SEAL DREAMER SOLD
During the summer of 2020 our family drove (what felt like) "behind enemy lines" from London UK to Sweden, via the Netherlands (an overdue visit to my elderly Mum). I did a seven week social media fast to dial down the amount of "psychic noise" and switched off all notifications. To me the Forest will always be the "primordial internet", with its supportive yet non-egoic connections between all trees via root systems deep in the Earth. This painting was inspired by a hypnagogic vision sleeping in our house in the Forest. Of a girl (possibly a younger self) dreaming with seals. While sailing in the water between Sweden and Norway our family has encountered seal colonies on skerries - and I wished I could dream along with them, like this....
LET'S GO MUSHROOM HUNTING! SOLD
At this time of year (late August) my heart ACHES to be in Sweden in our house in the Forest, with new mushrooms sprouting all around us every morning!
Mushrooms are mysterious: neither plant nor animal, they are both medicine and poison, and they have otherworldly properties. They are said to grow in the Underworld and have a close relationship with Death and the Dead.
My 2019 art video below explores how mushrooms can dissolve the boundaries between Life and Death, everyday reality and Other Worlds and reveal the ultimate connectedness of All That Is:
UNDER THE BARN OWL MOON SOLD
Owls are been appearing in my dreams and paintings! It has become a bit of an obsession, I can't get enough of them! I have made owl masks and worn them on hikes in the Forest - in an attempt to discover how owls perceive the world. I feell that this particular animal species has much to teach us right now - I am grateful for those animal powers and animal visions!
DREAMING MYSELF A PARLIAMENT SOLD
How do you interpret the word Parliament?!
Without starting any political debates, I will just say that I am not impressed with the UK's current Parliament, their management of Covid-19, the NHS and handling of Exam results.
I am dreaming myself a (very different) Parliament...
PREGNANT WOMEN PETITIONING THEIR FAMILY TREE SOLD
This painting shows heavily pregnant women actively visiting and honouring their Family Tree, collecting the souls of their unborn babies. Owls watch over this process as guardians or 'kinfylgjur' (an Old Norse term), female clan spirits who keep a close and compassionate eye on both family tree and lineage. And yes, there is a prescription in this painting - this whole series of paintings can be viewed as a form of "pictorial activism!"
THE DREAMING OF THE ANCESTRAL MOTHERS (60 x 42 cm) £295
This painting follows on from the previous one (on the left): it shows the ancestral mothers forever dreaming new life into being, on the other side of the Veil, from the Land of the Ancestors. Without these ancestral mothers (and of course fathers too!) we would not be here. We literally owe them our life, our bodies and the chance to walk the Earth at this particular time. Life will always bring pain and ordeals - but it remains the greatest privilege of all.
MY INNER FOX CUBS (Sold)
In a number of recent paintings I have been playing around with multi-dimensionality and also with letting go of one particular perspective or viewpoint. This painting can be viewed in any direction (meaning rotated 90 or 180 degrees and still work). One thing I love about working in acrylic paint on paper (as opposed to oil paint on canvas) is that I feel so free to try out different versions of one idea. Any painting then is more like a room - and there is always an invitation to step through a portal into the next room (and the next one after that...)I actually had a dream once where I was in My House of Dreams, and every dream had doorways to other rooms (representing past or future dreams). Nothing was lost - it was a matter of navigation - threading the way back to another place on the time-space continuum (like fast-forwarding or rewinding a video).
THE GREEN BEAR (60 x 42 cm) Not for Sale!
Lockdown brought enforced time out from the normal routine and teaching commitments. My husband and I had many conversations on the topic of "Are there any dreams we can realize faster now, because the pandemic has wiped out so many things/structures we used to take take for granted?" For me one such dream has always been to write and illustrate picture books for children. This summer I started writing some stories. The first one was about a big rock in the Forest that turns into a Bear at sunset and back again into a rock at sunrise. Between sunset and sunrise a nocturnal adventure unfolds. I had such fun...
WHITE HART VISION - COMET NEOWISE #1 (60 x 42 cm) £255
This painting was made while Comet Neowise was passing just under asterism Ursa Major overhead. Our family sat out on the famous local grave mound, Uppsa Kulle for one (very brief) Scandinavian night to catch a glimpse of it (not easy at the time of year when it does not get properly dark at night) and we got lucky! In the world of astrology comets have always been viewed as ominous because they were said to presage the death of kings (and, I guess, this would include non-royal rulers, in our time). I asked my astrologer friendSusan Rossiand she explained that this comet mirrored issues around personal responsibility and the tension this creates with personal freedom.
I had two dreams about it, while all alone at the Forest House. Here is the first one: Neowise appeared as a white hart carrying the world (I understood it this to be: the potential of creating a new peaceful and more balanced world) in its antlers (and its antlers were the tail of the comet at the same time!)
"In English folklore, the white hart is associated with Herne the Hunter. Arthurian legend states that the creature has a perennial ability to evade capture, and that the pursuit of the animal represents mankind's spiritual quest."
PRIMORDIAL ICE CRONE - COMET NEOWISE #2 (60 x 42 cm) £255
This is the second painting inspired by dreaming about Comet Neowise, sleeping alone in a house the Forest: the comet appeared as a very ancient woman, a crone who was present from the Beginning of Time. She explained that she is (mostly) made of ice and by flying through the Inner Solar System she has an encounter with the Sun.
This is a repeat of one Creation Story in Norse cosmology, describing how the world is created from the meeting of Fire and Ice. As that event occurs again, on a cosmic scale, we find ourselves in a very dangerous (but also very pregnant) period of Rebirth, brimming with new potentials.
If we want a different, fairer, more balanced world, here is our opportunity to create it. The pandemic will allow us to do this faster than was even conceivable one year ago (writing this in August 2020). However, if we collectively choose to re-create the "Old Normal" or descend into political and environmental chaos - we will have missed a rare opportunity...
What will we choose collectively? Will we apply the Medicine of our Imagination?!
MY INNER DRAGON (60 x 42 cm) £155
During Summer 2020 in Sweden I made the Forest my Art Studio and discovered that all animals (and all beings) can also be found within me! I have an Inner Dragon, Inner Polar Bear, Inner Barn Owl and so forth. (Of course I also have inner versions of "less glamorous" animals: an Inner Mosquito, Inner Piraña, Inner Hyena and so forth).
I made many animal masks and wore them on hikes in the Forest - to get closer to the mindset of these animals.
ANGRBODA - MOTHER OF WOLVES IN THE IRONWOOD FOREST £285
A giantess from Old Norse cosmology started appearing in my dreams.
Her name is Angrboða and she invited me to sit out in Jarnviðr or the Ironwood Forest.
I made an art video about the insights I was granted (through dreaming and sitting out) about the Fenris Wolf and our inner wolf - the cosmic balance between Creation and Destruction.
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