We’ve long been fans of the art of Pantovola, which is wildly varied: She’s a textile artist, doll maker, and painter, sometimes all at once, but always a strange, mesmerizing mix of delicate, haunting, and unbelievably lovely. For this issue, we focused on her art that features cottages—sweet little homes with spirits emerging from the chimney stacks and ghosts escaping from the teapots and transparent wolves flying past the windows … We asked her about these visions in a recent conversation.

Enchanted Living: Can you tell us a little bit about you? Where do you live and work? What fascinates you and inspires you?

Anouk Pantovola: My name is Anouk Pantovola, and I’m a visual artist working under the name Pantovola. I’ve lived and worked in many places in Europe, currently in Barcelona. Creating is what defines me and is really essential to how I experience life and the world around me. I have always, since I could hold a pencil, made worlds to live in with drawing, painting, puppetry, and miniature theater. The imaginary, the magical—this is what I always search for in everyday life through making art. I have a special love for the theater, especially puppetry theater. The animated object, the puppet that comes alive through our imagination, is what moves me.

EL: Can you tell us about the ghostly figures that inhabit your work? We love them!

AP: The ghostly figures come from my love for the ethereal, the otherworldly realm, that which the eye cannot quite see, the dusky place where creatures live that we cannot quite know or understand. Graveyards are places I always love to visit— the older, the more abandoned, the better. The way nature takes over our manmade structures, the silence, the stillness of these small worlds, gives me a deep sense of peace and almost of belonging.

As a child I created shadow theaters with cutout figures behind Japanese paper—witches, animals, trees. I was moved by the figurines that appeared only in the dark as silhouettes against the flickering flame of the candle. Later on, the ghost became a beloved theme in my work: not quite here, not quite there; half in this world, half in the next.

The Chimney Ghost was my first ghostly sculpture, where the ghost appeared as a smoke-like figure rising from the chimney of a cottage. A little later on, these ghosts started to inhabit teapots.

EL: This issue is about cottage witchcraft, and we’re showcasing some of your images that center around home and nature. How does this theme resonate with you?

AP: This idea of “home” is something that really fascinates me from a personal perspective, in the sense that I’ve always tried to feel “at home” in this world.

I’m deeply nostalgic and sometimes it seemed to me that I was always chasing a memory or a trace of a sense of “home.” I’ve tried to capture that feeling with rituals, by scent, by sound. They’ve always been attempts to grasp something more complex that I didn’t quite understand until recently. The only place I do always feel completely at home is in nature. This is for the obvious reason that nature is our natural home, the home we’ve abandoned and traded for manmade structures.

EL: And how do you stay enchanted in your everyday life?

AP: Creating magical objects with everyday objects like teapots makes me look at the world around me in a more enchanted way. Now when I’m in the city and see a teapot somewhere in a shop, I cannot help but imagine … But also by looking at the way nature grows and evolves, in the big and the small. Paying attention to the small creatures living their lives around us. Or the way the late-evening sun hits the surface of the water in the pond. Finding the hidden entrances in the trunk of the old tree in the park, knowing that is where they live, of course! Because faeries live in our imaginations, and that in itself makes them real, because the imagination is as real as the door in the house is real.

See more of Pantovola’s art at pantovola.com or on Instagram @pantovola.art.

You perhaps know by now that the ever-expanding and astonishingly enchanted Vaughan House, where this cover feature is set, is located near Lynchburg, Virginia, off an unassuming road and nestled in the backyard of married couple Megan and Mitch Vaughan. What began as an impulse on Megan’s part to fill the couple’s yard with plants—with a whole greenhouse full of plants in the wake of a devastating miscarriage—then became a hugely popular and Instagram- worthy micro-wedding venue where the couple hosts ninety weddings a year. Now it has grown into something of a mini- empire. In fact, there’s a whole cottage back there too.

And by “cottage,” we mean this. Tower, winding stairway, and all.

It came about this way: In 2020, Mitch was on the Geographic Information System and realized the trees beside their house were owned by the couple. “Always fun to learn you have more land than you thought!” Megan says. They cut some of the trees to make the land easier to access. For a year, they enjoyed exploring and letting their kids play in the creek.

