The Old Songs Print

Painted originally on a heavy piece of oak, I made a circle of women inside a womb-shaped cave, the opening to which is formed in the natural shape of the wood, and painted red. In the centre is both a hearthfire and the black portal-hole to who-knows-where. The women are held by the madder-coloured cave walls around them, which have old symbols inscribed on them. 

Two of the women drum the rhythms of the songs which they have been collectively singing for many generations, songs to stitch together sky and earth, heart and heart, mother and child, morning and evening, and everything besides and in-between... 

Together these women know things that they cannot know alone. Together these women conjure things that they could not conjure alone. Together these women sing the in-dwelling umbilical music: remembering themselves back through time to when the cave walls were just freshly painted with the red of the mysterious life-full wombsheddings of their foremothers. 

This was a commissioned piece, intended to celebrate the magic that happens when women gather together. I hope it speaks to you also.