Mission Statement
Where softness and beauty cut through steel
Sakura Warrior Studios exists to translate deep inner work into practical, embodied tools for healing and self-expression. Through art, movement, mindfulness, and education, we support neurodivergent and sensitive adults in reconnecting with their bodies, creativity, and inner wisdom — without shame, urgency, or force.
Who We Serve
While our art is for most audiences, our workshops, trainings and consultation is for ages 16 and up. With a focus on transitioning youth and adults wanting to reconnect with their life purpose, career change or upgrade.
What we believe
We believe softness is not weakness, but a form of intelligence — one that allows people to meet pain without being defined by it, and to reclaim resilience through creativity, play, and presence.
Our Commitment
We celebrate resilience while actively naming and challenging societal ableism. The art created and curated through Sakura Warrior Studios highlights hope without erasing the struggle it takes to reach empowerment.
Our Approach
Our work is grounded in Solution-Focused and Positive Psychology frameworks, while integrating tools from global mindfulness and contemplative traditions. We champion multiculturalism and nuance, recognizing that life is not black and white, but layered, contextual, and deeply human.
Where We Stand
Sakura Warrior Studios exists at the intersection of creativity, embodiment, education, and integrated health. These threads — art, movement, research, nutrition, business and lived experience — form an interconnected web that supports sustainable healing and self-determination.
Rather than offering one path or identity, we create spaces where multiple truths can coexist, where paradox and critical thinking are welcome and where people are supported in defining empowerment on their own terms.
Values
Art as Practice, Not Product
Art here is not about perfection or consumption. It is a living process — a way to metabolize experience, tell truth, and build relationship with self, others, and the world.
Reconnection to the Land
Our art is rooted in place. We create paintings, motifs, and visual narratives that invite curiosity about the land and wildlife we live alongside — not generic or seasonal imagery, but place-specific forms such as California puma, redwood forests, native plants, and local ecosystems. This work encourages relationship, inquiry, and responsibility toward the environments that shape our lives.
Ecological Repair & Regenerative Making
We approach art-making as an act of ecological and relational repair. Much of our work repurposes or recycles materials, embraces impermanence, or is designed to return to the earth. Repairing and reworking objects — a jacket passed down by a loved one, mended textiles, patched garments, reassembled fragments — becomes a lived practice of meaning-making rather than mere sustainability.
Embodied & Relational Meaning
Materials carry memory. We honor the emotional, cultural, and somatic stories embedded in objects, fabrics, and tools, recognizing that transformation happens not only through ideas, but through touch, care, and presence.
Access Over Aesthetics
We prioritize accessibility, nervous-system safety, and usability over trend, polish, or spectacle — in both our spaces and trainings and our art.
Healing Within Context
Creative and personal growth cannot be separated from social, cultural, ecological, and systemic realities. Art and healing must acknowledge the conditions in which people live.
Tools, Not Prescriptions
We offer frameworks and invitations, not one “right” way to create or heal. Agency, consent, and self-determination guide our work.
Nuance Is a Skill
We welcome paradox, complexity, and critical thinking. Art and healing are rarely linear, and we resist narratives that oversimplify either process.
Growth that Sustains
We value pacing, rest, and long-term capacity — in bodies, practices, and ecosystems — over urgency, extraction, or burnout culture.
Origin Story
Misted Forest, founder of Sakura Warrior Studios, learned about the depth of the human condition at a young age. Early experiences of isolation and suffering sparked a lifelong inquiry into meaning, resilience, and the forces that shape human behavior. During a pivotal moment in childhood, Misted encountered an inner knowing — a quiet but resolute conviction — that their life and creativity mattered, and that their future held purpose beyond what could yet be seen. That moment became the beginning of learning how to parent the self.
From an early age, Misted turned toward research, creativity, and contemplative study to understand both suffering and possibility. They explored human behavior, science, spirituality, and art — often receiving mixed messages from others about which parts of themselves were valued. While intellectual achievement was encouraged, creativity remained a private lifeline. Even so, art continued to find its way through.
At eighteen, Misted left a harmful environment and moved independently to Hawai'i. There, distance from chaos allowed their creative and embodied path to emerge more fully. At nineteen, a profound spiritual awakening led them to study Buddhism, Daoism, and yoga, setting the foundation for years of practice as a performance artist, movement teacher, and educator.
Over time, Misted recognized that to support others in a sustainable and ethical way, deeper training was needed. After developing a chronic illness in 2016, they persisted through significant physical and mental health challenges and completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Life after graduation brought further hardship, including illness affecting both Misted and their partner.
Through meditation, expanded states of inquiry, and professional therapeutic support, Misted made the decision to return to graduate study — integrating lived experience with clinical training.
As Misted’s vision clarified, it became evident that meaningful, lasting change could not happen alone. Supporting people who fall through the cracks of existing systems — including those navigating disability, chronic illness, nontraditional work paths, or gaps in institutional care — requires collective effort, diverse skill sets, and shared stewardship.
Sakura Warrior Studios was formed not only as an extension of Misted’s personal work, but as a collaborative container designed to grow beyond any single individual.
Through international travel and living in culturally diverse regions — including the Washington, D.C. area, Tokyo, Paris, Honolulu, and the San Francisco Bay Area — Misted witnessed firsthand that resilience, creativity, and wisdom are shaped by context.
These experiences reinforced a core belief that continues to guide the studio today: greatness emerges through many perspectives, not a single viewpoint. Sakura Warrior Studios embraces collaboration, cross-disciplinary exchange, and collective imagination as essential to its work.
Misted is currently pursuing advanced education in Marriage and Family Therapy and Art Therapy, with the long-term vision of expanding access to creative, neurodivergent-affirming, and integrative support for adults who fall through traditional systems of care.
“My purpose is to guide people through their awakening journey — to help them reconnect with their inner light and innate wisdom…”
— Misted Forest
Through their ongoing healing journey with chronic fatigue, depression, and PTSD, Misted has found body-based practices, meditation, and self-compassion to be among the most powerful tools for recovery and integration.
“My greatest gift is the ability to dive deeply into research and lived experience, and to translate that knowledge creatively so it becomes accessible and usable for others.”
Land Acknowledgment
Sakura Warrior Studios recognizes that they live and work on Indigenous peoples lands in Sonoma County — namely the Pomo, Miwok and Wappo tribes
Learn More about coast Miwok and Pomo Here