One day Mitch suggested building a small deck by the creek to put a rooftop tent on, a place to relax with the kids and maybe camp. He casually commented that such a place could work as a guest rental too. Megan proposed that this hypothetical space be “worthy enough for photographers to want to rent for photoshoots.” But wait, she said … “What about a stone cottage? 700 square feet max? Nothing big! Super small. One room, a tiny bathroom. Just enough for our greenhouse couples to get ready in and have a cozy honeymoon night …” And the idea spiraled from there. As Megan admits now, “I take something that could have been simple … to the extreme.” But how else does one end up with a 1,300-square-foot castle in one’s backyard?

And as you can see from our cover shoot, The Cottage, as it’s now officially called, and which was finished in 2024, when this shoot took place, is full of custom details—all dreamed up by Megan and Mitch and brought to life by a team of small artisans. Just a few of these include the custom hobbit door designed by the Vaughans and made by Jeremy Jessop of Lynchburg, with hinge work by Forged Commodities in Kyiv, Ukraine. The library was designed by the Vaughans and features cabinetry from Scott’s Cabinet in Forest, Virginia; live edge shelving by Black Dog Salvage in Roanoke, Virginia; and a ceiling hand-painted with ivy by Elizabeth Gray (who added ivy to the kitchen as well).

“Supporting small businesses was something we were incredibly passionate about when it came to designing the cottage,” Megan says. “So many of our followers ask for the blueprints, but there’s nothing special about those. What makes the cottage special is the many, many small businesses who saw our vision for it and blessed us with their incredible art and hard work. Without them, the cottage wouldn’t be what it is, have the charm that it has, and truly be one of a kind.”

When designing the cottage’s atrium, Megan knew exactly what she wanted. In fact, the entire main level was designed around this space and, very specifically, the gorgeous multi-colored leaf tile you see on the right, designed by Karen of MacMillan Aimes Studios and found by Megan on Pinterest. The entire process from the first email

to installation took about two years, with Karen handmaking each individual tile and creating a template for the installers to use. “The way she puzzle-pieced this together was actual genius,” Megan says. “It was truly a labor of love.”

Read more about The Cottage at vaughan-house.com/cottage.

The idea of gossamer and its sometimes ephemeral, shimmering pleasures seems awfully close to the concept of the “glimmer”—in the sense that author and licensed clinical social worker Deb Dana used it in her 2018 book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy. There, she defined the glimmer as something of anti-trigger, a moment filled not with cues of danger but a spark of feeling safe and good, inviting you to stop and feel fully present in your life.

Here are some moments that might be categorized as glimmers, though the possibilities are quite literally endless:

• The sudden appearance of a dragonfly, its iridescent wings catching in the sun’s rays.
• A glittering stone or coin in your pathway, like some token left just for you. (Do you know what it means?)
• A lovely plant you pass by on your walk. Maybe it’s an unwieldy fern hanging from a window like Rapunzel’s hair, or ivy growing up a tree.
• The rich, comforting scent of baked goods, like zucchini bread or coffee cake or sweet potato pie, just like you loved as a child.
• The smell of the air and earth after a rainstorm, and the sudden, fleeting appearance of a rainbow overhead.
• The feel of a lovestruck cat seeking your affection, then purring under your palm.
• The unexpected pleasure of hearing your favorite song while running the occasional mundane errand, or catching the eye of a mischievous, smiling child. (Or changeling? One can never be too sure.)
• One must, in a gossamer-themed issue, extoll the pleasure of spying dewdrops on a spiderweb during an early morning walk.
• And then the hush of wings fluttering in the distance, as you turn to see what other creature was there beside you, dazzled by that same sight.
• And it’s almost always a good idea to remember that the world is full of enchantment, much as it tries sometimes to make us forget.

