Hi, I'm Toni Keniston, an artist, illustrator, deck designer, writer, and scholar living her dream in the wetlands of West Michigan.
My academic work lives at the intersection of decolonial scholarship and animist philosophy, and focuses on understanding how the system we live in effects our relationship to society, self, other, and how it defines our very identity.
As a creative professional since 2017, I have had the pleasure of making tarot and oracle decks and to create coursework for others looking to radically liberate themselves from the system. My creative work focuses on untold stories and overlooked magical moments.
Everything I make is organized around the same core impulse: decolonize, deconstruct, dismantle. These pillars are central to my work and exist as an organizing system to first recognize who is being favored and privliged by the system, who is being controlled by institutions and organizations, and who is being harmed by systems to do exactly that. Underneath that mission lives my framework to restore, reclaim, and reimagine what the future looks like for vulnerable, colonized, and marginalized peoples. It is not enough to treat the symptoms and consequences of a broken system. We must also dismantle the system and create better futures without systemic harm.
I am a lifelong intuitive and a first-generation Filipino-American woman in the ongoing process of recovering what colonization tried to erase through art, through research, and through reclamation.
Academically, I'm a pre-Sociology honors student at Grand Rapids Community College, where I maintain a 4.0 GPA. My research centers on the intersections of indigenous knowledge systems with frameworks of oppression. I'm preparing to transfer to Grand Valley State University to pursue a B.A. in Sociology, with plans for graduate study and a career in collegiate research and teaching.
I have self-published five tarot and oracle decks as well as a library of self-paced spiritual coursework, which you can find at IronwoodSwampWitch on Etsy.
When I'm not in school or working on campus, I'm on our two-acre swamp property with my husband Zack and our two kids. I love to garden, draw, collage, journal, and photograph our wild, magical life. Thanks for being here!
—Toni
