📚 Chapter One — Instalment 1
A story of reinvention—having the courage to leave behind the life she has outgrown, choosing differently, bravely, and finally by listening to the quiet voice within.
🖋 Welcome
I’m Joanna Blair, a fine artist based on the Mornington Peninsula, Australia.
This Substack is a quiet space I’ve created to tell the unfolding story of a woman named Evangeline—through paintings, vignettes, and small symbolic moments. It’s a journal. A storybook. A gallery. And a quiet experiment in visual storytelling.
I’m writing this as the work is being created—not after the fact. No polish, no perfection. Just a soft, real-time narrative of what it means to start again.
🕊 Who is Evangeline?
Evangeline is a woman standing at the edge of her own becoming.
She’s leaving behind what no longer serves her—relationships that were fine, but never truly felt like home, and a conventional career that paid the bills and gave her a good lifestyle, but slowly chipped away at her spirit.
She’s not running away. She’s turning toward.
Toward beauty.
Toward peace.
Toward the life she was born for.
She’s an artist now—fully, unapologetically.
Painting pieces that speak softly but deeply—like memory, or Monet. Romantic, hopeful, still.
And though the world has long rewarded her for playing it safe, she’s choosing something better.
Not louder. Not flashier. Just truer.
She’s listening to the quiet voice within.
The one that says: this is the turning point, now is the time to finally turn toward personal truth, beauty that speaks to your soul, and having the courage to follow the path you were always born for.
📚 The story begins here:
🌻 The day before she left.
They arrived wrapped in brown paper, slightly too tall for the vase she had in mind.
The florist had tied a simple ribbon around the stems—striped, soft, imperfect—and said nothing as she paid. The kind of silence that lets something begin.
She untied the bow slowly, as if pulling a thread that might unravel more than just paper.
The house was quiet. It had that strange stillness of a place that knows it’s about to be left. Light streamed through the sheer curtain in her studio, catching the edges of the petals, the water in the vase, the steam rising from her tea.
They were sunflowers—bright, open, unapologetically joyful.
Flowers that always turn to face the sun.
Exactly as she intended to do now.
To turn toward the light.
To choose something better.
To leave the past behind like a shadow falling just out of frame.
She didn’t know what would unfold next.
But something inside her said: go.
So she painted them.
Not to record what they looked like.
But to remember how they made her feel:
Hopeful. Ready. Unafraid.
She didn’t name the painting.
Just tied the ribbon around the vase, and turned toward the light.
🌼 What to Expect
Each chapter will begin with an image—sometimes a finished painting, sometimes a sketch or symbolic detail—and from there, the story will unfold.
Posts will come as the work unfolds: some weekly, some slower. No pressure. Just beauty, honesty, and a sense of becoming who you were truly born to be.
If this story speaks to you, I’d love to have you along.
You can subscribe to receive each chapter as it arrives.
If something in her story resonates, I’d be honoured to have you along for the journey.
Thank you so much for being here.
Warmly,
Joanna
✨ To explore my artwork or learn more, you can visit me at joannablairartist.com