MOTHERHOOD

Art Journal

... you are the ultimate motherhood/parenthood, childhood/birth painter!

- Debbie Price-Ewen, New Zealand

< SPIRIT CHILDREN

Not all pregnancies go full term, for many reasons. This film is about my shamanic work with Spirit Children and shows art work honoring the spirits of dead children.

My book describes this work more detail

NATURAL BORN SHAMANS

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

< YI: POETIC DESCRIPTION OF A PREGNANCY £550

Yi, also known as Lolo, is spoken in Southern China near Tibet. The Yi script is probably a thousand years old. It was used traditionally by priests and practitioners of various forms of magic. The characters generally represent syllables and number in their thousands. (This is peculiar as the language only contains a very limited number of syllables!)

The passage in this painting describes the growth of a child in the womb of a pregnant mother. Reading it always makes me think of tiny foetuses having tails and looking like a dinosaur or lizard in the early days! This text brings tears to my eyes.

BELOW IS THE TRANSLATION:

In the year 2000 our son Quinn was born. In 2001 another son, Elliott. The year 2004 brought a third son, Brendan.

The paintings on this page are an art journal exploring motherhood and family life, including my own journey as I grow older (and hopefully a little wiser!)

Today (writing this in January 2017) our three sons are teenagers. They continue to delight, they continue to throw up challenges and they continue to be my greatest teachers.

In 2007 the paintings of this series made their way to Australia (in digital form) where they were featured on the 'mothering studies' syllabus and be used as course material for students. They were also on display as a backdrop to a conference on Motherhood Studies in Australia.

1. In ancient times there were differences between man and animal

2. January likes the autumn rain.

3. February likes the leaves of the grasses

4. March likes the frog.

5. April is the four-legged snake.

6. May is the house lizard.

7. June assumes the form of man.

8. July has mother's transformation.

9. August unites mother's spirit.

10. September is in the mother's bosom

^ AURORA BOREALIS 80 x 100 cm £625

One Inuit Tribe believed that the stars were holes through which snow, rain and the souls of dead people spilled.

And Greenlanders thought the Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) represented the souls of stillborn children, kicking their umbilical cords.

This painting is in remembrance of all children who were born but didn't live.

I love the thought of them being alive and (literally!) kicking in another world, the spirit world or a parallel universe!

I often think of that when I look up at the night sky...

< GIVING BIRTH 80 x 100 cm £395

WORLDS WITHIN WOMAN 80 x 100 cm £495

> UNDER MY WING Not For Sale

HAIRY WOMAN 80 x 100 cm £475

POLAR BEAR MOTHER 80 x 100 cm £495

RED OCHRE WOMAN £425

WORLDS WITHIN WOMAN 80 x 100 cm £495

NATURAL BORN SHAMANS 2016

ON CLOUD NINE! 80 x 100 cm £395

ANTLERED DREAMS 2013

LIFE DREAMING NEW LIFE 2013

THE MOTHER OF DREAMS (Sold)

ANTLERED BABY 2013

^ DIFFERENT ROADS TO MOTHERHOOD

Children don't grow on trees. One way of becoming a parent is by adopting a child. Adopting a child means taking on a child that is not homegrown, a child that does not carry your genetic material. Yet, once you adopt that child is your child every bit as much as any birth child.

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

INSIDE OUT 80 x 100 cm £425

Children live in a world of their own. A world called 'The Here And Now'! The adult world and it's conventions, rules and expectations doesn't always make sense to them.

CITY CHILD 80 x 100 cm £425

Once you have a child, the world suddenly seems a much scarier place... Menace lurks everywhere. You end up reassessing the world all over and seeing it through your child's eyes. I didn't always like what I saw.

UMBILICAL CORD Sold

The umbilical cord is cut at birth. In the literal sense anyway. But there is a 'spiritual umbilical cord' that connects children and their parents for the rest of their lives.