The Art Anchor
There is a version of you that exists before the job title, before the code-switching, before you learned which parts of yourself to leave at the door. That version doesn't disappear. It waits.
The question I’ve been sitting with for most of my adult life is this: how do you stay tethered to that version of yourself when the world is constantly pulling you away from it?
I’m an architect. I work in a field that is rigidly structured, historically male-dominated, and not always kind to the parts of a person that don’t fit neatly. For years, I moved through that world the way many of us do: adapting, adjusting, wearing different masks for different rooms. It’s not dishonesty. It’s survival. But survival has a cost, and that cost is paid quietly, in the slow erosion of your sense of self.
What saved me, what continues to save me, is something I’ve come to call an art anchor.
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PART ONE
The Two Things That Kept Me Whole
Before I can explain what an art anchor is, I need to tell you about the two forces that have served as the umbrella over my whole life: the overarching framework through which I’ve stayed connected to myself, even when everything else was turbulent.
🎨 Art
Pure, unbridled expression. The opposite of rigid. No rules, no approval required. Just the honest movement of feeling into form. Art is where I go when I need to remember who I am without anyone watching.
🌿 Shamanism
An energetic connection to myself and to something larger. A willingness to sit with the unknown, to let the universe speak, to trust what can’t be measured. It is the practice of coming home to your own frequency.
Together, these are not hobbies. They are survival tools. They are the reason I can walk into a corporate environment wearing the mask that is required and still know, with complete certainty, where to find my true self when I leave.
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PART TWO
The First Time I Made an Art Anchor
Four years ago, I went on my first guided soul journey, an experience facilitated by a shaman, held indoors because a storm was threatening outside. It felt symbolic even then. I came with a clear intention: to remove the masculine mask I had been wearing most of my life, one shaped in part by being raised by an immigrant Vietnamese mother, by all the ways I had learned to be more masculine and action oriented in order to be accepted.
What happened during that soul journey was profound in ways I still don’t have full language for. What I can describe is an image: I was surrounded by green. Deep, living, emerald green. And then, cutting through it, a flame. Gold. In that moment, the green spoke to me of Mother Earth, of the feminine, of everything soft and rooted and receiving. The gold flame was Father Sun: the masculine, the active, the illuminating. The soul journey’s deepest gift was this clarity: that harmony between my feminine and masculine sides was not only possible, it was what my soul had been searching for all along. I wanted to honor that revelation and make it something I could return to.
A DETAIL THAT MATTERED
Earlier that day, I had pulled a card from my oracle deck, the 13 Moon Oracle, and the card was Sovereignty. Its color frequency: emerald green and gold. I didn’t plan this. The universe, as it tends to do, had already been speaking.
When I returned home, I knew I needed to hold onto what had shifted. I needed to make something that would remember it for me, something I could look at on an ordinary Monday when the ordinary weight of the world was back on my shoulders.
I pulled out a small canvas, maybe 4 inches by 4 inches. I began painting shades of green, layer by layer, until the surface felt alive. Then I added gold leaf, pressing it into the wet paint until a flame emerged. That was it. Small, unassuming, and completely mine.
I placed it on my altar. And it has been my North Star ever since.
The neural pathways are already built. The feeling lives inside you, permanently. The painting doesn’t create the feeling. It triggers it. It says: yes, you remember. This is who you actually are. That thing that happened at work today is not the story. This is.
“It’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle. Sometimes we need something outside ourselves, something we can look at, that holds the truth of who we are.”
PART THREE
What Art Gives You
Over the years, I’ve made many art anchors: a triptych of oil paintings representing the seasons of a year, soul frequency paintings for the women in my community, small pieces created in ceremony after profound turning points. Each one has taught me something about what the creative act actually provides.
Art gives me five things, reliably, every time:
Harmony · Balance · Intuition · Intention · Ceremony
The last one matters most to me. The act of creating becomes a ceremony: a ritual of honoring what you’ve lived through, what you’ve learned, who you’re becoming. When you make something with your hands and set it in front of you, you are saying: this happened, this matters, this is sacred.
My process, when I paint, is to blast music and dance first: to get out of my head and back into my body. I write a few words at the top of the canvas, words that jumped out from a card or a journal entry, and then I simply begin. I don’t know what I’ll paint before I start. I let go of outcome completely. This is where shamanic practice and artistic practice become the same thing: the hollow bone, the channel, the willingness to receive rather than control.
Your art anchor doesn’t need to look like mine. It doesn’t need to be a painting. It doesn’t need to be representational, photorealistic, or shown to anyone. It only needs to be honest, made by your hands, and capable of bringing you home.
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Create Your Own Art Anchor
This exercise works best when you give it quiet. Put on music that makes you feel like yourself. Find a space where you won’t be observed or interrupted. Let your inner critic wait outside the room. This is not their work to do.
What you’ll need: Any materials that feel natural: paint, pencils, collage, construction paper, markers. The medium is secondary. The act of making is everything.
i. Get grounded. Sit quietly. Take a few deep breaths and let the noise of the day settle. Feel the weight of your body in the chair, in the room.
ii. Find the moment. Ask yourself: when did I feel most fully myself? When did I learn something that genuinely changed me? It could be a peak experience, a quiet realization, a journey: anything that left a permanent mark on your understanding of who you are. Let an image, a color, or a feeling rise up.
iii. Write a few words. On a small piece of tape at the top of your page, write 3–5 words that capture the essence of what you want to remember. Don’t overthink this. Let the first words that come, come.
iv. Begin without knowing the end. Pick up your medium and start. Don’t plan it. Ask yourself: how do I show this feeling? How do I paint this shift? What images in a magazine exemplifies the experience? And then let your hands answer. Trust what emerges. It does not need to be beautiful to anyone else. It only needs to be true to you.
v. Place it somewhere you’ll see it. An altar, a desk, a windowsill. Somewhere that your eyes will naturally land. This is now your mirror. Your North Star. Your art anchor: the reminder, on the hard days, that you already know who you are. You just need something outside yourself to reflect it back.
If you felt something stir while reading this, I invite you to try the exercise. Make something small and honest, with whatever you have nearby. Let it be imperfect. Let it be yours. And if you find yourself wanting support, or if you’d like someone to hold that intention for you and translate it into color, I’d be honored to create a Soul Frequency Portrait Painting for you. Bring your soul and I’ll help ground and discover what your soul desires as a frequency for this next phase of your journey.
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The world will keep asking you to be smaller, quieter, more convenient. You will keep adapting, because that’s part of being human, of living in community, of surviving. But you don’t have to lose yourself in the translation.
Make something that holds your truest self. Then keep it close.
With love & emerald fire
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am Catherine Gutierrez, shamanic artist practitioner and architect based in San Francisco, California, where I live with my family of four. My work lives at the intersection of creativity, intuition, and the deep human need to stay connected to who we truly are.
I work with clients in person and remotely, offering Soul Frequency Portrait commissions as well as workshops and facilitated experiences for individuals and groups. If any of what you’ve read here stirs something in you, I would love to connect.
INSTAGRAM @catgutierrezart
AN OFFERING
Custom Soul Frequency Portrait Paintings
A grounded mirror for who you are becoming.
There are moments when logic is not enough: when the mind wants certainty, but the soul wants recognition. A Custom Soul Frequency Portrait Painting meets you there.
Created slowly, intuitively, and with deep listening, it reflects the frequency of your soul in this season of life. Not who you’ve been. Not who you think you should be. But who you are becoming. It becomes your portal, your mirror, your inner compass, especially during times of transition or upheaval.
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