Latest Work

“In our oldest stories, the creative generative essence of the universe was female, not male, women represented the spiritual and moral axis of the world.” Sharon Blackie.

For myself, I wanted to redefine ageing. I wanted to feel more positive about it, I wanted to feel positive about myself as an ageing woman living in a society that doesn’t value all that we know and have to offer and I have done this through my latest body of work.

EXPANSION, CONNECTION, WISDOM and STRENGTH and RESILIENCE are the words I have chosen to describe my ageing journey.
Each piece of stained glass and each sculptural vessel piece illustrates one of these words.

EXPANSION

The stained glass piece that represents “Expansion” shows an expansive body, taking up the space. The body expands into the earth and into the cosmos with the hands of ancestors around her, supporting her and guiding her.

The sculptural pieces are the vessels representing the generations, grandmother, mother, daughter, each expanding to hold the next. In “Expansion” they sit on a base that has handprints, like those found in cave paintings of the generations of women whose names I know longer know. Those that have come way before myself and my time and continue to hold us, these are the hands of our ancestors.

CONNECTION
Both the sculptural piece and the stained glass piece illustrate connection. A much deeper connection in a number of ways as we age. Connection to ourselves, the baby we hold, (in the first image) represents ourselves . There is also connection to nature and the earth, connection to each other and connection to our ancestors.

WISDOM
Wisdom, for me, is all about waking up.It is about the work we need to do on ourselves to become better human beings. This is a lifetime’s work, and needs to be done not just for ourselves but for each other and the earth if we are to survive.
The black and white colours of these pieces represent light and dark. Light does not exist without the dark but as we move through the generations , I hope the light becomes brighter and clearer as we act more from a place of love, compassion and empathy.

STRENGTH AND RESILIENCE
As we grow and age, strength and resilience become embedded in who we are and again is passed through the generations. Within the stained glass piece sits a screaming figure based on the “Sheela Na Gig” from medieval times. These figures depict a woman reaching down with both hands to her vulva, holding it open. They were the gateway to the origin of life, where all humans came from and where divine energy, (feminine energy) came into the world.
The sculptural pieces are again vessels, representing the generations of women holding each other, sitting within each other on a bed of lava, connecting them to the earth and the fire within both themselves and the earth.

GALLERy