... and now am
Yesterday is Gone, art by me
This past week has seen the release of The Poetry of Art collection. I find it hard to release in collections because in a way, I feel limited by that theme until all of them are up and out in the world. Now yesterday is gone (as the painting above is named) and here we are.
Today, I get to turn my attention to the next thing I know I want to paint - the art of womanhood. There are a number of ways the feminine archetypes are presenting themselves into my life to be explored in this way. Firstly, the book by Jean Shinoda Bolen: Goddesses in Everywoman and her exploration of the virginal, the vulnerable and the alchemical goddess archetypes. Loved it the first time around - re-reading for even more deliciousness at the moment.
Next, another project that’s coming together behind the scenes that weaves in feminine archetypes that I’ll share more about shortly.
And finally the Whole Woman program with Camille Williamson - here we travel through each of nine archetypes for a month each; the body, the daughter, the sister, the lover, the mother, the queen, the priestess, the wise woman and the soul.
We begin with the body, which has now entered my sketchbooks for the first time.
Some of these sketches are beautiful and inspire me to do more. Some are the worst thing I’ve ever done.
All of this has got me reflecting on the subject of this week’s essay:
The Woman I Was
0-10. Girl-child, ballet, painting and guitar. Learning everything there was to know about love, money, relationships, self-expression, what gets me noticed and how to toe the line to set the foundations for the rest of my life. Sundresses and pinafores. Being me, my theme for this decade.
10-20. Teen girl-child. Learning Russian off cassette tapes to impress my dad. Navigating school and exams and first love and sex, living the changing nature of daughter through the shadows cast by my parents’ arguments and divorce. Perms, bleach, and sunbathing with baby oil. Batwing sleeves, big shoulder pads and ra-ra skirts. Impressed by fast cars and older men and learning how to use my body to get what I wanted; claiming my space as academic high-achiever through top sets and A grades. Thatcher my role model for womanhood. Refusing to visit my dad. Partying in the space left by my mum’s attention to her new partner. Wild-child/ Good-child. Notice me, my theme for this decade.
20-30. Young woman. This decade began with university, middled with travelling the world and ended with career. This was a decade of exploration - all the sex, drugs and house music I could get my hands on, while at the same time working night shifts to fund it all, while at the same time maintaining top grades, because hard work is required to get what you want. Neglect of the body outside of dressing it in skin-tight leggings and cropped tops with push-up bras. At the same time, in crept the panic attacks and severe anxiety that would plague me for the next two decades. One-way ticket to the other side of the world, eighteen months of adventure through Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam. A love story begun that would end in marriage. Crop tops swapped for suits from Next. A masters degree (because one degree wasn’t enough), working working working to get promoted, promoted, promoted. Notice me, my theme again for this decade.
30-40. Entrepreneur. This should have been the decade of mother. After trying my best for a year, instead it was the time of suffocation under the constraints of raising small children, going out of my mind with boredom and craving the recognition my previous performing had granted me. I chose to pour every ounce of brain juice and masculine energy into setting up and creating my own business, coaching and building an online coaching tool before online was really a thing. Listening to my children cry downstairs with the nanny while I sat at my laptop at a desk in my bedroom. Pulling up our roots and moving the family to New Zealand in pursuit of new and and exciting. Then back to the UK. Then moving again to Annecy in France..and back again in the search for something, anything, just not this. Bro-marketing masterminds, online strategies, business class flights, skinny jeans, red high heels, lingerie to match. Bigger, better, more. Success stages, panic attacks, extreme agoraphobia and claustrophobia. Guilt, the theme of this decade, along the anxious frantic machinations that come with the fear of disappearing.
40-48. Spiritual awakening. All the hard work of the previous decade came to fruition with my first seven-figure year. And there was nothing there. Which left me with a bit of a problem, given that was supposed to be the end-game. Into my life came the Three Principles, as described by Sydney Banks, via the work of Michael Neill. Within weeks of starting work with Michael, my panic attacks and anxiety melted away, without us even talking about them. I had the realisation something bigger than me was already present. That got me curious. This began a pilgrimage around the world to study this spiritual understanding that had changed my life so dramatically and I taught what I discovered. Clothes that didn’t crease in a suitcase. Heightened confusion and then deep peace the theme of this (almost) decade.
48-53 Mother. Everywhere. The story of ‘I’m a bad mother and this is why this is happening’ transformed into a deep knowing of the strength and rootedness of my mother energy as my children each went through their worst struggles. I finally fell in love with them. The travelling stopped and the house and garden became my home. Developing a closer relationship with my own mother before she died, and then my sisters. Then my dad. Friendships given time and deep conversation. Tending to the tiny seedlings in the greenhouse, providing nourishment and care. Hands in the soil. Track suit bottoms and nails black with mud. Creating a community of women doing the same. Queen. Nurture, the theme of this half-decade.
54 - ? Creatrix. Taking the layers of life and transforming them into colour and movement on the canvas, just for me. You get the overspill, if you want it. Weaving in the child, the body, what it means to be a woman, freedom, expansion and deep connectedness. Experimenting, healing, exploring the regret of an unlived life and the layers of a fully lived one. Impossible if attempted at age 20. Wise woman. Receiving. Elasticated waistbands, soft jumpers and messy bun. A realisation that I exist below the neck, that my body contains all the wisdom I need. Lover - filled up by the senses. The sound of my children bantering at the kitchen table. Profound love and full self-expression, the themes of this time.
Writing this fills me with sorrow. I think in laying out in this way, it becomes easier to let go of the ‘ultra-successful, million dollar woman'. I don’t need her any more. The red high heels can go to the charity shop. The regret in not becoming a mother until my children were almost grown and left. And yet it could not never have been any other way. Some grieving to be done here.
Mixed in with that, a feeling of gratitude, a feeling of ‘there’s nowhere I’d rather be than where I am right now’ and a seeing of the richness in the tapestry of woven strands as I stand here today.
I feel like the luckiest woman alive.
I can’t wait to see what happens to my art.
If you’d like to explore your own creative life with me, here are some upcoming workshops:
Finding Inspiration - 15 April
Where does creative inspiration actually come from? How do you know which ideas are truly yours to follow? In this workshop we explore the Head centre in the human design chart, what it reveals about how you receive and experience creative inspiration, and why understanding yours changes everything about how you create. Learn more.
The Intuitive Creative - 20 May
In this workshop we explore the Splenic centre and what it reveals about instinct, safety and the subtle knowing that lives in the body. We look at how this centre operates at its fullest expression, what happens when it falls into conditioning or low expression, and how that shows up in your creative life, often in ways you have never had a name for before. Learn more.
The Creatrix Day - 28 July
For when you’ve had enough of zoom rooms. A one-day in-person creative immersion for twelve women held in a secret garden in Surrey. We’ll spend the day exploring what it actually means to be fully self-expressed, the real version of ourselves, the one that exists beneath the restraint of the good girls we learned to be our whole lives. Using art materials as our medium, we uncover what you truly desire to create, where you hold yourself back, and what becomes possible when you can truly express and give form to what wants to come through you. Learn more.