The Mushroom Garden really has to be seen to be believed. British artist Adam Oehlers both wrote and illustrated the mesmerizing tome over the course of five years, creating a surreal yet highly detailed, fully imagined world of a mushroom garden through which a character known as the Girl moves—and sometimes is trapped—during the changing seasons. The garden shifts in epic fashion. The mushrooms shrink, grow, multiply, rise like boulders, and release spores that soar through the air and wrap around her. It’s like some kind of Wonderland (or Slumberland; I thought of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo often as well), teeming with mushrooms of every kind. It’s all gorgeous and more than slightly mad—in the best possible way, of course.

I asked Oehlers how the idea for the book came to him, and he explained that when he and his wife (the artist Nom Kinnear King) lived in the Norfolk countryside, they’d often take long walks over Knettishall Heath. One afternoon they came upon a scene that struck a particular, magic chord: a tumble of fallen trees and branches covered entirely in a wide variety of mushrooms. “I remember feeling as though we’d stepped into a whole other world, a labyrinthine microcosm, and it utterly blew my mind,” he says. The experience inspired him to create what was meant to be a one-off piece about a girl in a mushroom garden, but once he’d finished that, he could not let the idea go. He kept wondering about the Girl and what had called her to the garden. To answer those questions for himself, he created a second artwork, and he just kept going. Which is how books come to be.

Research helped with inspiration. Oehlers has always loved mushrooms—their come-hither looks, their connections to classic fairy tales and folklore—but when he began studying them, their wild names sent his imagination spinning. “The girdled knights,” he marvels, “the tawny grisettes, the deceivers, the funeral bells, the cavaliers … All those names painted such incredible pictures for me. They gave these mushrooms their own individual purposes, and the characters and world just started to grow.” And it’s still growing. Since The Mushroom Garden’s release in 2021, Oehlers has been working on a second book that takes place in the same world, this time in the “wilder lands that surround the Mushroom Garden.” But of course he’ll return to the garden itself, and we’ll be there too, eager to step inside.

See more of Adam Oehlers’s work at adamoehlersillustration.com and find copies of The Mushroom Garden at nomadicalley.bigcartel.com.

So we think these captures of Italian model-artist Emanuele Zappariello by Polish artist Agnieszka Lorek could have been lifted from some cobweb-covered Renaissance-era masterpiece hidden away in an Italian castle somewhere. Don’t you? Who knows what treasures are buried out there, just waiting to see the light of day?

In fact, they’re the result of an enchanted weekend when these two met up for the first time at Lorek’s “hermitage in the mountains” in Poland. For Zappariello, the visit was like entering fairyland. He described part of her house as full of “wings, capes of all colors, gorgeous jewelry, mirrors, flowers—it was really the secret room of the fairy queen.”

On the first day, she did his makeup and they went into the forest, where he posed among the logs, moss-covered stones, and fallen leaves. “I felt like Oberon, the king of the fairy people,” he says. “I was inexplicably happy. I was laughing all the time, and with every word we were smiling. It felt like we had known each other for a very long time.” On the next day, the feeling was different, more “divine.” Lorek took him to a place full of large stones and magnetic energy. He was dressed, he says, part alien, part rock-and-roll; part Apollo and part Mercury. There was wind whipping around him and “Agnieszka gave me the strength to pose in a very new way for me, full of masculine energy and power.” The strength he felt that day because of her changed his life, he says.

As for Lorek? “It’s like a figure from a mystical, ancient world,” she says, “to whom the wind gave wings and light. There was a moment during the photo session when we were both terrified by the force of the sudden wind, which lifted literally everything Emanuele was wearing and created wings. It was so beautiful that I stopped taking pictures for that moment and watched as if enchanted. I felt like I saw a real angel being lifted by the power of nature itself.”

Two years have passed and Zappariello often speaks of Lorek to his parents and his friends. “I found not only the queen of the fairies but also a friend and a talented artist. I feel so much gratitude. I wish that every artist could have someone like Agnieszka in their life.”

