Ask Maddie

Fortunes not told

Ask Maddie — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:07:59 GMT

In a dark room, you offer to see someone’s future. You’ve made this your trade. People were skeptical at first, but once you donned the right accoutrements and tone of voice, they started to buy in. Your shop is findable but unpretentious. Advertising your talents would only discredit them.

You don’t get many repeat customers. It is hard to say whether that’s because they didn’t like the message or it felt so precise that no further inquiry was required. The irony, you always think to yourself, is that the precision comes from being vague. It’s not your job to tell them exactly what will happen or when. If you did, they wouldn’t believe you.

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The cards open up certain facets of one’s life for interpretation. For the lost souls needing to know more, you consult the crystal ball. A pang of guilt stirs up in you as they watch your hands and face with awe and desperation. The ball does glow between your hands, but only because of the motion sensor-activated light. You close your eyes tight and then squint down at it, willing truths to emerge. You feel their eyes darting from the ball to you, back and forth, wondering what it is you’re seeing.

Nothing. You see nothing. The crystal is blank, and perhaps that is the point. You can see more in your mind’s eye than any fortune telling tool could reveal. The desires percolating in the darkest depths of your soul are neither fact nor fiction, but simply food for creation. “The future is mutable,” you tell them, because it is.

“Fortunes not told.” Madeleine Chow. 2026. Acrylic, gesso and watercolor on cardstock. 12 by 9 inches.

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Before you go to Wonderland

Ask Maddie — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:31:35 GMT

What if the white rabbit never made it to Wonderland? What if, instead of following him, Alice stopped him?

I recently admitted to someone that I just wanted my happily ever after. I expected derisive laughter, but that’s not what I got. Instead, I received a gem of advice that cracked something inside of me. Maybe I have that wrong, and it healed something in me that had been cracked for a long time. It’s hard to say. I have changed so much this year that I don’t know what’s broken and what’s whole.

“Your happily ever after is the life you’re living every day.”

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That’s what I was told. When the words landed on me, they pushed me into freefall. I no longer trusted the ground beneath my feet. I felt a strange mix of weightlessness and rage. What do you mean? I wanted to scream. This is it?! This is all I have to look forward to?

Instead, I just nodded silently, eyes downcast and lips sealed tight. I walked home through the balmy August night twisting that phrase around in my mind. I started repeating it to myself when I woke up. Soon, I became cognizant of the profound ingratitude on which my initial anger was based. Until I heard those magic words, my world was a movie set furnished with less than desirable circumstances that, if I could only get to the next scene, would suddenly fall away to reveal the life I’m living vicariously through my Pinterest board. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting, but it had consumed me so much that I forgot that I was living.

In this painting, I am both Alice and the rabbit. In my version of the story, Alice sees the rabbit running frantically to his destination and stops him mid-jump. “What are you doing, silly rabbit? Wonderland is here.”

Acrylic, gesso and watercolor on cardstock. 12 by 9 inches.

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Holographic heart

Ask Maddie — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:42:49 GMT

For a second, you can see it. Your relief is palpable. You think, This is going somewhere. Then everything gets fuzzy and you start losing faith in your instincts. Such is the cost of playing with a holographic heart. You try to see yourself in it, only to find out that it is not a home, but rather a screen, and your mind is the projector. You see what…

The depths

Ask Maddie — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:17:10 GMT

You are swimming in your dreams. The cool water nips at your skin and is lit up violet by an unknown source above. You can’t tell quite what time it is, but you are in the hours where the sun hesitates to appear. Microscopic bubbles shimmer everywhere you turn. Thick tangles of seaweed abound, tempting you to get lost in them. As your body weightlessly …

Vision

Ask Maddie — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:42:40 GMT

We exist in each other’s peripheral vision. We circle each other at a distance, afraid both of getting too close and of letting go. Every time one of us is tempted to ask for more, we distract ourselves with other people. It’s easier with them.

You see me and I see you, but we never see each other. If you turn to face me, I look down.

When I’m alone, I …

Arcadia falls

Ask Maddie — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 16:41:35 GMT

This is where you go in your waking dreams. The sun peeks through the crevices between the mountains and illuminates the water rushing into the Arcadian Basin. The glow of gold and pink has a sedative effect on you. Here, it is the right kind of loud and the right kind of quiet: loud nature, quiet people. In fact, there are no people other than you. That’s the great thing about dreams—you can make everything just so. Whatever bothers you out there, you leave behind in order to get here. A family of deer walk past you, crunching leaves as they go.

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Life and its exigencies have a habit of pressing themselves into you whenever your mind strays too far, so eventually you tire of the pretense of release. You hoist yourself up and begin the descent to reality. Your body felt so light a minute ago, and now you seem to be made of stones. The diligently optimistic part of you takes a moment of gratitude for having a body to return to and for having this sacred place in your mind. Before you go, your gaze wanders and finds itself locked with that of a fawn. You stare at the tawny pelt speckled with white. It mimics the sunlight that will soon settle directly over it and filter through the leaves in the trees. You are not of much interest to the fawn, nor do you need to be, so you smile as it returns to the pleasant task of munching grass. You know you’ll be back, eventually for good.

