Baba Yaga Original Art by Nicola Bird
Baba Yaga is the forest witch of Slavic folklore, the wild old woman who lives in a hut on chicken legs. She calls to those who have spent years being agreeable and are curious to meet the woman underneath all those good manners.
Baba Yaga is the wild elder of Slavic folklore. She brings the kind of honesty that can be startling when you’ve grown used to saying whatever keeps the peace. Her gift is discernment, especially in the places where kindness has slipped into agreeing to things you resent. With Baba Yaga, you can trust your own judgement enough to say what you mean and let people get to know the woman who actually turns up.
Each goddess takes her turn to enter my soul and find her way onto my canvas. Click 'NOTIFY ME' if you'd like to be emailed when she arrives.
about the artist
Nicola Bird
I didn't pick up a paintbrush until I was 52, shortly before my mother died. It felt as though she handed me her torch, and I've been painting ever since.
Before that, I built businesses, wrote books, raised a family and spent years helping people navigate change. My paintings come from all of it: the joy, the grief, the menopause, the reinvention, the particular ache of the in-between.
I paint instinctively. Music on, paint down, following the feeling rather than a plan. I want my work to hit you in the gut, change the way you breathe, and create that unmistakable moment when you look at a painting and know, without question: she's mine.
My collectors tend to be women at midlife and beyond who have lived enough to recognise something in the work. They don't choose a painting because it matches the sofa. They choose it because they've been through the fires of midlife and a part of them wants to be reclaimed.
