Meet Mary Singletary

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Singletary.

Hi Mary, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
MayBeWonderland came to me in the middle of the night when I was painting. At that point in my life, I had just left an abusive relationship, so the world around me felt highly unsteady. At first, being able to create an entirely new world just for myself was a way of coping, but then it progressed into a way of healing. I have always been a creative person, despite never taking an art class past the age of 11, and found that I tend to have the most talented and creative friends. 

While I was painting my first piece, I thought about these friends, my creative ability, and what parts of myself I was hiding from the world. I thought about the story of Alice in Wonderland and how inspiring I found the idea of “a nonsensical world”. This train of thought eventually led me to creating MayBeWonderland– a creative, spiritual land that is ever-changing. 

Once the pandemic started and everything shut down, I was given the opportunity to really connect with myself on a spiritual level. I spent my time freely– learning tarot cards, hiking on trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains with my dog, Ozzy, and gaining the courage to present my art on social media. I began learning tarot in 2019 but didn’t feel comfortable enough to offer it to the public until 2021. When I did, I realized quickly that I was given a wonderful gift that allowed me to connect with people in a much deeper way than my art ever could. Now, my focus is primarily on expanding the tarot reading aspect of my business and allowing the creative side to grow alongside with me. 

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh no, it certainly has not been a smooth road. 

Throughout my life, I’ve faced poverty, a period of homelessness, religious trauma, domestic abuse, toxic relationships, alcoholism– just about everything besides a drug addiction (thankfully). 

My parents were divorced by the time I was two, and although my father remarried, my mother did not. My siblings and I lived with my mom growing up, visiting my dad on the weekends. My mom was a single mother of three who was a hairstylist for the majority of my childhood, so it’s safe to say that money was not something we had. I’m also the eldest daughter and the middle child in a family that was raised on Southern Baptist values, which came with its own set of impossible expectations. I was kicked out of my mother’s house when I was nineteen and was blessed enough to have wonderful friends offer me a place to stay until I went to university that year. Upon starting my first year of university, I entered a relationship I knew was doomed to fail from the beginning, but I was desperate for a place to stay as the University had accidentally overbooked dorm rooms, and I couldn’t stay on campus. Having nowhere else to go, I clung to that relationship. During the 2.5-year relationship, I experienced intense trauma that I still am working through almost 5 years later. Healing from that came with its own particular set of challenges while trying to manage all the other stuff life throws at you. 

I grew up being taught how to survive. Oftentimes, the hardest part was finding the strength to keep going. But knowing that I’m still alive despite all that had gone wrong gave me hope that there was something good in the pain, that somehow, I could use the hurt as my superpower instead of letting it tear me down. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Primarily, I am an intuitive tarot reader. 

Tarot and spirituality have always played a major role into the art I create. I started my art journey painting with watercolor, until moving to acrylic paint, and finally to whatever medium I felt like in the moment. When I first started MayBeWonderland, I was so focused on having a certain style and doing it “right.” I decided that I felt the most proud of pieces that you could touch, that combined paintings, crystals, moss, twigs, clay mushrooms, etc., because they are all unique. By never creating the same piece twice (except for art prints, of course), I feel that it makes the world of MayBeWonderland really come to life. 

Oftentimes, before I create a piece, I’ll meditate and pull a tarot card. I’ll write down all the words or phrases that come to mind. Depending on what words or phrases stand out to me the most, a piece will be born. When I sell these pieces, it’s really cool to know that although they once meant something to me, they can mean something entirely new to someone else. A stranger can look at a piece of art or a decorative piece that I’ve made and see their best friend, or think about that one time with that thing, or wonder what was going through my head when I made it. In a way, the piece is then born into a new Wonderland that’s separate but still connected to mine. 

For me, tarot reading works the same way. I don’t want to give someone a quick answer and take their money. I want to spend time connecting to the individual and find a way for them to make sense of the subject they’re asking about. Nine times out of ten, their reading can help me navigate my own thoughts, as well. I feel my heart swell with happiness when I’m connecting to people through art or through a reading. It feels like what I’m meant to do in this lifetime. 

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I think it’s really hard to tell, to be completely honest. The world we’ve inherited is unpredictable. 

We saw a huge rise in tarot readers and people tuning in to their spiritual side during the pandemic, which is really, really awesome. But with that came people who want to use tarot as a money-making scheme rather than a tool for self-growth or empowerment. Those people instill mistrust in legitimate readers and psychics, which can make it harder for me to be taken seriously. As for the art aspect, I’m still pondering on how to exactly combine my creative abilities in a way that feel authentic, natural, and stable. I have plans that I’m currently working on to do this, but it will take at least until the new year before I feel comfortable enough to share them. 

Pricing:

• $10, 30-min readings for first-time customers (tarot only, general spread)
• $55 for 1 hour (tarot and oracle cards, 2 questions)
• $75 for 1.5 hours (tarot and oracle cards, 3 questions)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maybewonderland.square.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maybewonderlandart/

Image Credits
Taylor Gibson Photography