The Honey Badger Art Studio

I make art out of other people's throwaways. That's not a gimmick — that's my whole testimony. Everything in this studio was once somebody's discard: a cereal box, a busted frame, a puzzle with pieces missing, a rose that already dropped its petals. I put it back together into something that has worth. I did the same thing with my own life.

It's Southern. It's bohemian. It's fairycore. It's assemblage — layers of found things, held together on purpose. And it is trauma-informed, because I am a Certified Peer Specialist and I don't know how to make anything that isn't also care.

Honey and teeth. Always both. ✿

Papier-mâché is paper and paste. Fabric mâché is mine. I mix fabric right into the blend so the piece has cloth memory in it — it holds a shape, it takes paint different, and it never comes out twice the same. Into the mix goes whatever this farm and this house gave me that week:

• Fabric — scraps, cuttings, old clothes with a story left in them
• Leaves from my lemon, fig, and orange trees
• Roses and rose petals from the yard
• Coffee grounds
• Dirt from this ground right here
• Miscellaneous confetti and glitter
• Shredded paper, cardboard, cereal boxes
• Toilet paper rolls and other honest throwaways

Lemon leaves, fig leaves, orange leaves, coffee, dirt, glitter. That's the Golden Isles in a bowl. Every piece I pull out of that blend is a one-of-one — there is no second copy of anything I make.

A reliquary is a container for something holy. That's exactly what I build, except what goes inside is a feeling. I make shadow boxes for emotional containment — grief containment, joy containment, anger, fear, hope, the thought you can't say out loud yet. You give the feeling a house. It stops running the whole building.

In peer support we talk about containment as a skill: you don't have to feel everything all at once, all day. You can set it down somewhere safe and come back to it when you have the legs for it. My reliquaries are that skill you can hold in your hands and hang on a wall.

Reliquary of the Tender Wild

Framed shadow box — feathers, bones, dried florals.

Reliquary of the Human Kind

Double-sided hanging assemblage, hand-painted.

Heirloom pieces from the Cranford collection — jewelry that already lived a life before it got to me. I'm photographing and listing these as I go. Each one is one-of-one, and when it's claimed, it's gone.

Watch the shop, or tell me what you're looking for and I'll send you pictures first.

I paint objects — not canvases, objects. Things that were headed for the trash and came back beautiful:

• Egg cartons
• Frames
• Tables and small furniture
• Chains
• Puzzle pieces
• Whatever else walks up and asks to be painted

Assemblage canvases

Fairy treasure books

Coil pots

The Closet is pre-loved pieces straight out of my own closet. Shoes, blouses, finds worth passing on. One of each. Stylin' and profilin', and every dollar goes right back into Heart of Care.

💖 Peek in the Closet

Pre-loved treasures, one of each, gone when they're gone.

Open the Closet →

I teach this work. Fabric mâché from scratch, assemblage, building your own containment box for a feeling you're carrying. No art background needed and no talent required — I have never once needed somebody to be good at art for this to work on them. Busy hands, honest materials, and somebody sitting with you.

Classes happen at the Cat Nap Inn, out of the Red Bullet at pop-ups, and one-on-one as part of peer support.