Dans Mon Crane

About Me and My Substack

This is a re-write of a post I shared before moving into this space in January 2025. I wanted to introduce myself and my work to people who may not know me from the other spaces that I show up in.

Dans Mon Crane

My username means ‘in my skull’ in French. I chose this in 2010 when I created my Instagram profile. It is a reference to both my creative side - bringing my creativity and my ideas forth from my brain - and my archaeologist side. I am an archaeologist by trade, I specialise in human remains, forensics and funerary archaeology.

I am French Canadian and have lived abroad for the last ten years, mostly in China. Since I cannot work as an archaeologist while we are abroad, I have leaned into the artistic side of myself. I am an artist and I create from a place of absolute wonder at the power of art to change things.

I call myself an Art Witch because that evokes so many aspects of myself: I claim the word Witch because I am a feminist, I am a storyteller, I want to re-enchant the world, I want to empower people and I do this through creating classes and workshops that allow people to process their emotions and explore archetypes and their own heroine journeys.

My interests lie at the meeting point of art, archaeology, death/rebirth, myth, tarot, archetypes and storytelling. You will find all of this in my Substack. I love to have show and tells, I love to nerd out and fall down rabbit holes and I would love for you to come along on these extended side quests.

Here is a mind map of my interests:

Some classes that I have published over the years:

• The Inner Heroine: a collage-based class where we go through and document our heroine’s journey in altered books (in collaboration with Get Messy)

• Rituals: a year-long class where we explored the solar and lunar aspects of a theme using mixed media (in collaboration with Get Messy)

• Teen Spleen: a class to give voice to our inner teenager and document the badass and important things they have to say (available on Teachable until June, after which it will makes its way somewhere else)

• The Tarot Path, Journeying Through the Minor Arcana: a class where we exlore the Minor Arcana of the tarot through drawing with ink and collage (in collaboration with Art is Magic)

• Art Witch Academy (2019-2021): this was my heart project in collaboration with

  The Space Between
  and
  Emily Hollingworth
  . We shared art witchery classes on our website. Many of these classes will make their way to this space.

• Art For A Spell (2024): Another art witch space run by

  Meghann
  where I was able to share some of my workshops and classes.

• Archetypal Tarot (on Patreon 2022-2024): my Patreon was full of monthly workshops where we would explore an archetypal theme of my choosing. I would share tarot templates, musings about myth and histiry and an art invitation. this is the format I will be continuing on my Substack, just on a different rhythm).

• Emergence - Tending the Idea Garden from Inception to Expansion: a watercolor based class where we explore all the cycles of the creative process (in collaboration with Get Messy)

• I have also shared workshops and created for Pull, Pen, Paint; the Artsy Marathon; the Awesome Ladies Project, Messy May and Make Create Express.

This collage features some printables by

Celine

This Space is A Work In Progress

I have been enjoying the process of exploring what Substack has to offer. In return here is a breakdown of the different sections you will find on my space:

• Dans Mon Crane

This is the Home section of my Substack. Here you will find all of my free posts which include some of the free journaling challenges that I offer (A Witchy Yuletide is an example). It is also where you will find inspiration posts from either exhibits that I have seen, artists that I love or any other type of inspiring material.

• The Bone Witch Podcast

The podcast tab of my Substack is called The Bone Witch. This is a space where I explore short audio musings. Lately they have been about the archetype of the Bone Witch, something I have been leaning into as I navigate our return from China to Canada. This section is spontaneous, not really edited and short. They are meant as musings / audio notes that may spark something within you.

• Archetypal Tarot

This section has all my projects relating to archetypal tarot, including any tarot templates that I create as well as musings on the cards themselves. It is also where you will find my tarot self-portrait project.

• Body of Work

This section of my Substack will have anything that I am working on and developing. At the moment, there are two projects: one is the Angels and Skulls collaboration. This is a series of 100 collage pieces that I am working on. It is a collaboration with my sister Delphine. She is sending me some of her writing and I am using that as a jumping off point for the collage pieces.

The second project is 100 Days of Extracting Madness. This is a heart project where I do bibliomancy with Alejandra Pizarnik's Extracting the Stone of Madness. I listen to her voice and then use some of my vintage photographs and associate them to the writing. I am using up vintage photos as well as my scrapbooking paper stash with this project.

• The Psychopomp

A psychopomp is defined as a creature whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Ever since I encountered them in my Masters thesis, I have been fascinated by psychopomps, their ease in moving through different liminal spaces as well as through time. The idea that they are a calming presence, a guide to help one through the passage (whatever form that may take).

I see myself as a psychopomp of sorts: I navigate through many different spaces and interests (art, sprirituality, science, archaeology). I love to explore dufferent types of media, from collage to watercolor to drawing. My stated goal is to create bridges between these elements that light me up and to share what I have learned and explored with others.

The Psychopomp is the big juicy exciting section of my Substack. The one that will hold all of the in-depth offerings I want to share. There will be mini classes - including some re-vamped Patreon themes, discussions on art and the tarot, archetypes and archaeology, books and journals. All the inviting threads that beckon me to follow and that, once I have seen what they have to show me, I would like to share with all of you!

I am planning to have sporadic Ritual Circles on Zoom. Access to these will be included for all paid subscribers. They will range from tarot pulls to conferences on different themes to Goddesses and archetypes to artist-lead creative sessions.

• Founding members

Anyone who subscribes to my Substack as a foudning member will get a 60 minute one-on-one Individual Circle with me. This is a chance for us to talk about anything they want. I can create a tarot template, pull out some cards and do a reading, hash out an art project, engage in book recommendations or even have a creative session together. I absolutely love doing these.

Why Subscribe?

Why did I make my Substack a paid one? Why can’t I just share all my stuff for free? I have done that in the past. For me, this has come about for a few reasons. The main one is that I love to share my work, but I am tired of having people re-do what I do, but in a diluted way. I am happy that people are inspired by my work, but if you are going to share what I have done integrally, I would like to have some compensation for my labour.

I am not talking about classes here - those are not at isue! I mean projects that I am working on for myself, sharing about my process, about my way of working with tarot cards and archetypes and then seeing that labour being pushed out on someone else’s space with little or no acknowledgement. I am tired of that.

So yes, I am asking for a small amount for people to have eyes on my work. In doing so, I am hoping that the people who support me will recognize the value of what I have to share.

Now the nitty gritty part of things: what will all of this cost you and what do you get access to?

The free subscription gets you access to inspiration posts, mostly in the Dans Mon Crane part of my Substack.

The paid subscription gets you access to Dans Mon Crane, The Bone Witch Podcast, Body of Work, Archetypal Tarot and The Psychopomp. You get access to the archives and the chat function. You can also comment and interact with the community. Access to this is 20$ / month or 200$ / year.

Anyone subscribing at the Founding Member tier also gets access to a 60 minute Individual Ritual Circle.

Thank you for your presence here, in whatever capacity. I would love to engage with you, be in community and co-create with you! xoV