Acrylic on canvas. 14 x 11 in. June 2026.

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The missed/mist

Ask Maddie — Sun, 31 May 2026 15:21:30 GMT

Grey fog hovers over my heart. Sometimes, I wonder if I have met too many people, and if there are diminishing returns on the number of connections one makes in life. Perhaps the best way to characterize it is emotional pollution. The bright rays of true love don’t shine on me, or at least I don’t feel them, because they cannot penetrate the thick web of half-loves I have sustained over the years and labeled as “good enough.”

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Letting go of the person doesn’t erase the residue. When you have gotten good at lying to yourself and others and accepting the lies of others through a veil of feigned innocence, everything starts to feel justifiable and nothing feels clear or pure or good. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), you might recall hearing of “the bitter promiscuity of the failed romantic.” I have lain awake at night trying to ward off the veracity of this phrase. No matter how much I fight it, it always seems to land on me with a thud. Once upon a time, I trusted my own emotions and my ability to express them to other people without fear of scaring them away. Now, I bury the pain and paranoia inflicted by one person in my fleeting affections with another. Everything becomes a blur.

I don’t trust you, but that’s okay, because you have no reason to trust me either. I don’t even trust myself. Why did things end with so-and-so, and why do I miss them? I miss the moment of myself they took with them, however many scars ago. They live on in my memory wearing the color they stole from my rainbow, while I learn to see myself in shades of gray.

Acrylic, gesso and watercolor pencil on cardstock. 12 x 9 in.

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Hiding in paradise

Ask Maddie — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:49:32 GMT

I painted this after a recent getaway to Miami. Each stroke of the brush complemented a sizzling chord from Madonna’s La Isla Bonita dancing into my brain through my AirPods.

Really, it was a half-hearted attempted to recapture the feeling I had down there: the exhilaration of escape. There is something about immersing myself in a new environment, particularly one with palm trees, that affords me the illusion of hiding from my life. The date and time of the return flight will lurk in the back of my mind, but until then, I am free from my usual chores and cares.

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Walking down Ocean Drive, I kept repeating a new mantra I had coined for myself: not forcing, just allowing and appreciating. This comforted me as I battled with the pain of endings and wondered which of the people still on the fringes of my life would stay. The tropical breeze melts down and sweeps away the sharp, vivid images I have of people and things that both make and mar my everyday life. Although my body lumbers through the airport, onto the plane, and back to them, some part of my heart and mind stays by the vast expanse of shore and turquoise waters, alone.

Acrylic, gesso and watercolor. 12 x 9 in.

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Giving back to Mom

Ask Maddie — Tue, 12 May 2026 00:18:30 GMT

I painted this for Mother’s Day. It is inspired by Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, which I’m sure many of you know. If you don’t, I encourage you to change that.

A giving tree seemed a fitting metaphor for my own mother, and so I painted her into one. I am the little girl in the red dress, arms extended to receive the first of many apples from her bo…

The problem with pits

Ask Maddie — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:15:25 GMT

I’ve never liked pitted foods. When they are in front of me, the choice to eat one is riddled with conflict. Why must there be this tough, tasteless ball at the center of what could otherwise be a perfect food? It is always with the most decadent of fruits. Peaches, olives, avocados, nectarines, cherries, apricots, just to name a few. The richest flavors, cut short at the middle. Why, oh God, did you make them like this?

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But He always has his reasons. He made people and fruits along a similar logic. I’ve found that at the center of the most decadent personalities, there is also a pit. Once you get through the charm and the charisma and the tenderness and the intelligence and the warmth, you reach something impenetrable. There is an iron will forged in the fires of disappointment, heartbreak, and trauma.

You may wish the pit weren’t there, interrupting your otherwise perfect experience. But consider this: if it weren’t, the lovely person in front of you would likely collapse for lack of anything to hold them together. Worse yet, you might just get sick of their abundant sweetness and leave.

Acrylic and iridescent watercolor on cardstock. 12 x 9 in.

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Breakfast in bed

Ask Maddie — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:17:27 GMT

My brain is fried in the best way. I’ve slept myself into a stupor. The bacon, eggs, coffee, salt and pepper confuse my unawakened senses. They materialize into a hazy tapestry in front of me, indistinguishable from the sun streaming through the window, the wallpaper, and the man emerging from the kitchen. He’s made breakfast for us. My initials stretc…

Sun temple

Ask Maddie — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:41:12 GMT

Out in the desert, a bald sun shines on a simple wooden structure. In fact, it is the structure. The people who built the three wooden planks on which it is suspended have no illusions about their relationship with the sun. It is as glorious as it is merciless. It allows life to grow and dries it out all at once. The green diamonds on either side of it are trees whose branches have been blanched. Whether you personally believe it or not, nature shows us that what gives must also take.

