What is Three Muses Ink?
We are a trio of authors and artists from the great northern sate of Alaska. We have inseparable friends going on more than 25+ years. Always fans of fantasy and fantastic story telling, the love affair with the idea of creating our own world started early. Our childhood and teenage years were filled with art, narratives, and imagination. We always ran to the beat of our own drum. Exiting high school the pursuit of expressing story and art became serious and we worked to perfect manuscripts and illustrations that would depict a world worthy of our collective imaginations. We started to learn about everything it would take to bring our ideas to life, from art, writing, and design, to business, promotion, and all the options we could explore.
Please also check out our sister studio, Studio Min Bin Bin.
The Muses behind Three Muses Ink & Studio Min BinBin
Kari L. Ronning
The MoonMuse of Design, Art & Writing
Kari Ronning is the primary writer, artist and designer behind Three Muses Ink and all the art and stories it produces and publishes.
With a Bachelor’s in Arts, she shares her vision through poetry, narrative, digital painting, photography and many other forms of creative endeavors.
A.M. Gagnon
The StarMuse of Ideas & Editing. Also known as MinBinBin of Studio Min Bin Bin
StarMuse passed away suddenly, 1/3/23. Please read her story below.
Amanda Gagnon was a writer and conceptual designer for all stories and worlds built by the writing team, as well as a poet, and an editor. She used to function as a valuable aide to Three Muses Ink for pretty much anything that was needed.
Her loss has affected us profoundly. We have vowed to carry on creating the writing and the beautiful art world she created with us.
Emma Miller
The SunMuse of Business, IT & Accounting.
Emma Miller is the manager of the Three Muses Ink business and numbers side. She is also our IT and problem fixer, great with computers and accounting.
Amanda Gagnon ~ StarMuse - Min Bin Bin ~ 1/3/2023
Solemn Announcement, please read.
This is Kari “MoonMuse” of Three Muses Ink and Studio Min Bin Bin.
Please let me warn you that this will be an incredibly emotional letter, but I can’t think of any other way to do this. I am writing this filled with tears and sobbing, so please bear with me as I try to get through this letter.
On January 3, 2023, Amanda Gagnon, who most of you know as StarMuse and Studio Min Bin Bin passed away suddenly of natural causes.
Here’s a little background to explain what this all really means…
As I shared with some of you when Min Bin got sick in July, she has been my best friend since 3rd grade and my lifelong partner for 25 years. Though we had lived together since graduating high school, we were in the closet about our real relationship because of family prejudices. However, we had a wonderful lifelong love for 25 years and finally got married 2/22/22 of last year.
She was my whole world, the love of my life, my best friend, my everything. We were inseparable; her sister said we were co-dependent. Honestly, we had a love for the ages. My mother always asked me how we had such an incredible, understanding relationship where we were always together. When she left my side, I counted the minutes until she came home.
The goal of our lives was to build a business where we could write and create art together from home so we would never be apart. And in 2020, the dream came true. She quit her job of 15 years and came to work at home with me at Three Muses Ink and Studio Min Bin Bin full time. The last two years have been the best of a beautiful 31 years together.
We started Three Muses Ink together in 2012 when I graduated from college. She worked a 9-5 job so I could build our writing and art business. I have many mental health problems, so she researched and found ways to get me through, encouraging, and inspiring me. We worked on everything together. When our third partner, roommate, and friend since 7th, Sun Muse (Emma Miller), got sick with cancer, we created Studio Min Bin Bin to help with income. When her cancer went back into remission, StarMuse took over Studio Min Bin Bin in 2019, and she and I have been running it together alongside Three Muses Ink ever since.
Though I was always the artist behind both studios, StarMuse helped me with all the collections and ideas. We were a team through everything, always planning and creating together, inspiring each other. We had lists and plans for projects years and years out. We had so many stories and novels we wanted to write. We had a whole life before, and we had a whole life planned.
But that ended. Life took her from me. And now I have to find a way to carry on alone, without my Muse, without my One, until I can see her again one day after this life.
Honestly, I want to end my life. I don’t want to go on without her. Everything I was doing up until this point was just to be with her, just to have more time with her. We literally did everything together. But it’s gone and I have to find a way to go on. I have to find a way to be alone and still create.
My parents say she left a legacy; she and I created this wonderful collection of pins, art, and stories, this business we built from the ground up together that made us so happy. We created a whole universe together. They say I have to go on for her, to create for her, to honor her. I know they are right, but every moment hurts. Thinking of her hurts, being without her hurts… I break down in uncontrollable sobbing seems like every 20 minutes.
But, this magical work of writing and art is all I have of her other than my memories and my love. This creative life, all these ideas, the art, the joy, the creation, that’s what I have left of her. So…I have to. I have to go on. So, please help me.
I’m going to go on with both Three Muses Ink and Studio Min Bin Bin. I am going to create in her honor and for her. I have her lists of what she wanted me to draw and have the knowledge and all we talked about to work with. We spoke so often that there was nothing left unspoken between us, so I will use all that I know and love about her to create for her. I’m going to live there, in that world we created together.
It’s going to be a little struggle every day, I think, especially as I get things sorted. She did so much for the business…The business was a lot of work for the pair of us, but SunMuse is going step up and help me more and my parents too. So I have to find a way through all this.
So as of right now, I will be running the two studios. It’s my livelihood, and I have to do it for her. I have to make it my reason for living at this point; she was my only reason before. It’s probably the only thing left I have to be close to her. It will hurt to do it without her, but if I’m creating all the things we wanted to make then I am somehow still with her.
I will be taking over both of our Patreon pins clubs. Min Bin and I had the whole year planned out already for her Bin Bin beasties, as well as a long list of ones she wanted to make. So I will be creating these for her in her honor for as long as you all want them. The shipping and digital rewards might be a bit late this month and next while I deal with everything.
From now on, I’ll be writing and creating everything for her. Everything I did in life was to be with her, and everything after this now will be to honor so one day I can see her again in another world.
Please be patient with me as I try to get through this message. I am broken and still coping with this horrific, sudden loss. I am hardly sleeping or eating, I’m just trying to exist, but I wanted to let you all know what happened to my beloved and what I’m going to do now.
Kari Ronning “MoonMuse”
One last personal note…
I started a new Instagram account connected to my Forest of Dark Antlers project to try and help me deal with both my darkness and grief through my writing and art, as StarMuse always encouraged me to do. I have started posting my art and writing trying to help me get through this dark time. If you would like to offer support, see what I create, or even just be there with me, please follow me on Instagram @DarkAntlers. I will also be posting a lot of art and writing about StarMuse and all that she inspired, as she is still and always will be my Muse.
Thank you to everyone who has already followed me over there. And a huge thank you to all who want to accompany me on this journey. I hope this art and writing can save me from this grief as it has done in the past for my other mental health problems. MinBin always told me to create when I got dark, so I’ll create for that and for her now to keep me alive so I can see her again.