I’m Ashley Long and I’m a creative.
I began Ash Joie Lee (a nickname and my pen name) to help creative individuals who want to finally start doing the work of producing what they have been desiring to produce. I started Ash Joie Lee after taking the leap myself. Four years ago, I quit my day job and made the decision to be a full time artist and recently got serious again with my writing. While raising a family was my main job, I have worked as a fitness instructor, Art Gallery Manager, then launched my own art and decor business, which led me to realize that I wanted to be the one creating the art and decor.
Art, decor and writing has always been my passion. I’m also a collector of information. I love learning new things and have always been interested in the holistic self-development genre.
Along my spiritual seeking path, I found myself drawn to a lot of esoteric studies and worked my way through clinical depression without medication by learning to go within, study my dreams, watch the signs around me and learn to listen to my intuition. I learned to stop taking myself so seriously and to take the time to play, to do what I love doing and to allow myself to be who I am.
Over the years, I kept noticing myself being drawn to the same things: Inner work, creativity, and the study of ancient wisdom – astrology, numerology, Runes and Tarot. I also love collecting regular playing card decks. I realized I had a fascination with them, which went back to my elementary school days when in math, I saw the numbers 1 though 10 as characters. Each number had a personality and had a certain relationship with the other numbers.
During my first year of studying the tarot, I kept seeing myself reading from a regular deck of playing cards and finally, one day came across a book about the regular playing deck, its history and how they were used for divination. So, I started learning to read those cards as well as the Tarot.
I would do a daily card draw for myself, to check in and see what was going on for me. The results were uncanny. The meaning behind the card was always right on cue and it always helped me to pinpoint areas where I needed to pay more attention in my life.
I learned to use the cards to help with my novel plotting and character work. I could also see the concepts of creativity in the cards meanings.
After several years of taking notes on the creative path while producing digital art, abstract paintings, decorative art and various writing venues, I decided to combine the things I love doing and to create a site where I could share what I had learned from the card readings and to continue to explore.
I draw cards daily, one from a tarot deck and one from a playing deck and I’m consistently amazed at the insights I find. I continue to work on a novel, essays and create art and love living the writer/artist life.
I hope this site can be a tool for creatives, a chance for me to meet and get to know other creatives and for exploring tools and resources that can aid all of us in our creative endeavors. The artist/writer life is fascinating, always surprising and full of mysterious twists and turns!
I live in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, am happily married and share my studio with two assistants- a corgi/papilion mix rescue dog and a crazy gray and white tabby cat.
You can contact me at: ash@ashjoielee.com
Happy Creating!