Lonely birds flock toward the temple in search of a visual anchor. Without it, their flight is aimless and endless. Meeting each other at this structure, they are suddenly a little less lonely. So it is with the two human beings who have come to pray under its shelter; to connect with themselves, with each other, and with the beautiful and brutal forces that shape their lives.

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Acrylic and watercolor on cardstock, 12 x 9 in.

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Beach day

Ask Maddie — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:06:25 GMT

I want to be free. I remember being a little kid, going on family vacations, and spending days at the beach, whether in Rhode Island, the Dominican Republic, or California. I didn’t appreciate it then. Of course, we so rarely do we appreciate the present. But at the time, it didn’t even matter. I didn’t concern myself with gratitude for the present moment because it didn’t occur to me that things might get worse later. I had no way of seeing the cloud of adolescent unhappiness heading my way, nor the storm of early adulthood. Things were simple. It was just me, my bucket, the sand and the water. I never flew a kite, but I always liked seeing one in the sky. In this painting, I tried to recapture some of that freedom. Simplicity was my modus operandi. No plan, no lines to follow, just colors and shapes materializing in my head and on the page in quick succession. Mastering the likeness of one particular beach, the angle of the shoreline, the froth of waves, the shadowing of a seagull swooping by…maybe it would immerse you more in the scene, but it would take me out of the feeling.

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Acrylic, shimmer watercolor and crayon on cardstock. 12 x 9 in.

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In the dog house

Ask Maddie — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:38:15 GMT

What will it take to get him to see that this lifestyle can’t last forever? He dwells in a palace of distraction. He is so inured to self-indulgence that can’t feel the foundations are cracking underneath him.

These are some of the thoughts that came to me as I wondered what to do with this piece. On a recent trip to San Francisco, I discovered a buddin…

Fragrant Isle

Ask Maddie — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:49:40 GMT

We all have our happy places—where we go when we need to calm down, rekindle the flame of hope, center ourselves, etc. For me, those are either quiet spots in nature or bustling department stores. No in between. I want the high life and the luxury and the opulence or I want to live in a hut on the edge of a cliff near a waterfall, surrounded by animals …

Where the air gets thin

Ask Maddie — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:07:55 GMT

I opened my new packet of large flat brushes and dipped the fattest one I had into my palette with abandon. Arbitrarily, I chose blue and started smearing it onto the page, enjoying the broad strokes of the brush without knowing what I was doing with them. Then, Enya’s “Caribbean Blue” came on and the image crystallized in my head: a withering vista of …

Wandering

Ask Maddie — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:05:17 GMT

In a dark spell of self-doubt and confusion, I watched a video called If you need a miracle fast, try this.1

Essentially, I was told to immerse myself in a daydream of the desired reality, perform an act of self-care, get a change of scenery, and enjoy myself. Simple, no?

Apparently not for me. This advice was a slap in the face—a much needed one.

I had lost the sauce. I was so inured to the feeling of not being quite there yet (“there” being my dream life) that I forgot to enjoy where I actually am—physically and figuratively. Many people would kill to be in my shoes, and yet I waste my time aching to get out of them. I live in one of the greatest cities in the world, but I spend most of my time cowering in my room.

So, I took my 13-year-old Canon Powershot and hit the pavement. I didn’t ask myself where I should go. Much like my paintings, my best walks are aimless.

A favorite quote from a book I recently read is, “instead of writing what you know, write what you see. Assume that you will never know very much until you learn how to see.” With photography, all you are doing is seeing. Anyone can take a photo, but what makes a good photo is what the camera is noticing. Boil this down to: what are you noticing?

The self-care activities I did were

1) getting my nails done from my newly-discovered private nail tech (she did an amazing job—go see Nikki at La La Land Nail Salon) and

2) getting a tattoo that I have been mulling over for a while now and felt extremely personal to me from my longtime tattoo artist, Jinna, at Magpie Tattoo. This activity took me down to Chinatown.

Chained at dusk

Ask Maddie — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:31:34 GMT

I started with a green head. I wasn’t sure who or what I wanted it to be, and I suppose I never resolved that question, hence the figure’s inscrutability. But one thing that suddenly became clear is that this creature, whatever it is, is sad. It bears the face of defeat. I wanted a high-contrast sky that would bring out the green and blue, so a orangey …

Magic, abundance and miracles

Ask Maddie — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:16:51 GMT

I will allow myself to indulge in the overused term “whimsical” to describe how I felt when painting this. I went into it with a shaky emotional state due to a change in my personal life (that I nowadays don’t feel the need to elaborate on), and came out of it feeling lighter and more on track. Such is the power of a creative outlet, especially one that…

Drifting in space: my journey to a new timeline

Ask Maddie — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 14:21:50 GMT

You know me. I’m a little woo woo with my spirituality. Manifesting this and that, or so I say. Every time I think I’ve got it down pat, something happens to make me question everything. Maybe I’m not as good at this as I thought. What changed things for me was the feeling of letting go.

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I don’t want to try to control reality. Even if I can, it’s too mu…