Bio

Elinor is the founder of Magical Women and created this framework from her background in education, disability services, and art psychotherapy. She is a practicing art psychotherapist and arts mentor, as well as autism/ADHD employment coach. Elinor supports artists from all walks of life and all disciplines in both education and employment. She is a postgraduate researcher doing her PhD at the Artistic Research Centre, Nottingham Trent University. 

Funded projects include the birth of Magical Women (2020, Arts Council England), Biodivergent Sites and Sounds (2023, Arts Council England) and Magical Women (2023, The Supporting Act Foundation). Elinor has worked with a wide range of partners including: Drake Music Scotland, PRS Foundation Beyond Borders, Canal & River Trust, National Galleries Scotland, Creative Health Camden, Tate Modern, Shape Arts, Spread the Word, Wellcome Collection, Cole’s Gallery, Disability Arts Online, Drake Music England, The Unfamiliars, Camden People’s Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, The Minories art gallery and many more. 

Artist Statement 

From a very young age, Elinor always felt like she came from the stars. Shamans and healers would tell her she was one. Elinor has travelled extensively and during all her trips has had magical experiences reading photographs, and energies of the people she has come into contact with. Elinor is a storyteller who paints in rich and vivid colours from an unflinchingly feminine gaze. Telling stories via autoethnographic fiction, she conjures experiences that are transdisciplinary. As a Neurodivergent and Disabled artist, Elinor’s work is mainly reflective of the autistic/ADHD experience moving between grief and joy in quick succession; the way emotions are so often deeply felt at such incredible speed within autism. In her art texts, facilitation and live/sound art, Elinor uses oracles and tarot as well as ritual and magic through journeying and site-specific forest trails or trails by or on the water.

Why MW is important

Our emotions are so often reduced because we are so often perceived as being over-emotional, highly sensitive or a negative connotation due to feeling too much. Being able to slow these emotions down by asking for our needs through imagery and mantra, means we can convey what we mean when words fail us, or can not quite grasp the experience we are in. Magical Women has contributed to projects such as the Communication Cards that reduce our barriers, and support us to ask or convey our needs more accessibly to both neurodivergent and neurotypical populations. Art workshops such as Making Space for Art and Magical Journeys as well as our events provide space for nourishment, nurture and sharing practice: to commune, to gather and to experience together without the need for small talk or networking.