Winter: Return to the Infinite Project

Detail From Winterwander. Featuring Nyrikie the Wanderer, her foxy, pastel, and spray mica on 18x24 mixed media paper.

As winter settles over my studio in Maine, yhe pace slows, the light shifts, and I return to the focused, reflective work that only seems possible this time of year. I am deep into a new painting series and continuing to shape The Infinite Seeker project, a body of work centered on painting, archetype, meditation, ritual, and the practice of intentional pause.

This marks a quiet but important shift in how I work. I will continue to make paintings and to participate in a small number of group exhibitions this year, but I am stepping away from the intensity of constant fairs and from installing multiple solo shows. Instead, I am choosing to invest my energy in a more integrated and sustainable practice, one that brings together my visual work, my writing, and my years of experience teaching at the college level.

At the heart of The Infinite Seeker  is a contemplative art book titled The Infinite Seeker: Spiritual Art and Messages for Your Sacred Path. The book features twelve Infinite archetypes and is rooted in feminine spiritual inquiry and empowerment. It is an invitation for women to slow down, to listen inwardly, and to engage with art as a companion in reflection and transformation. I am also beginning to imagine how this work may eventually live beyond the page through workshops and women’s groups. These gatherings are still in formation, but the teaching framework is already present and quietly guiding the work.

Who Are the Infinite?

Throughout my artistic life, I have encountered guiding presences I call the Infinite. They exist beyond the Veil, a subtle threshold between our tangible world and a vast, unseen Otherworld. Crossing it asks for openness, trust, and a willingness to enter the unknown.

Artists have long given form to inner worlds through recurring figures and archetypes. William Blake had the Zoas, elemental beings that embodied aspects of the human psyche and cosmos. Susan Seddon Boulet often worked in series, returning to figures such as shamans or goddesses to deepen a spiritual conversation over time. Frida Kahlo, in her own way, became an Infinite unto herself, using repeated imagery to map pain, power, and identity. Even in contemporary mythology, many of us once found resonance in Neil Gaiman’s Endless, figures that gave emotional and philosophical shape to abstract forces. The Infinite live in this lineage, not as answers, but as companions for inquiry.

The Infinite arise through imagination itself. They are ageless and timeless, carrying the qualities of archetype rather than personality. I most often sense them during moments of deep creative flow, when the work seems to arrive faster than conscious thought. They appear as spirits or deities and invite a kind of inner conversation that stirs memory, emotion, and insight. By naming them and learning to listen, a living mythology has slowly taken shape, one that underpins my work and reflects the spiritual dimensions of being human.

Art, Archetype, and Practice

The Infinite live somewhere between myth and experience. They can be understood as expressions of the subconscious in conversation with Spirit, yet their presence feels real to those who spend time with the work. Within The Infinite Seeker Project, these beings take form through paintings, stories, and archetypal messages that invite recognition rather than explanation.

Nature and myth have always been central to my process. Through them, the work becomes a bridge between the ordinary and the sacred. Ritual and contemplative practices woven throughout the project offer a way to pause, to reflect, and to stay with what arises. These practices also form the groundwork for future teaching and group work as the project continues to evolve.

An Ongoing Invitation

The Infinite are named for the endless cycle of creation itself. Each finished painting opens a new door, revealing further questions, guides, and possibilities. This winter studio season is less about visibility and more about depth, about choosing rhythms that support long-term creativity and spiritual inquiry.

If you feel drawn to slow down, to listen more closely, or to reimagine how creativity and spirituality meet in your own life, you are not alone. The Infinite Seeker project is an open invitation to explore the inner landscape, to meet the archetypes that walk beside you, and to trust the wisdom already present.

xo,

Rachel