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Fall Updates, Back to School Specials & New Programs @ Wicked Rae's 🦋
🍂 WICKED RAE’S FALL UPDATE New youth experiences, fall specials, wellness partnerships, and a BIG next chapter. School is back, fall is around the corner, and a lot is happening at Wicked Rae’s. We’ve been listening to what families, organizations, schools, and our community have been asking for - and we’re building more ways for people to create, connect, play, and spend meaningful time together. Here’s what’s new: 🎨 NEW! YOUTH EXPERIENCES ARE HERE We’re officially

Jules McVey
3 days ago4 min read


Creativity Is Survival Intelligence: What Happens When We Stop Living From the Outside In?
By Jules McVey What happens when a woman's inner life is pressed so hard into survival that there is no room left for softness, desire, or dreaming? What happens when men are taught to equate strength with suppression, then wonder why fear of lack, fear of reject, or fear of being fully seen shows up in the body as tension, disconnection, or performance pressure? What happens to the body when expression is chronically postponed? Last year, when I had an emergency hysterectom

Jules McVey
4 days ago2 min read


Why I Built a Safe Space for Women - My Story of Survival and Strength
After surviving domestic violence, a false arrest, and years of rebuilding safety for herself and her daughter, Jules McVey learned what it means to rise anyway. This chapter of her life shaped part of the mission behind Wicked Rae’s - the one where they create a space where women own their stories, their businesses, and their futures.

Jules McVey
6 days ago3 min read


Nourishing Foods for Women’s Bodies: Why Chickpeas Can Be a Gentle, Powerful Choice
By Oakley Rae As women, our bodies are always moving through cycles, changes, and seasons. From hormone shifts to energy dips to the way stress shows up in the body, what we eat can make a big difference in how we feel. Nourishing foods should do more than fill us up - they should support our bodies and minds in a way that feels steady, comforting, and sustainable. That is especially true for women living with PCOS (PMOS). Research shows that diets rich in fiber, plant protei

Oakley Frankie Rae
Aug 192 min read


Wicked Rae’s: Building Our Next Community Space
By Jules McVey & Oakley Rae When we first opened Wicked Rae's, we were held together by belief. A handful of people on this platform helped us raise about $2,700; enough to paint the walls, buy supplies, build our website, and create a space where an idea could start to become real. That early support meant more to us than I can fully put into words. It gave us a beginning. Since then, we’ve done what so many small organizations do in the early years: we’ve bootstrapped every

Jules McVey
Aug 192 min read


What Heat, Movement, and Sensory Play Teach Us About Human Behavior
When you change the sensory environment—heat, movement, sound, color - you see how people truly respond to change. Adaptation, curiosity, regulation, irritation, withdrawal, leadership. Wicked Rae’s experiences reveal real‑time human behavior and team dynamics that traditional workshops never touch.

Jules McVey
Aug 172 min read


Don’t Spend 27 Years Between Your Ears
By Jules McVey Yesterday morning, putting our sign on the sidewalk, a woman in her 70s abruptly stopped and looked at me and said, "It's so good to see a face for this place - thank you for all the color you're putting into the world." Her words immediately warmed my heart. I told her thank you and that she should come and paint. She looked down and said she's too old now, but maybe she'd book a session for her grandkids but they're teenagers so they'd probably complain. Told

Jules McVey
Aug 131 min read


Reimagining Work: How Play Fuels Human Experience Design
Explore the significance of play in fostering creativity, team cohesion, and resilience in the workplace. Learn how to apply it effectively!

Jules McVey
Aug 44 min read


Remembering How to Be Human: Reconnecting With Our Core Abilities for Stronger Teams
Explore how to strengthen teams by reconnecting with core human abilities for improved trust, communication, and creativity.

Jules McVey
Aug 36 min read


Why Community Art Matters: Transcendence, Belonging & Creativity
Community art isn’t valuable because of the final product - it’s valuable because of the connection it creates. Research shows that shared creativity fosters transcendence, belonging, and well‑being. This post explores why making things together strengthens us individually and collectively.

Jules McVey
Jul 302 min read


Frontline Leadership Lessons From the Lake
I rarely talk about being an I-O psychologist. But the more time I spent inside organizations, the more I saw the same blind spot - and a duck on the lake reminded me exactly who actually changes workplaces.

Jules McVey
Jun 163 min read


The Sway
May 17, 1995. I was 13 years old. The room was hot, dark, and smelled like sweat and freedom. Some moments don't live in your memory. They live in your soul.

Jules McVey
May 312 min read


Hi. I'm Bones.
I'm Bones Fish. English Foxhound. Almost 11. I've lived in six states and walked in almost every one. I've been meaning to write this down for a while. It just took some time to figure out the typing.

Bones-Fish
Apr 213 min read


Unconditional Love
When two flat tires, a meditation I didn’t think I could do, and a grocery‑store “I Will Survive” serenade all collided, I stumbled into a living lesson on unconditional love. From the Light School and soulships to laughing with a stranger at self‑checkout, this is a story about what happens when we stop performing and let our real selves slip out.

Jules McVey
Apr 202 min read


Don’t Forget the Parts of Yourself You Promised You’d Come Back For
A man walked into our studio and reminded me how many versions of ourselves we leave behind as we grow up. This is a story about creativity, connection, and returning to the parts of ourselves we promised we’d come back for.

Jules McVey
Mar 102 min read


A Community-Driven Initiative: Friends of Lake Sammamish State Park
Wicked Rae's is partnering with Friends of Lake Sammamish State Park for all of 2026, bringing texture-based art workshops to major community events including Spring Into Adventure, Walk N Wags, Camp S'more, and Winterfest. This mission-aligned partnership focuses on culture preservation, generational healing, and building community resilience through hands-on creativity. When art meets outdoor programming, phones go down, hands get busy, and strangers become neighbors.

Jules McVey
Dec 15, 20253 min read


When Punching Paint Becomes Peace: The Neuroscience of Somatic Release Through Violent Expressionism
In the sleep lab, I learned the nervous system is a better historian than the mind. Electrodes don't lie - even when patients say they're fine, their bodies whisper otherwise. Fast forward: swap EEG leads for paint buckets. The truth remains: your body needs completion, not cognition. When you combine motion, creation, and consciousness, you don't just regulate - you reclaim. Sometimes peace isn't stillness. Sometimes it's the sound of a body remembering how to breathe - in c

Jules McVey
Nov 12, 20257 min read


My Secret Superpower: How Childlike Wonder Changed Everything
A sex therapist, my daughter, and a trampoline on an olive farm in Grand Junction all said the same thing. Here's what childlike wonder actually looks like when it's not a practice. It's just who you are.

Jules McVey
Aug 27, 20253 min read


The Healing Power of Expressive Art: What Happens When Words Aren’t Enough
Expressive art helps people release emotion, reconnect with themselves, and heal - without needing words. At Wicked Rae’s, night-shift nurses, veterans, teams, and families find catharsis through motion and color. Whether it’s paint, clay, or collage, the process reveals what the body has been holding. This isn’t therapy - it’s soul work. And for many, it’s the first time they’ve felt seen.

Jules McVey
Aug 21, 20253 min read


Beyond Words: The Transformative Power of Visual Journaling for Mental Wellness
Traditional journaling has long been recognized for its therapeutic benefits, but what happens when we set aside the pen and pick up paintbrushes, colored pencils, and markers instead? Visual journaling - the practice of expressing thoughts and emotions through art rather than words - offers a profound pathway to mental wellness that speaks directly to our brain's most fundamental processing systems.

Jules McVey
Aug 1, 20254 min read
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