Booking Is Essential

After Viewing the Exhibition

You can browse the shop area which will be set up in the studio with prints, products and materials all related to the exhibition available for sale.

Collaboration

This exhibition is also raising awareness of the plight of the Curlew bird in the UK which is now considered to be vulnerable to extinction. Collaborating locally with Fenns, Whixall and Bettisfield Nature Reserve and the national organisation Curlew Action.

10% of the admission ticket fee will go to the local nature reserve supporting the monitoring of curlews.

Over this time, I had become a collector of natural things that I found or spoke to me on my journeys deeper into the land and ancient holy places. It seemed to me that I had been gathering in the bare bones of life. Connecting with the spirit medicine of feathers that came on my path - swan, pheasant, crow, magpie, duck and raven. Marvelling at shells as the safe houses they had provided for their occupants with their grooved markings of spirals, lines and shades of tones and colours. Holding the stones and feeling their weight, the ground, the earth, and the wisdom of the ancients whispered through a natural material that reflects eternity. And sticks. Sticks of fallen yews, twigs gathered from the ground at holy places that exude the power of the yew as otherworldly talking sticks and for creating ritual tools in gratitude for the gifting.

They reflected my journey from the start of menopause and my journey into and through this life changing rites of passage for a woman. I had been gathering in the wisdom of my life, of the land, of the ancients in a modern-day world that doesn’t honour the sacredness of this time of life. Where the loss of youth and fear of the process of ageing gives rise to menopause being treated as a medical condition rather than a profound rite of passage.  

Sitting and being with these items I knew I needed to create a designated place, a display of the in-gathering. So I created an area on the wall with shelving so they could be seen, honoured, and displayed in a way that spoke to my heart. I felt like they held a space of my gathering in of the bones of my life into this next phase. As the fire and tides now turned into a deep ocean of calm and peace, I could feel the new, making itself known as the uncharted depths of my soul fire forged in this alchemical meeting and rite of passage were making their presence known. Making the calling known.

That calling started as the first painting that came in the ‘Reclaiming the Wild’ series – she is called the Cycle of Completion, and she had a totem bird accompanying her, the crow. She was a turning point painting and I realised that I was to paint a Goddess, or Goddess Archetype for each of the feathers that I had collected and bring the bird spirit medicine awake into new forms of connection. As I was painting them, around one a month over 8 months, it became clear to create an exhibition that also incorporated an audio myth telling accompanying the painting and an interactive, reflective part to the exhibition. I wanted to bring alive the paintings and the frequency behind them as the powerful journey they represent and create a multi-dimensional experience for those that come to view them.