Photography: Agnieszka Lorek @agnieszka_lorek
Model: Emanuele Zappariello @emanuelezappariello
Costume: Barbara Gunia @les_ateliers_barbara_gunia
Arm Jewelry: Venus Forge @anajolartist

We felt that this issue could not possibly be complete without the work of Chicago artist Brooke Hummer, who pays homage to the glories of art history as well as the modern—and glam, and powerful!—phenom known as the unmarried cat lady. “Cat lady is a pejorative term that our society has used to transfer shame onto women who challenge traditional values,” she says.

“The Cat Women series is meant to playfully subvert this sexist stereotype.” Her initial inspiration came when shooting a funny holiday mother-daughter-style promo of her (non-child-having) artist’s rep Andrea holding her cat Bunny; they ended up doing the promo in the style of a 19th century American folk-art painting. Soon after, several other women approached Brooke, wanting portraits with their own cats. (Umm, us too, please!) She knew she wanted to tackle the Italian Renaissance next. The result is the image above, painted in the style of a Renaissance wedding portrait, in which the landscapes in the background (along with the brides in the foreground) were all about showing off the husband’s property. This one features the Hancock Building and Sears Tower instead of Tuscan towers, since the subject, Lindsey, an ad agency producer in Chicago, “belongs to no one and owns the whole city.”

We suspect that Lindsey’s pearl-bedecked cat Clementine owns her fair share of it too. See more of Brooke Hummer’s work at brookehummer.com.

Enchanted Living: You say that you create spirit guardians in the form of handmade ceramic animals. Can you describe what a spirit guardian is?
Janine Hardy: A spirit guardian is a mystical being, often depicted as an animal or mythical creature, that many people believe provides protection, guidance, and support throughout their lives. They’re like protective friends from myth and legend, watching over us and offering help and comfort whenever we need it. These guardians, which can be anything from a wise owl to a powerful dragon, provide a comforting reminder that we are not alone in the world, especially during times of uncertainty or fear.

EL: How do you envision people using your guardians?
JH: When people are going through difficult times, they often turn to their spirit guardians for assistance. They enjoy having reminders of these guardians nearby, whether they’re seeking advice, guidance, or simply a feeling of safety. My ceramic spirit guardians are ideal for this, as they provide comfort and support to those seeking messages or guidance from the spiritual realm. I believe people respond to my work because it has a magical vibe, radiates protective energy, and is simply lovely to have on display in a person’s home, altar, or sacred space.

EL: Is there a significance to each animal?
JH: Absolutely! In the realm of magic and spirituality, spirit animals hold special significance, each imbued with unique powers and qualities.
Owls, for example, are thought to have mystical powers because of their ability to see in the dark and their silent flight. They’re often seen as messengers from the spirit realm, bringing wisdom and guidance to those who seek it. Their mysterious nature adds to their enchanting reputation, making them symbols of intuition and spiritual insight.

Bears are revered for their power, bravery, and connection to nature. They’re seen as guardians of the wilderness and symbols of resilience and protection, and are believed to bring healing, inner strength, and the ability to face life’s challenges with grace and determination. These symbolic meanings differ across cultures, but they frequently reflect characteristics and qualities that humans admire or strive to embody. These magical companions accompany us through life, weaving their energies and wisdom into our journey, providing unwavering support along the way.

EL: You describe yourself as a pottery witch—can you tell us what that means?
JH: As a pottery witch, I’m a seeker of magic, a ceramic artist who practices both pottery and witchcraft, artfully weaving magical elements into my ceramic creations while viewing my craft as a sacred spiritual journey. Pottery holds a special” “meaning for me because it connects me with the elements of nature: earth, air, fire, and water. My craft is rooted in earth- based magic. Working with clay harvested from the earth lets me tap into its energy, infusing magic into what I create.

Each step of the pottery-making process has become a sacred ritual, from preparing the clay by hand to shaping, decorating, and firing the finished pieces. Through this practice, I channel the earth’s energy, enriching my creations with magic and spiritual meaning.

EL: How do you approach your work each morning?
JH: My morning routine shifts with the seasons. In the winter, I look for the moon in the dark skies, its silver glow a source of comfort in the cold. I light a candle, the flickering flame casting shadows across my altar and providing warmth and light in the winter darkness. But as the seasons change, so does my routine.

