Why I Bring My Art to the Thrift Store (and Yes I know I Could Sell It)
People ask me all the time why I don’t sell my art. As if that's the most natural next step after painting something you actually like. The short answer? Because capitalism gives me hives. The long answer? It’s a whole stew of emotional alchemy, pod theory, and the reality that sometimes the art isn’t for keeping or selling, it’s for releasing. It’s like asking why someone breathes deeply after crying. You don’t charge for that. You just… do it. That’s what this is for me. A deep exhale painted in neon.
Let me paint you a picture, pun fully intended. I go through a Thing™. Maybe I get overstimulated. Maybe my ADHD is tap dancing on my skull while my nervous system decides brushing my teeth today is a threat. Maybe someone said something insensitive like, “Are you emotionally regulating right now?” and I didn’t punch them, but I did need to rage-paint to survive it. I put on music loud enough to make the windows nervous, and I paint. I slap paint with my hands, scrape textures with old gift cards, throw ink at a canvas like I’m exorcising a demon that once lived in a Pinterest board. And eventually, I feel better. Not “solved,” but softer. Regulated. More me.
Now, that canvas? It holds something. It holds a moment in time, the emotions I couldn’t translate into words, the tactile mess of my own healing. Sometimes it’s joyful. Sometimes it’s chaotic. Sometimes it’s just 37 different greens trying to get along. I don’t look at it and think, “How can I sell this?” I look at it and think, “It’s done. It served me. Now maybe it can serve someone else.”
That’s where the thrift store comes in. I don’t do this with ceremony. I just quietly bring it in, usually signed with “JM” and occasionally a secret message hidden on the back. I like to imagine someone picking it up, laughing, crying, or just pausing long enough to feel something. That’s all I want. To make people feel something real in a world that demands so much pretending.
See, I believe in something I call Pod Theory. It’s the idea that some of us arrive on this earth in soul-pairs, beings with matching frequencies, sent to light each other up, even if they never meet in the traditional sense. My art? That’s me casting signals. Breadcrumbs. Beacons. I leave them like emotional care packages out in the wild, waiting for the person who needs it most to stumble on it and recognize something they didn’t know they were missing.
I don’t want to turn my nervous system into a brand. I don’t want to wrestle my healing into a Shopify checkout. I want to make something that’s true, then let it go. It’s not about profit. It’s about process. If it speaks to someone, beautiful. If it confuses someone, also beautiful. If it makes someone say, “What the hell is this weird blob thing with dots?”, honestly, still beautiful.
Some people collect art. I release it. And maybe, just maybe, some stranger with a full cart and a heavy heart will find one of my pieces wedged between a used bread maker and a pile of old sweaters. They’ll hold it in their hands, tilt their head, and feel that flicker of something ancient and tender inside them whisper, remember.
That’s why I bring my art to the thrift store. Because healing doesn’t need a price tag. Because joy shouldn’t require a business model. Because sometimes, the best kind of magic is the kind that just shows up when you’re not even looking for it.
