INPUT:

Songs I’m listening to today: BIIG PIIG- 11:11

Film I’m watching: QUEER-  LUCA GUADAGNINO

Finished this today, a brilliant take on infatuation

Books I’m reading: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Song I’m learning on guitar

Trying a new one with a slightly harder strumming pattern

What I’m Knitting

OUTPUT:

Three Pages:

POETRY:

PHOTOGRAPHY FROM WALK

I am allowing my practice to completely overrun my walks. This is not good. Going to go tomorrow, and then I’m going to lake Lake Vyrnwy. This takes precedence over everything else now

CURRENT PIECE

Work on my current piece is slow partially because I’m working on my study statement and partially because of fatigue.

I’ve punctured holes through the outline of the tree trunk and this is going to be my main focus. I’m going to continue with this piece but I’m already having doubts. I feel like I’ve thought about it too much, planned it put too much, given it form before it exists. But it has meaning and it could end up looking really good. I like the concept.

But compared to my other pieces its alot more, composed? I like that I just intuitively did the other ones. I guess it’s harder to intuitively create a 120x 90.

I’m going to continue and see what happens. I want it to have the same kind of feeling as my smaller pieces and I guess that’ll start to take shape once I’ve laced the wool and chosen colours that feel similar. Using oils instead of watercolour may completely change the feel though. quite honestly I don’t think I can stand doing a water colour this big. Oil is the way.

I also hate the snakes I’ve drawn, and keep telling myself I can redraw them as they’re only on in watercolour pencil at the moment as outline. But I’m afraid I’m going to redraw them and prefer what I started with. If they are to match the feeling of the first four piece for the snakes to resembles reality would be jarring.

Going to continue puncturing holes tomorrow and lace it up. The rest of my time with go to walking and the study statement. I’ve added more image references in below.

NEXT PIECE INSPIRATION

Moodboard of these symbols

Along with the works of Hilma Klint and taking inspiration from the Voynich Manuscript visually, I want to use symbolism from books such as ‘Women who run with wolves’ and the most recent text I’ve read ‘addiction to perfection’.

KEY SYMBOLS

1. The Demon Lover – Represents the inner critic, toxic perfectionism, and the pursuit of an unattainable ideal.

Healing: Recognizing its false promises and embracing imperfection.

The Demon Lover

Arthur Hughes

Rama Spurns the Demon Lover

(‘Rama Spurns the Demon Lover’, 1913. )

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Warwick Goble

2. The Body (The Starving Body) – Symbolizes disconnection between body and soul, manifesting in eating disorders or numbness. Healing: Reconnecting with the body’s wisdom.

3. The Hollow Woman – A woman who has lost connection to her soul and intuition in pursuit of perfection.

Healing: Reclaiming inner life and embracing imperfection.

4. The Wise Old Woman (Crone) – Represents deep feminine wisdom that comes from accepting life’s imperfections.

Healing: Learning self-trust and intuition.

Crones. © Asma Istwani

Old Woman Seen from Behind,
by Vincent van Gogh.

5. The Clockwise Spiral – Symbolizes external growth, structure, and order. Potential danger: Leading to burnout if disconnected from inner self.

6. The Counterclockwise Spiral – Represents deep inner transformation, dismantling old identities for rebirth.

7. The Chrysalis / Butterfly – Transformation from suffering to wholeness, requiring patience and surrender.

Maria Sibylla Merian, 1679

8. The Snake – Represents the body’s wisdom and feminine instinct, urging trust in intuition.

9. The Moon – A feminine symbol of intuition, cycles, and accepting change.

10. The Ocean / Water – Represents deep emotions, surrender, and the unconscious.

11. The Dark Night of the Soul – The necessary crisis before transformation, requiring faith in the process.

12. The Black Madonna – Symbolizes the rejected deep feminine power, intuition, and sensuality.

13. Fire – Represents purification, destruction, and transformation of false perfectionist ideals.

14. The Womb – A sacred space for inner gestation, emphasizing patience before external action.

15. The Golden Shadow – Represents repressed positive traits such as joy, creativity, and spontaneity.

16. The Voice of the Soul – The inner truth often suppressed in perfectionism.

SYMBOLS WITHIN THE TALES

1. The Handless Maiden – Represents a woman’s loss of power due to external control, requiring reclaiming her soul.

Celeste Woods

2. The Fisher King Wound – A culture’s loss of the sacred feminine, needing restoration of balance.

3. The Bridegroom Who Would Not Eat – Represents the starving soul in perfectionism, urging self-nourishment.

4. Bluebeard – Symbolizes the destructive Demon Lover who kills women’s creativity, requiring rejection of perfectionism.

Bluebeard illustration by Guillon for an edition of the tales by Charles Perrault published in Paris in the late 19th century

5. Lady Macbeth– Used to discuss the destructive pursuit of power and perfection. She interprets Lady Macbeths actions as embodying negative aspects of the feminine psyche when it is disconnected from it’s nurturing qualities

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

1889, John Singer Sargent

Each symbol represents a step in the journey from perfectionism to wholeness, urging the balance of feminine wisdom
with external achievement.