Conversations with Color: Mixed Media Witchcraft with Bryn the Alleywitch

The interviewer: A magpie deck representing the color Orange.

The interviewee: Bryn, also known as Alleywitch.

Bryn is your host here at Grimoire Bizarre. Bryn has been a Universalist Heathen since 2001 and has picked up other influences along the way, including spirit work/animism (since the 2000s), color magic (since about 2007-2008), art witchcraft (since about 2021), and Kemeticism (since about 2023). Bryn has been enthusiastically delving into various forms of divination alongside these practices (since 2021). Bryn's practice is influenced by AuDHD neurotype as well. You can learn more about Bryn, in a general sense, on the About page.

Other places you can find Bryn:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alleywitch.cards

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/alleywitch

Bryn's cat religion page: felinism.org

The topic: Combining mixed media art with witchcraft.

Orange:

"Let's put pen to paper!"

Bryn: "Let's go!"

Orange:

"When you can't rely on the emotional support of your community or the physical support of your family, how has your relationship come through for you?"

Bryn: "My friends are great but things like chronic illness and physical distance mean that sometimes I don't have as much connection with them as I'd like. My biological family don't understand what I do - the art or the witchcraft - and my in-laws live two states away. Even my husband lives about an hour and a half away, because our jobs are even farther apart than that, but we see each other most weekends. So getting support of various kinds can be tricky.

"Fortunately, my husband is witchy too and understands that art witchcraft is an important part of my life, so when I have random packages full of materia sent to his address for some of my effigies, he just asks if they sent the correct stuff.

"He doesn't touch my art supplies when they're outside of storage and he's recently come to the conclusion not to touch my other witchy things without their consent. (He's also an animist.)

"In general, just having my closest person validate that this is important to me, is really helpful. And it's not that my friends don't validate that too - it's just especially important that he does."

Orange:

"When you can't make a decision and therefore can't move forward, how do you break through and make a change?"

Bryn: "I feel like this is one of those questions that every artist has to struggle with at some point.

"If it's at the beginning, the strategy of just making a mark of some kind so that the substrate - the surface you're painting or drawing on - is no longer blank, is often helpful for me. I have formulas for creating certain types of art spells so that I know what the first thing to do is.

"Recently, I've been working a lot with the Portal Painting process developed by Alexis Cohen but I modify it in certain ways to suit myself; the first step in a Portal Painting is to cover the substrate in writing. I'll turn the theme of the portal over and over in my mind until I have at least one sentence; then I start writing. I know Alexis says to just start writing, even if you're writing "I don't know what to write", but she also says to follow your intuition...and waiting until I have something specific is what works for me. My process is in some ways more slow and deliberate, and can have breaks in it where I go do something completely different. Maybe it's my Capricorn Sun - I go around the long way but I still make it up the mountain.

"If I'm in the middle of a work and I don't know how exactly I want to do the next step, or I'm not using a formula with steps, I usually set it aside and do something else. Typically not another art project - something completely different, or I rest for a while. It's scientifically proven to help productivity if you alternate between work with your hands/body and work with your mind alone, so if I can do that, that's what I prefer.

"That's what brings the ideas: when you stop looking for them directly. Everything I've experienced is going into my art, whether visual or written, in some way, conscious or not, and a lot of my process is just trying to stuff ideas into the (metaphorical) kaleidoscope - my brain - then shake it around until something turns in an unexpected way and produces a (metaphorical) shape I wasn't expecting.

"A lot of interesting things come out when you turn them in ways they weren't necessarily intended to be turned."

Orange:

"When you're moving away from structure, how do you incorporate new ideas to avoid feeling trapped or confined?"

Bryn: "There's still a sort of grammar to things, a set of rules. At least for me. Maybe it's that Capricorn again.

"Some of it is knowing which media will 'stick' on top of each other - acrylics can go on top of watercolors, but not the other way around, unless you use a layer of watercolor grounds in between. Some of it is symbolism; watercolors are more ethereal, acrylics are more grounded, pencils or markers are wand-like, and scissors are sword-like. You use what makes sense for the intention.

"I developed my own color symbolism based on how I relate to each color. In the last Portal Painting I finished, I was choosing colors intuitively but every single color was symbolically appropriate. Experience counts there, and repetition. It's like choosing materia for any spell."

Orange:

"Who stirs your creative emotions? Whose empire would you not take as an example? Who encourages you to rest?"

Bryn: "Creators who make me want to get out there and do something incredible, include Rhett and Link and David Choe. The videos I picked as examples are weird, but embracing the weird is part of my thing. I've always been a bit 'out there' and my vision is to bring that 'back here' for more people to enjoy. That's integral to magic, for me.

"On the clearly magical side, I love Visual Magick by Jan Fries and Sigil Witchery by Laura Tempest Zakroff.

"People like to rag on Anish Kapoor but I'm honestly unhappy with Kapoor's self-appointed nemesis, Stuart Semple. I used to like Semple; now, I've been waiting over a year for two of my Culture Hustle orders. I never got responses to any of my emails; one was unceremoniously cancelled with no refund, the other simply appeared to have been lost in space, and out of three items total in the two orders, one item inexplicably turned up on my porch right before it was time to publish this interview. So now I feel weird talking about it and wonder if more is going to show up, or if I'm going to have to finish my painting with half of the Blue Lit that I expected to have. (I also can't find my original color Lit now, and I was going to use them together!)

"From what I've heard, I'm not the only one who hasn't gotten things they ordered. I know it's not just Semple responsible for Culture Hustle, but I feel like he could take responsibility for making things right. It's just a frustrating, awkward situation.

"As for resting, my husband loves to nap. I can't nap because I'm on stimulant medication for ADHD, but I follow his example sometimes and lie down to rest and recharge. (It's especially nice to cuddle together and rest! My Autistic brain loves when he squishes me like a human pillow.)

"The Nap Ministry was also very helpful in teaching me that rest is a necessary and beautiful thing. I know productivity doesn't have to be the point, but resting helps me do other beautiful things afterwards and I love that too.

"I have a very deliberate cycle including rest and intentional boredom, 'filler' things like mobile games and social media, reading for both education and fun, play such as board games and MMOs, work emphasizing my brain, and work emphasizing my hands or my body. All of it is necessary to the cycle, I watch the proportions, and I can feel when things are off. Because I'm chronically ill, I can only do so much work, including my day job, which has to come first even though it's not what I love. But keeping the cycle balanced is what allows me to have time and energy for art and magic and art magic."

Orange:

"How will you use balance/justice and the variety of tools at your disposal to give to the community?"

Bryn: "Even when I'm not aiming for explicit social justice themes in my work, I'm getting weird and silly with it, and the fash don't like weird and silly. I'm trying to create works, spaces, and communities where weirdos like my friends and me can be comfortable, and where more people can come to understand weirdos like my friends and me.

"I want to explicitly say that among the human community, that includes neurodivergent folx, disabled and chronically ill folx, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ - emphasis on the T. In fact, if the fash want to drive someone out of public life or kill someone, I probably want them to feel welcome in my works, spaces, and communities. I want to hear about where I need to do better, too, because I know I'm not perfect.

"Among the nonhuman community, I'm trying to become a better animist and live more mindfully upon the earth. I don't think I'm doing well yet, honestly.

"What I said about balancing the different types of activity in my days and weeks applies here, too. I can't push myself too hard, but if I'm persistent, I can keep moving forward in ways that allow me to produce good things for my communities and friends."

Orange:

"Best wishes for your success!"

Bryn: "Thank you, friend!"