FolkTale Week 2024
I drew late at night, and this is the result
I want to write about Womanhood, Mid-Life-hood, Motherhood and the weird feeling of total transformation, bewilderment and confusion that comes with the peri-menopausal years. But those topics are too big, scary and overwhelming.
Instead, I took the prompts of Folktale Week as inspiration for capturing some thoughts on those mammoth feelings and experiences that seem to be dominating my mind.
I wrote pages and pages of words, and had planned all sorts of fancy colour palettes and materials to explore. Instead, one night, as I sat waiting for my son to fall asleep next to me, I grabbed 2 pencils that were easy to use in bed, and colours that could easily be visible in the dim light of the Owl shaped night light, and started to sketch.
This is the result, drawn slowly over the course of the month, with a limited palette and my smallest sketchbook.
MIST
She could not see past her nose. This was no gentle mist. No delicate veil of droplets suspended in the air creating a mysterious filter on the world. This was fog - heavy, blanketed, thick - obscuring her vision.
GATE
She heard whispers that on the other side of the gate was liberation. Spoken of in hushed tones, it was called ‘the golden time’. Total release from the trap of cycles. On the other side, was freedom.
BLIGHT
Blighted by self doubt, she was full of fear, with a deep desire to be left alone.
TRAIL
Look to those who have walked the path, who blazed the trail. Let them lead the way, and gently guide you through.
DEPTH
The isolation stretched to infinity in every direction. She is held by it, floating in its depths. Here, she watched with sadness, as everything she knew of herself slowly drifts away.
BONE
Slowly waking, as if from a dream, she heard a song. It was transforming her, calling up her bones into new forms.
BLOSSOM
Blossoming into the most powerful phase - the time has come for Wolf Wisdom. Fierce, piercing and a force of nature. Join the pack.
Credits
I have been heavily inspired by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés work ‘Women who run with the Wolves’. The line ‘calling up her bones into new forms’ (the most beautiful line!) are her words that I have re-purposed here. The rest of the words (mostly bad) are all mine.
FolkTale Week this year was kindly hosted by:
@rachelschafermakes
@louve.draws
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Constraints lead us to do things that would not exist otherwise, or would have another shape. The result is superb.
This is so beautiful and moving!