More Joy Is Possible

09/13/2026

The Joyful Disruptors flew.

My ArtPrize installation, Michigan Birds, came off the walls of Rewind and into Rosa Parks Circle for the dance themed preview weekend. All day the plaza belonged to trained dancers. Then we sent in the Joyful Disruptors led by Whitney and styled by me— untrained, unbothered, dancing to "Praise You." Art and self-expression on the same floor. That's how ArtPrize should open.

See if you can spot all the birds represented. I'm the song sparrow. Whitney, the hummingbird. Topher, the kingfisher. Jae McCormick, the rouen. Amanda, the crow. Gerren, the goldfinch. Big Chef, the blue grosbeak. Shane Wymer, the golden eagle. Andi Andersen, the red-tailed hawk. Jen Porter, the barn swallow. Martha Velting, the indigo bunting. Cassie Ellis, the cardinal. Breah Marie Young, the great horned owl. Mallory, the robin. Jenna Kuznicki, the European starling. Jay, the tufted titmouse.

Mid-song we dropped to the ground, looked up, and there was a whole flock turning over the circle, riding the wind for the joy of it. What was above was reflected below.

Michigan Birds is on display at Rewind and voting opens September 18 — you can vote daily on the ArtPrize app.

And the flock keeps gathering. Flock the Block, my mini festival will feature a silent disco on September 26, and dye your own bird on September 27. You'll choose your bird and find out how it makes you want to move. Portraiture. Pieces to try on. Color you can wear out the door.

So start thinking about your bird. Nature already made the palette — no season, no forecast, no one selling it to us.

Michigan is rich with it. Together we all flew. Join us.

09/08/2026

🐦 MICHIGAN BIRDS: Big Chef as the Blue Grosbeak

Big Chef spends a lot of his life behind the camera, capturing other people's stories through Hustle Ave ENT. For this Power Portrait, I got to turn the camera around.

We returned to Joe Taylor Park, a place where Big Chef played as a kid, this time with his two-year-old son, Silas, running alongside us. There was something beautiful about watching two generations occupy the same childhood space.

The boy who played here had returned as somebody's dad.

When I first met Big Chef, he gravitated toward Chocolate Brown and Moss Green—colors that made him look rooted and strong. For his Blue Grosbeak, we kept the brown but traded the green for deep Midnight Blue.

Suddenly, there was sky.

The Blue Grosbeak felt perfect for someone who spends so much time helping other people become visible. Despite its striking blue coloring, the bird can be surprisingly unobtrusive. For this portrait, Big Chef stepped out from behind the lens and allowed himself to be seen.

Our afternoon also became a conversation about who gets to do the seeing. A nearby Flock license-plate-reading camera brought up questions for Big Chef about surveillance, privacy, safety, and what it means to intentionally choose how your own story is documented.

My camera was different. Big Chef chose the lens. He chose the bird, the colors, the location, and the story he wanted these photographs to carry.

Midnight Blue became sky. Chocolate Brown became soil. Where you're going and where you've been.

Big Chef didn't lose his roots when we changed his colors. He simply gave himself more sky. 💙

🔗 Read the full story: https://morejoystudio.com/big-chef-as-the-blue-grosbeak/

🔗 Join the Flock: https://www.facebook.com/share/1EZmiqnbgF/

09/02/2026

Michigan Birds 🐦 Whitney as the Great Blue Heron

Whitney chose the Great Blue Heron almost intuitively. Only afterward did she realize this bird had quietly followed her through nearly every place she'd ever called home—from the wetlands of Florida to the rivers of Georgia and eventually Michigan.

I've known Whitney Dawn Pyles for about three years through the mindful movement and dance experiences she creates through The Zone of Authenticity. I've danced with her at Wild Zen, followed her through flash mobs, and watched her create spaces where her own freedom and self-permission become contagious. Whitney knows how to take up space in a way that seems to stretch around everyone else and say, you can be here, too.

But becoming the Heron brought up a different question.

What does it feel like to take up space when that space is just yours?

At Huff Park, dressed in Wedgwood Blue, Charcoal Gray, and flowing Mist Gray, this physically small woman suddenly became enormous. Whitney danced without music while the wind caught her fabric and turned it into wings. There was no one she needed to guide or encourage. She could simply move, play, be witnessed, and receive.

Then Sedona climbed into her lap and the enormous bird folded her wings.

Whitney is living in the Both AND right now. Mother AND individual. Space-holder AND person being held. Freeform movement AND choreography. Freedom AND technique. She spent years deconstructing a relationship with competitive and performance dance and finding liberation through free movement. Now she's allowing technique, choreography, and moving in unison back into her life on her own terms.

