About the Artist

Priestess. Shaman. Healer. Sage. Herbalist. Psychic. Conjurer. Gypsy. Witch. There have been so many names & titles throughout the millennia for women who possess the knowledge of the Earth, elements, medicine & energy, with both good & bad connotations. In my lineage I have found them all, some revered as healers, some burned as heathens, but all with intense knowledge & intuition, some with even what we call now psychic powers. I believe there’s just something in my family that has refused to give in to ego, something that keeps our eyes & ears open to the natural forces around us all. I am happy to see more and more people recently doing the same.

My name is Cynthia, or Cindy if you like, Keith, although should I ever take my wonderful husband’s last name it would be Kimberlin, & my spiritual, or craft, name is Akasha Kitsune. None of these names I gave myself. Others of different religions & relations found them to suit me, & I honor them all for that. Growing up it was attempted to raise me as a Baptist, but it never made sense to me, much less made me comfortable in my own skin. I could always see auras, specters & electricity, then began to hear the ether more as I became a teenager. According to that religion, those were malevolent abilities & frowned upon so I just let everyone think I had a huge imagination. Being an artist even then, that wasn’t a difficult concept. Then I started having insomnia & my doctor suggested I mark the days on a calendar. I did so & found they synced with the full Moon so started researching the scientific specs of the Moon. That led me to astronomy, then astrology, lore & mythology, which I’ve always been a fan of, then to a few books that once read, I realized my abilities & innate beliefs weren’t so unique. I found there were others & had been for centuries that shared my once thought of “predicament”. Then one year for Halloween I dressed up as the stereotypical gypsy & a friend loaned me her mom’s Tarot cards. I had such a knack for them I creeped out a lot of my fellow classmates, including that girl I think, because she let me keep them. That escalated my research & studies, & I’ve studied general Paganism, old witchcraft, new Wicca, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Hindu, Catholicism & forms of Christianity, Native American, many more…it all started to blend & define the world better than one religion ever could.

I respect this Earth, the material & tangible, & have found many energies & beneficial uses in almost every aspect of it. We all take medicines in some form, all of which originated as a natural product of the Earth at some point. Certain colors affect everyone to some degree as well. Blue calms, red invigorates, etc. Most people have what they consider a lucky number or day-they can’t always explain why but they believe in it as much as the air they breathe in. Places in the world move us to certain emotions as well, just as phases of the Moon do. Quite by accident I found that very same concept true in stones, shells, plants & metals. I had always collected rocks & shells from my vacations as a child. When the time came I wanted to lose weight & get healthy in high school I was loving rose quartz & did my whole bedroom in mauves. As I started researching, all these things “clicked” for me. I realized everything we need has already been provided to us, that we just had to trust our instincts & know where to look. Maybe it’s my gypsy heritage too but I’ve always loved wearing jewelry, often big, bright pieces, although my skin’s super-sensitive so I had to choose the quality of my pieces wisely. With that I started picking my pieces for energy as well as appearance.

A while back I was given chests of items that were my grandmother’s, a very wise woman & natural healer. Included were stones of every imagining, antique amulets & pieces of jade & well-aged grimoires. By this time I’d acquired a few like-minded friends & one had a shop in New Orleans that she closed up when Hurricane Katrina hit. She moved to Austin & decided to open an apothecary so gave me her stones to “do my jade justice”. As I did so, neighbours & complete strangers started asking me to adorn their own prized pendants, etc. & everyone said the energies in the pieces were amazing. I didn’t know about that at first, but it did seem I had a knack naturally, so started learning to control my energies & concentrating more on specifics when I made pieces & incorporating numerology, astral entities & focused energy with the stones & the rest is history.

The jewelry here is all charged with purpose &/or spiritual energies beneficial to their owners. I feel pieces “call” to people if that makes any sense, & I design pieces especially for individuals based on colors they like (why make a pink necklace if you always wear blues & browns, right?) as well as functions & help they need in their lives. As a former model, I appreciate too the attractiveness yet ability to blend in of jewelry. I want your pieces to be able to be worn daily, or whenever you feel you want to, not to just match one style or color of shirt. Many people have bought pieces completely for their looks with no interest in the composition which I don’t mind either, as that tells me the art itself is appreciated. As for my artwork, I was put in advanced art classes since middle school & even earned a scholarship which unfortunately was passed up on due to my father’s death & subsequent family events after I graduated high school. I’m going back to school for art though (I miss playing with clay & kilns too lol) & my skills everyone said I was born with pretty much, but I admit I’m better at nature, people, animals, fantasy & the like. So this is me, & I hope any cynics who read this can at least appreciate I was once like you, & still have my days as I like to know “why” everything works, but have found if you look hard enough the “why” can be found & no one should leave anything to blind faith, but always seek knowledge & take control of manifesting their own desires & destinies.

My “kids”: Juneau, a wolfy malamute mix, Marius, my Bombay baby, & Zoe, a shepherd mix. They bring light & fun into my world daily so thought to give appropriate props here. =))