Shara Bliss Osgood

I have had the honor to be known in our Earth Spirit community as “the” face painter. I have been painting people’s faces, arms, legs, and bodies for over 30 years. It has always been a magical experience for me. I saw, early on in my career, how much impact and transformational power body paint can have on the painted person and the painter.

A lot of the experience is about the interaction and the conversation between brush, paint, and body. There is an alchemical process that occurs through a distillation of intention and invocation. When I paint a child’s face into a dragon or a butterfly, they put their energy into the intention. Then, I channel that inner dragon or tiger or faerie into color on their face, giving them permission to transform. I am always humbled by the pureness and the embodiment that can happen when we collaborate with magical intention.

I have had a unique perspective while painting kids for the Maypole every year at Rites of Spring. I get to paint and interact with kids from the time they are 5 or 6, checking in every year until they are teens. Watching our community grow and evolve is its own special magic that I treasure. I am now painting the children of parents that I painted when they were children.

Beyond that, I collaborate with spirit when I do body paint and mehndi henna at festivals. I help people to tap into “other” and deeper aspects of self, anima, and archetypes. A friend dubbed me “She Who Paints Souls on Skin”. I breathe into that quite often. I have studied many body maps and energy healing modalities, including Reiki, biofield flow and vagus nerve decompression. All of these are utilized as I channel the energy through my paint/henna language of line and form. 

I often refer to myself as the conduit or gateway, helping people to access hidden aspects of self. It can be as basic as feeling beautiful and empowered to do one’s own work. It can also be deeply transformational. Others have shared stories of healing ancestral grief and past life trauma through their experience as a painted being. I have been humbled by the deep magic that I get to do within our community. It is a special space to hold and I am honored to hold it.