And that's where our stories collide again. Whitney is choreographing the Michigan Birds flash mob for ArtPrize. On Sept 12, The Joyful Disruptors will dance together at Rosa Parks Circle. Before we take flight, I'm throwing a Flock Party Sept 6 from 4–9pm at the More Joy Studio. Come create a bird-inspired outfit, learn the dance, eat, play, dye, and become part of Michigan Birds. 🪶

Maybe the Great Blue Heron didn't follow Whitney across the country to teach her where home was. Maybe it followed her to teach her how much space she was allowed to occupy there.

🔗 Read the full post: https://morejoystudio.com/whitney-as-the-great-blue-heron/

08/26/2026

Michigan Birds: 🧡 Erica as the American Redstart

Sometimes finding your colors isn't about choosing something new.

Sometimes it's about noticing the colors you've been leaving clues about all along.

🧡

Erica is a changemaker, strategist, facilitator, improviser, adoptee advocate, community connector—and someone with incredibly sparkly energy.

She told me that as an adoptee, she'd spent much of her life feeling like a chameleon, adapting to the people around her while trying to understand who she was.

The American Redstart immediately resonated.

It's an animated little bird that flashes brilliant patches of color as it moves, stirring up the world around it.

That felt like Erica.

We dressed her in Raven Black and Pagoda Orange and photographed around Beachwood Retreats in Muskegon. As she relaxed into the session, the grin appeared, her movement got bigger, and the orange began flashing through all that black.

She came alive.

And then I started noticing something.

Pagoda Orange was already everywhere.

Little sparks of it appeared throughout the home Erica had designed. The color we'd been searching for was already woven into the environment she'd created around herself.

And when Erica smiled, I saw that same fire in her eyes.

Maybe we don't discover ourselves all at once.

Maybe we leave clues.

In our homes. Our clothes. The places we feel safe. The things that make us light up.

We just have to start noticing them.

🧡 What colors have you been leaving clues about?

🔗 Read the full story: https://morejoystudio.com/erica-as-the-american-redstart/

08/23/2026

Wild Zen Yoga has wrapped, and I'm still glowing in the aftermath.

There's a phrase I keep coming back to: collective effervescence — that electric feeling that happens when people gather and, for a little while, become part of something bigger than themselves.

This weekend, I watched a community heal together.

Through breath. Yoga. Movement. Sound bowls. Bodywork. Bare feet in the grass. Long embraces. Dancing. Rest.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I got to heal too.

I dressed people in color. I photographed their joy. I watched scarves catch the wind and bodies find their flow. I paused long enough to make little masterpieces in the middle of everything happening around me.

My friend Bee — who I photographed glowing in golden yellow last season — came along this year and brought her own Sparks of Joy. There was something beautiful about finding a rhythm as two artists working beside each other. She reminds me of that first rush I felt when I discovered what could happen when I started dashing color onto clothes.

When Bee gathered everyone around the dye tapestries, suddenly creativity became communal. We stood barefoot in the grass, watching colors collide and creations emerge. Different hands reached for different colors. Different instincts made different marks.

No two people moved quite the same way. And no two pieces could have been made by anyone else.

That's what I love about this process. Give people the same colors, the same tools and the same invitation to play — and their hands will still tell completely different stories.

I also snuck away with many more portraits for my Michigan bird collection. 🐦🌈 Keep an eye out in the weeks ahead.

There are so many more stories — and so much more joy — still to come.

08/16/2026

08/14/2026

Michigan Birds 💙 Winston as the Belted Kingfisher

Sometimes you choose a color before you understand why you need it.

Last summer, Winston spotted my Kingfisher-blue cable-knit sweater from Wild Yoga Fest. It was the middle of summer and a heavyweight cotton sweater made absolutely no sense.

He bought it anyway.

Over the next year, it became a staple. He wore it reading outside, walking through nature, and finding little pockets of peace. It made simple moments feel special, and the heavy cotton wrapped around him almost like a hug.

A year later, that color led us to his bird: the Belted Kingfisher.

💙

I've gotten to see Winston through ecstatic dance and mindful movement experiences around Grand Rapids. He has an ease in his body that I love watching—but he told me that comfort took time.

After some big life shifts, Winston needed new places to play. He found them through movement, yoga, breathwork, nature, and community.

We connected over that. We're both sober, and both of us have found something powerful in learning to inhabit our bodies differently.

The Belted Kingfisher felt right. It's a bird that can perch quietly beside the water, watching and waiting, and then suddenly commit—diving headfirst into the river.

