Step inside Marjorie Cutting’s Baraboo art studio, and you’re greeted by a twelve-foot fabric panel of the Archangel Rafael. His hand-sewn wings drape gracefully down, and a blue fish with lace-trimmed fins rests at his feet. In many traditions, Rafael is known as a guide who brings understanding along with physical and spiritual healing.

Standing in the presence of Rafael—and surrounded by Marjorie’s other works—you sense how her art reflects both beauty and healing. Many of her pieces explore how we move through difficult times and eventually find light again. She often uses cave imagery to represent those dark or uncertain places we all experience—and the courage it takes to find our way back into the light.

Art has been essential to Marjorie for more than seventy years. She was raised in London during World War II and worked as a professional costumer for a London theatre before earning a degree and spending many years as a special education teacher in San Diego. Later, she owned a successful costume shop. Now retired, she devotes her time to painting, writing, and self-discovery through art.

Once she retired from teaching, Marjorie joined the Fall Art Tour and received such enthusiasm from visitors that she decided to acquire her own studio. Creating art, she says, is a way of learning about herself and sharing those insights with others.

Some of her paintings are inspired by vivid dreams. One, titled Becoming One, depicts two figures standing side by side, their flowing robes richly patterned with vibrant swirls of blue, green, and red. In the dream that inspired it, Marjorie realized she was searching for balance. Through painting the figures in harmonious hues, she explored how to bring those inner halves together.

Her current piece, an ink-and-watercolor painting she was working on when I visited, began simply—with wet paper and three colors. As she watched, the pigments grew and spread, gradually revealing the image of a man reading beside his dog, ancient ruins rising in the background.

Marjorie has also written and illustrated two graphic novels in which her character journeys through dark caves toward the light. One of them, A Woman’s Journey: Out of the Cave of Self and into the Heart of God, was inspired by a Jesuit silent retreat she attended several years ago—an experience she describes as life-changing. For eight days, she studied scripture, painted, and wrote, hoping her books might help others along their own spiritual paths.

I was especially drawn to a series of four paintings showing curtains billowing in the breeze at an open window. The series invites viewers to consider the changing seasons and the passage of time. Similarly, her four Tree of Life paintings reflect the ways we grow and transform. In Tree of Life: Summer, Marjorie has moved further along her spiritual journey. She’s shed the veils that once covered her and now shows the world who she truly is—dancing along her path into the light.

Stop by her studio at 701 Oak Street in Baraboo and see Marjorie’s art for yourself—or search using her name at www.artworkarchive.com/discovery. Viewing her art or reading her books is sure to leave you with a new appreciation for how creativity helps us heal, grow, and understand ourselves a little better.