In the summer, I step out into the garden, cradling my cup of tea. I feel the earth beneath my feet and connect with the natural world around me. Each morning, whether under the watchful gaze of the moon or the gentle warmth of the sun’s rays, I begin my day with a ritual of connection and creativity. When I return to my studio, my spirit guardians keep watch in the early morning light, guiding my inspiration as I sketch and sculpt magical creations inspired by the enchanting world around us.

EL: And, finally, how do you stay enchanted?
JH: As a creative spirit and spellcaster, I’m guided by the moon’s wisdom and the ever-changing magic of the seasons. The natural world, forests, and folklore all weave their enchantment into my creations.

At home in my studio, I draw inspiration from the treasures I keep close by as I work. Illuminated by the soft glow of a candle flame, crystals, fir cones, and feathers found on woodland paths infuse my space with the essence of the earth’s magic. Fragments of dried flowers and shells from distant shores recall the beauty of seasons past.

When I venture outdoors to explore Mother Nature, birds in flight, a deer crossing my path with its wild, untamed spirit, and the whispered song of the wind remind me of the magic that surrounds us. I wish to share this journey as I follow my sacred path exploring the ancient art of ceramics. My quest to capture this mystical essence continues, as I transform earth’s dust into magical creations, weaving nature’s wonder into my work and crafting the most beautiful talisman for free-spirited and wild- hearted souls.

See more of Janine Hardy’s work on Instagram as well as on Etsy @wildtalisman

A quick scroll through Tuesday Riddell’s Instagram feed will yield brief yet dizzying captions like these: “birds decorating branches with foxglove flowers,” “raindrop-laced web,” “cluster of ladybirds hibernating in the curl of an autumn leaf,” “a bracelet of brambles,” “squirrels’ tails curling around an arcing branch,” “under a sunflower bridge,” “poppy seed showers,” “butterflies hatching in the moonlight while worms munch on kiwis,” “butterfly stealing a pearl.” And so on. Her subject matter is the teeming, swirling, ever-flowing life of the forest floor at nighttime, all the flora and fauna down to the seeds and insects and stems of the plants. Her artwork makes us privy to a hidden, fecund world—one that flares to life in the dark.

I’d been a fan of Riddell’s art for some time before one day I glimpsed a video of it. I was astonished to see how the flat piece I’d loved in photos glowed and shimmered when held to the light. I’d been so enamored of her renderings that I hadn’t realized how complex and delicate her medium is: japanning, an endangered 17th century technique developed by European artists to imitate lacquerwork from Asia.

To create each piece, Riddell sands and polishes a wooden board, then prepares it with up to thirty layers of lacquer that she mixes herself with pigments and varnishes before letting it harden into a black, mirrored base surface. Once the lacquered board is ready, she marks out silhouettes, works on the backgrounds using luster powders, and fills in the silhouettes with layers of shade and line and gold- and silver-leaf, and occasional mother-of-pearl. It’s a time-consuming, painstaking process; each artwork ends up consisting of around forty layers.

I now have a new life goal: to view one of Riddell’s pieces in person to see its complexity, the interaction between its elements, just a she can see the intricacies of the darkest nighttime wood, where each look brings something unexpected, even miraculous.

See more of Tuesday’s work on Instagram @tuesdayriddell

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE PARKE

You’d think that these two were connected at the hip, so in sync they are when they perform together, whether on the trapeze, or silks, or lyra (the hoop), or any other apparatus they use to move their bodies through space. You’d think they were twins, or at least sisters. Certainly, they’re queens of the air. They go by the portmanteau Satarah, a combination of Satya and Sarah, and they’re best friends, soulmates, performance and business partners. But when they first met at the Carolina Renaissance Festival thirteen years ago, they were anything but.