Stillness and action. Grounding and play.

For our session, we explored Riverside Park at sunset. We walked through the river, skipped stones, played around the ducks, and followed the water until we found a little place tucked into the woods where sunlight poured through the trees. I asked him to notice the trees. He said he felt like a Hobbit. In a good way. 😂

At some point, we stopped posing and just started adventuring.

That's exactly what I want these clothes—and these portraits—to be about.

They're meant to be played in. Lived in. Taken into the woods. Worn until they carry stories of their own.

Sometimes we recognize the things that make us feel more like ourselves before we understand why.

Winston found his Kingfisher blue a year ago.

He's been growing into it ever since.

💙

What are you making room for?

08/10/2026

🦆 Michigan Birds: Jade as the Mallard 💚

Sometimes becoming yourself happens quietly.

And sometimes it arrives in emerald green with bright red hair.

When Jade chose the Mallard, the color connection was immediate—that brilliant emerald against her vibrant red hair. But the more I thought about it, the more the bird seemed to fit.

Mallards are incredibly adaptable. They make homes across changing landscapes. Even their plumage moves through seasons of transformation.

There’s something beautiful about a creature that reminds us our appearance—and our lives—were never meant to stay fixed.

Jade responded to my post looking for a creative roommate. My Dash-Dyed art caught her attention, and since moving in, I’ve loved watching her experiment with sewing, color, and finding the pigments and shapes that feel most like her.

At 26, Jade is becoming the woman she’s always wanted to be. She’s a trans woman, a former ecology and wildlife restoration student, and now a cosmetology student exploring her love of vibrant hair and nails at Jaded Hair and Nails.

Color looks good on her.

But even more than that—creating with color lights her up. ✨

For her portrait, we headed to Huff Park in the morning light. We wandered the wetland dressed in Brazil Nut brown, Cerulean blue, Emerald green, white, and yellow—the palette of a male Mallard.

And then we stumbled across a group removing invasive cattails and restoring the wetland. Jade had done similar work in college. So there she was, dressed as a Mallard, casually chatting about wetland restoration. Perfect. 😂

Then the wind picked up. Jade had been in color guard when she was younger, and when I handed her a long scarf, her body knew exactly what to do.

The fabric opened behind her like wings.
She held her head high.
She laughed.
She took flight.

These portraits keep reminding me that becoming doesn't happen all at once. We experiment. We change colors. We shed things. We discover what fits. And little by little, we become more recognizable to ourselves.

Jade is still becoming.

And from where I’m standing, she’s already taking flight.

🦆 Read the full post: https://morejoystudio.com/jade-as-the-mallard/

08/08/2026

Dancing + dashing is just better together. 🌈💃✨

I’ve already gotten to dye with some wonderful humans this morning at the Rewind x Breakaway Official Pre Party — and it turns out Dash-Dye gets even more joyful when there’s music playing and bodies moving. 🎧🌈

And we’re just getting started!

I’ll be here dyeing until 9 PM tonight, and thanks to Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., it’s all FREE!

🌈 Dash-Dye Breakaway merch
🌈 Rewind merch
🌈 OR bring a shirt from home to transform!

Plus there’s a Silent Disco, Kandi making, and food from Chef Streetchefshaw happening throughout the day.

Come find me, pick some colors, dance a little, and make something joyful. 💖

📍 17 Division Ave S
⏰ Today until 9 PM
💸 FREE!

Come dance + dash with MORE ∞ JOY. 🌈

04/14/2026

💛 Michigan Birds: ZamZam as the American Goldfinch

Some birds feel like sunshine.

When ZamZam stepped into my studio, she slowly wandered through the colors — her hands brushing each shade until she turned and said, “I think I’m a yellow bird.”

And she was right. The American Goldfinch — bright, joyful, and a true symbol of spring.

ZamZam and I first met at Studio Cor3, but it wasn’t until a winter silent disco — twirling in the snow under the night sky — that I felt her energy fully. Her joy is effortless. Present. Real.

She’s 22, Sudanese, a Registered Behavior Technician working with children with autism, and studying Psychology and Economics — while also dreaming into a future of dance, modeling, and creative expression.

She’s in a season of becoming.

At East Paris Nature Park, wrapped in clear yellow and golden tones, she moved through the wetlands as the sun set — soft, radiant, and completely at peace in the space she returns to again and again.

The Goldfinch doesn’t hold onto winter. It transforms into a brighter shade.

And watching ZamZam in yellow… it felt like witnessing something bloom.

Read the full story:
https://morejoystudio.com/power-portraits/zamzam-as-the-american-goldfinch/⁠