Beyond the Shadows: When Shadow Work Meets My Dark Art

There is a place most people prefer to avoid. It doesn’t appear on maps. There are no signs pointing to it – but we all know it.

It’s where secrets live. Where anger simmers. Where old wounds remain open. Where masks and roles were born – just so we could survive.

This place is called: the shadow.

Over the years, I learned how to enter it. Slowly. Gently. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter. I learned to bring light into places within me that didn’t want to be seen – and I discovered something surprising:

The shadow didn’t come to destroy. It came to heal.

That’s where my art was born.

The Light at the Heart of Darkness: What Is Shadow Work?

Shadow work, as described by Carl Jung, is the process of observing the parts of ourselves we pushed aside – emotions, thoughts, traits and memories we buried to fit in, to be accepted, to function.

But what’s buried doesn’t vanish. It just goes quiet. And from that silence, a scream can emerge.

When I create, I don’t aim for perfection. Each crooked doll, each broken-eyed figure, each tiny skull – is not just an object. It’s a wound. A feeling. A truth.

My art is not about aesthetics. It’s a language. A bridge. A conversation with what hides beneath the surface – in me, and in whoever is looking.

Why Are We Drawn to the Strange and the Dark?

People often ask: “Why do you make scary dolls?” “What’s with all the skulls?”

And I say: because they are honest.

Our attraction to the dark, to the eerie, to the Victorian and the macabre – is not a whim. It’s a soul-call. A need to stare directly into pain, shame, or fear and say: “I see you.” “Let me make you visible.” “Let me give you form.”

That’s what my work does. It doesn’t avoid darkness – it dares to meet it.

The Scary Fairy: A Brand Born from the Shadow

I called my brand “The Scary Fairy” not as a joke, but as a tribute.

Not all fairies bring glitter. Some show up with hard truths, with fierce love, with the power to hold us while we break.

My fairy doesn’t sugarcoat the world. She looks you in the eye and says: “Yes, it hurts. And yes, you will survive.”

Every piece I create – skull, doll, miniature – carries that message: You are allowed to be whole, even if you feel broken. You are allowed to show your anger, your sadness, your shadows. You don’t have to hide.

Art as a Bridge to Healing

Shadow work isn’t linear. It’s not a journey with a straight line or a final destination. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes exhausting. Sometimes freeing.

The art I make doesn’t promise healing – it offers a space to begin.

People often buy a piece without knowing why. “It spoke to me,” they say. That’s enough. Because like the shadow, true art speaks in a different language – the language of the body.

It reminds us there’s power inside us waiting to be seen. That beauty can rise from pain.

When Pain Demands Shape and Color

We live in a world that asks us to heal quietly. To suffer silently. To “get back to normal.”

But trauma doesn’t obey those rules. It lives in the body. It speaks in strange ways. A sudden sadness. An unexplained rage.

And when the heart can’t speak – the hands begin to move.

I didn’t come to art through theory. I came through chronic pain, through silent nights, through deep loneliness.

And when I held material in my hands and shaped a figure – something inside me whispered: “Here. It’s safe now. Feel.”

Why Trauma Doesn’t Want Words

The body remembers what the mind tries to erase.

That’s why children draw monsters they can’t name. Why my dolls often come out scarred, mute – yet strong.

They tell stories that have no date or place – only presence.

Creating gives us permission to express what we can’t explain. It lets pain breathe. It lets truth live.

You Don’t Need to Be an Artist to Heal Through Art

One of the most dangerous lies we tell is that art belongs to the “talented.” But healing has nothing to do with talent. It asks only that you listen. To your body. To your hands. To your breath.

My work invites that. A space where expression is enough. Where you don’t have to impress – only to be.

Even if it’s just a tiny skull or a crooked doll calling to you. That pull – that quiet recognition – is where healing begins.

Art as Oxygen, Not Salvation

In my hardest moments, I wasn’t looking for inspiration. I was just trying to breathe.

Eventually, I understood: The pieces I create are not decorations. They are anchors. Transitional objects. Soft reminders that say: “Here, it’s okay to feel.” “Here, it’s okay to fall apart.” “Here, you don’t need to be okay.”

Each creation holds a memory. A scar. A part of me. And maybe – a part of you too.

Befriending the Fracture

In one of the pages of my shadow journal, I once wrote:“There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”

A misquoted Leonard Cohen line, maybe – but the most accurate description of what I felt when I saw my first doll with a missing eye.

She wasn’t “damaged.” She was exactly what I needed to see – a reminder that even the broken parts belong.

When I send a piece like that into the world, it’s not just art. It’s a small flashlight – a guide back to yourself.

When the Artwork Chooses You

People at my booth don’t always know what they’re looking for. They stand in front of dozens of figures – and suddenly stop.

Sometimes it’s a small, scarred creation, not conventionally beautiful.

They say, “She’s calling me.” And they’re right.

We don’t really choose art – we recognize something in it that already lives within us.

One person may feel resistance to a certain piece, while another feels deeply moved by it.

That’s because each figure reflects a different piece of the shadow – a piece waiting to be seen.

Figurines as Archetypes – Even if They’re Plastic

My figures weren’t born from design. They were born from emotion.

They are archetypes: The Mother. The Lost Child. The Warrior. The Wounded One.

They carry energy, like a tarot card or a dream figure. They bridge the conscious and unconscious.

And when one touches you, it silently asks: What do you see in me?

Fear? Compassion? Disgust?

What am I reflecting – that you may not be ready to face in yourself?

Stop Fearing the "Ugly" Inside

I love making figures that are asymmetrical, wounded, or just a little off.

Not because it’s a style – because it’s honest.

Our culture teaches us to be ashamed of anything that’s not “nice,” “positive,” or “aesthetic.” But the shadow isn’t ugly. It just doesn’t fit the mold.

When we give it a form – we free ourselves.

We don’t have to fight it. We can walk with it.

So What Now?

If you’ve read this far, maybe you’ve already met your shadows. Or maybe they’re still hiding, peeking out.

Either way – I’m here. With pieces that quietly remind you:

You’re not alone. You’re allowed to feel. You’re allowed to love yourself, even when you feel broken.

Because we’re not really broken. We’re made of pieces – and that, too, is whole.

Quotes That Carried Me

During my journey with shadow work, some words stayed with me like lighthouses in the fog.

Carl Jung wrote: “He who looks outside, dreams. He who looks inside – awakens.”  This line became one of my inner foundations – a constant reminder to look inward, even when it hurts.

He also said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life – and you will call it fate.”  That’s exactly what my art does: it gives the unconscious a body. A voice. A presence.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses waiting for us to act – just once – with beauty and courage.”  How many times have I feared the monster, only to find that under the fear, there was a gift? A truth?

And Frida Kahlo, in her broken body and powerful voice, said: “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”  Yes. I create myself – over and over again – in order to meet myself anew.

These quotes didn’t just inspire me – they held me.  In darkness. In light. In creation.

Because sometimes, one true sentence – can carry an entire life.

The Shadow as a Creative Force

Jung didn’t view the shadow as something evil. He saw it as potential.

It is a powerful, untapped source of creativity, of energy, of truth.

When it’s integrated – it becomes freedom.

That’s why my work isn’t “nice.” It’s honest.

Even when it’s dark – it pulses. It breathes. It offers a kind of connection you can’t fake.

Call it shadow work, healing, soul expression – it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that it touches you.

And when it does – it transforms you.