At the end of 2025, I invited my Women’s+ students to make circular calendars with me. I’ve had this project in mind for a few years, but I hadn’t actualized until this past December. My students and I held calendar-making class over two of our regular Sunday class times–this was the first time we had a craft class as part of Portland Martial Arts & Crafts.
I got the idea for the calendar after seeing pagan “wheel of the year” calendars in some of my witch books. Those calendars are pie-like circles that show the cross quarters as an X across the circle. The cross quarters mark the solstices and equinoxes, and divide the circle into four equal slices. Pagan holidays are marked around the edges of the circle, where the pie crust would be.
I wanted my calendar to be similar to those wheels, but to list the months, and perhaps include other holidays and occasions that were meaningful to me. I also wanted to be able to mount my calendar on the wall by putting a nail in the center, so I could then turn the calendar itself as the year progressed. The calendar wasn’t meant to list appointments or even individual days. It’s more a calendar of the seasons to keep me oriented within the year. I often feel like I’m operating a little behind schedule, and things sneak up on me. The circular calendar would let me see the whole year at once, so that I could know where I was and what was coming up.
Thinking up the project in my head was pretty easy, but actually creating it in real life presented unforseen challenges. I thought I would be able to make an even circle using a rudimentary compass made from a piece of string and a pencil, but that created wobbly results. I ended up using the biggest circular object I could find (my kids’ sit n’ spin toy) and tracing a circle onto large foam core sheets.
Once my students and I traced our circles, we cut them with X-acto knives and found our circle’s center points. Then we used a triangle and ruler to mark 12 months and the 4 cross quarters (which do not line up evenly with the months!) Once we had our lines marked out, we started adding artwork to our calendars.
I knew going into the project that we would use collage as the primary art form for our calendars, so the next phase of the project involved sitting and going through magazines to find good pictures. I had forgotten how much I LOVE going through magazines for collage material, and going through magazines with my students was joyful and relaxing. Working with our hands left our voices free to talk, so we had good visiting time while we created together.
We talked about how the circle calendars reflect our daoyin and internal arts practice. In our class we talk about how the shift in seasons affects us and how the energy of the seasons changes throughout the year. Our internal arts practice is rooted in Tai Chi philosophy and Taoism, and one of my students pointed out that the calendars could track the yin and yang shifts of the seasons. Winter is maximum yin time–internal, cold, resting. Summer is maximum yang time– external, hot, active. The circle calendars reflected and supported our practice on many levels.
Despite having two class periods to finish our calendars, I still haven’t quite finished mine. The image above shows the work I completed in December, but since then I’ve added month names and more images. Always more images! I’ve added pictures of seasonal flowers and animals.
I love my calendar so far, and I’ll post another picture of the more completed version soon.
Michelle Folk Johnson 