Sarah was performing with her longtime belly-dance troupe, while Satya, new to town, showed up to dance solo. Feeling territorial, Sarah went to watch Satya perform, commenting to her friends that the radiantly beautiful, enormously talented dancer could not possibly be a good person too. Later that day, Satya stopped by and asked Sarah’s troupe if anyone wanted to dance with her in front of the stage. She was so nice, Sarah says, that she found herself feeling even more suspicious. But once Sarah accepted the reality of Satya’s talent and charm, she decided that the two of them could be friends anyway, and that was that. Soon everyone thought they had known each other for years. It felt that way to them too.

They got lucky, they say. Sometimes you meet a friend and everything clicks. And sometimes those new friends are two women who support each other unconditionally, so that both can bloom into the queens that they’re meant to be, without the rivalry and undercutting that can sometimes plague female friendships.

The two began collaborating in numerous ways—taking aerial classes, team-teaching belly dance, and then eventually planning and putting together a sixteen-act show to bring the North Carolina artistic community together, with a spotlight on fire and aerial and belly dance acts. The event, which debuted in 2012, became known as Bloom Festival and has been held nearly every year since.

The duo has also debuted a number of different classes and shows, and even opened a brick-and-mortar studio, Bloom Movement Artistry, in Charlotte, North Carolina. They teach private and group classes, provide open gym sessions, and host student showcases—all while continuing to perform together. As business partners, they find that their strengths complement each other: Satya is the logistical one, Sarah the organizational one.

Bloom Movement Artistry has, in a sense, become an extension of their own friendship—a safe place where students can come and learn to develop the magic in their own bodies and in the air, nurtured by the community around them. Every year they put on a variety of events: student and instructor showcases, shows called Ice & Embers and Critters & Tea, and something darker and very wonderful—Shadows, which Satya and Sarah created in 2018 to allow performers to use dance and the aerial arts to explore their own pain and trauma, their shadow selves. Through their routines, they release those stories to an audience in a space that’s completely safe. Creating this kind of forum, Satya and Sarah say, has allowed them to push through trauma that they couldn’t process in their own talk therapy. Each Shadows show begins and ends with a meditation to create a healing experience for all the performers and attendees. There are plenty of tissues to go around.

And in welcome news for Enchanted Living readers, it is possible attend Shadows virtually as well as in person. This might be just the kind of ceremony Autumn Queens hold in the forest at night, with the moon shining above them and creatures watching from the branches and the leaves.

Learn more at bloommovementartistry.com. You can also drop in for a studio session if you’re in Charlotte. Find tickets to upcoming Satarah productions, both in person and online, at events.humanitix.com/host/satarah-productions.

From the early 1820s until 1829, young Manx artist Amelia Jane Murray (1800–1896) rather obsessively painted fairies—smartly dressed and not overly active tiny creatures, that is, who reclined on feathers and stems and leaves as if they were chaise longues. Her fairies rode upon bats, bees, moths, and dragonflies; relaxed atop shells, on the backs of seabirds, and inside curving, flowering leaves that skimmed through the water; and occasionally swung in hammocks made of cobwebs strung among the blooms. They might perch on a snail on a rosebud, holding a leaf like a parasol. Like miniature Snow Whites (the Disney version), they are friends to all living creatures … except every living creature is their chauffeur—because these miniature fashionistas do not like to walk or use their wings, ever. Why should they?

Murray herself was from a privileged background. Her family once held sovereign rights to the Isle of Man, where she grew up, and her uncle was governor there. We imagine she may have preferred to hang out with spiders and snails and owls. Or not. No one knows much at all about Murray’s inner life, except that she created this exuberant art in her twenties. She stopped in 1829, when she married a man twenty-nine years her senior and moved to Fife, Scotland, to live with him and his six children.

Amelia, now Lady Oswald of Dunniker, ended up having two children of her own and long outliving her husband. She never (as far as we know) painted fairies again. But who can say what she might have left sealed in an attic, being guarded by an eclipse of moths, covered in cobwebs?

Her art passed through four generations of descendants before it was published for the first time in 1986, in a small, unassuming volume called A Regency Lady’s Faery Bower, alongside a short history of her family, snippets of poetry from Shakespeare and the like, and eternal questions such as this one: “Why, it is pertinent to ask, should a young lady in her twenties be so drawn to this unusual subject?”