?

MM: [laughs] Yeah, and this is the part that maybe feels unrelated but this is what I’m really into right now. And this is what the next series of paintings are about. And, that’s my process. Yes, it’s going to be still portraits but the ideas and feelings behind it are coming from all these things. I also like people having their own feelings for the paintings. It can be totally different than where I went into it with — you know this is all kind of background, what I’m thinking about. And I don’t mandate the viewer to feel that. But, I like portraits as an act of the consumer. For me, it’s fun to watch people view it, and to see what they think of it, and come up with their own ideas and own relationships to it. That’s part of it for me because I go into it painting portraits based on my own questions of how we perceive each other and ourselves and how we engage with each other, and those questions are not overt, but then I put the painting up and watch people talk about it and they’re all consuming the same thing.

JS: Is that why you don’t name them individually or hang them in the traditional orientation? But they’re all of a series instead.

MM: Yeah, which I think is a result of me being the daughter of a librarian. How things are classified are important to me.

JS: Who’s the librarian?

MM: My father. And my mom is an architect and a potter and printmaker. I really do think about how hard it is to disengage from the design element of painting because of my mother. In my mind, people always want small paintings but small paintings don’t look good on a wall in the same way as a big one does. And then people ask, “But, where am I going to put it?!” in regards to it’s “inappropriateness” as though the publicness of its display needs to be careful. And I’m always shocked, because, by design, I think, well gosh they could go anywhere. 

JS: Is that an American dialogue?

MM: Maybe. I don’t think my paintings are super avant-garde or cutting edge or out there. I’m not doing anything truly different…

JS: But they are. And that’s why we love having them!

Read the rest of our Make(Her) Blog Series

• Make(Her) No. 6: Carol Arnott, Picker & Stylist

• Make(Her) No. 5: Marité Acosta, Potter & Chef

• Make(Her) No. 4: Paige Bruguier, Accessory Designer

• Make(Her) No. 3: Tanya Hughes, Alchemist Plant Devotee

• Make(Her) No. 2: Morgan Miller, Painter & Midwife

• Make(Her) No. 1: Emily Gibbons, Jewelry Designer

Self-Care Sunday at Found with Amulette Studios

One lucky thing about living in Central Oregon is all the talented women you become surrounded by, especially in the maker community here at Found. It’s our delight to have featured the magic of Tanya aka Amulette Studios on a Sunday in September, as she hosted a custom, single-note everything spray bar.

Self-Care Sunday with Amulette Studios at Found

Join local Alchemist & Plant Lover, Tanya Hughes from Amulette Studios as she hosts the shop on Sunday, September 23rd (while we practice our own self-care!).

She will be blending up 2 oz custom, single-note everything sprays on the spot for purchase and brewing up some complimentary aromatic beverages and nourishing herbal teas from local herbalist, Rushing River Botanicals. 

"Single-note everything blends" denotes a one-scent of your choice spray that you can use on anything and everything. 

Tanya will be here Sunday, 9/23 from 11am to 3pm. Please drop in and receive your own custom spray. Use on yourself, your home, sheets, towels, in your car, or in your bag for those moments that need a little extra self-care.

We've Sharpened Our Product Photography - Gallivan Creative - Bend, Oregon Photo Studio

Thanks to the talented duo over at Gallivan Creative –– a Bend, Oregon based photo, and brand studio –– we've sharpened up our product photography status on both our online store here and our Etsy shop.

Spoiler: we have a second, and third photo shoot to complete with Gallivan. This first one was focused on establishing a consistent style, strategy, and photographing all the handmade and found goods that round-out the Found Natural Goods' Etsy shop. With the first photo shoot behind us, we have all the smaller, handmade items photographed –– sage smudge sticks, organic beeswax, handmade candles in crocks, solid brass tags with custom hand stamped messages –– the larger products and lifestyle shots still lingering. 

Preparing with Gallivan was a fun and organic process given both of our wheelhouses and personalities (not all photographers are as open and flexible as Caitlin, and not all founders have been art directors ––  talk about a killer combination of talent in that studio!). Showing inspiration via Pinterest and tossing out ideas for what Found could be in a word, then building on that one word with a visual example to elevate it. We built off each other to determine a game plan and come day-of the shoot, we had a great volley of ideas and products at their studio.  

Our intent was to bring a level of luxury with a twist of surrealism which we accomplished with the shadow warp and clever styling thanks to a string of fishing line. Which in our minds, elevates our the simplicity of our products into something that's anything but pedestrian –– an elegant presentation of something we love and value, and to others may appear as just sage, just pine sticks, just beeswax, et cetera. Gallivan categorized our result as "bright and clean brands" and we'll take that description any day.

'Twas a pleasure, Gallivan. Until next time!