Ghostly Women Exhibition Contributors
artists
Ghostly Women Exhibition Contributors
A Community Exhibition brought to you by Magical Women artists
Caroline Elizabeth Howells
Becky Atherton
Lois Acari
Roseanna Chew
Teal Fraser
Festival For Imbolc: Natasha Oliver-Cork
Words about Natasha
“Natasha Oliver-Cork is an actor-musician and writer who is currently in her second year studying Acting at Drama Studio London.
From Bath, Somerset, Natasha grew up around theatre and countryside where she would daydream for hours on end and create stories and characters.
Music played a large part in her artistic development due to her inability to stop singing and turning everything into a musical – quoted from her GCSE English teacher!
So, it is unsurprising she has found herself back to writing music after her discovery of poetry writing and partaking in Magical Women’s Neurodivergent Writing Workshops back in July 2020.
Only recently diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in 2020, her art is about developing an understanding of her neurodiversity and rediscovering her authentic voice and what it means to her and for her perspective of the world around her.
Magical Women has been a fundamental part of her growth in confidence in her music and her art, which she is excited to share with you through their Imbolc Festival.”
— NATASHA OLIVER-CORK
Join us for Imbolc in Song!
We invite you to listen to a podcast of 5 songs (also heard in the podcast above) on a Music Only podcast with short commentaries about each song by Magical Women relating Natasha’s nourishing and nurturing songs to Imbolc’s important teachings and rituals.
Song Titles in order
Seed
Release Me
Impossible
No Net
Trepidation
You have been tuning into Natasha Oliver – Cork!
Festival For Imbolc: Clarissa Wright
events
Festival For Imbolc: Clarissa Wright
Online Event
Words about Clarissa’s work by Magical Women
Clarissa’s artworks and writings are inspired by the natural world as well as her intellect that has been weaved by her scientific works. She feels the shifting of the seasons keenly and makes creative observance in her practice. Here for Imbolc, she shares a poem ‘E-company’ that reflects on isolation and our dependence on technology – something many can relate to today, during national lockdowns imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. To illustrate the concept, she shares a photograph she has taken in the wild and journeys us into her textured ideas and fascinating insights from a ND led mind and tongue.
The tension between home and the natural environment is strong at this marker of the year. It is the time to ask for the blessings of Brigid, for the things we will nurture outside but also for the people that we nurture in our homes. At this time when we remain largely behind the thresholds of our houses, taking a moment to check in with our connections to place and to each other is an essential part of the cycle of growth we invest in throughout the turning of the year.
E-company
Images in your head squat against your skull
As you lay in bed, embracing your laptop
Cold electronics lay here to give you company
And speak with you like you’re somebody
Spark a conversation with your screen
Ask it about your lunch, or your dream
Let it delightfully distract, and entertain
Cleverly disguise the lurking disdain.
Awaken now, the phone has remembered
To alarm! And ring at 8am as required.
Unwrap from your warm embrace
With your lover made of wire and steel.
Disenchant yourself for a moment
So that ye can feel the blood in your veins
As you rise out of your slumber into the shower
And sacrifice this moment to the falling rains.
Walk into the kitchen and you ARE alone
But not until you turn on the radio-o
Murmuring mumbles and talk-talk-talk
Delude you to think that you are not-not-not…
Ah, look and see
Your phone, laptop, screen
Acts like your best friend
How many hours do you spend
In E – company?
Who spends with you more time
In your intimacy?
Has connection been confused with electricity?
About the Artist
Clarissa Wright, Editor-in-Chief of NatureVolve magazine, is a creative writer and artist with a background studying geology at BSc and MSc level at University of Aberdeen and University of Birmingham. She creates poems, stories and visual artwork inspired by the workings of nature and the human psyche.
Her artworks and writings are inspired by her curiosity and knowledge about the natural world, grounded with her geoscience studies and experience in scientific publishing. In addition to being an artist, photographer, digital designer, photographer and creative writer, she is a freelance science journalist and editor. Her deepest interests are in philosophy, psychology and the natural world.
Festival For Imbolc: Maddie Millett
events
Festival For Imbolc: Maddie Millett
Join us for a wonderful Guided Walk through words and photographs with Maddie Millett on Thursday 25th February 2021.
A few words from Magical Women about Maddie and her work for Imbolc Festival
Maddie is an artist with a keen sense of the seasons and of her local environment and this is clearly evident in her work. Her practice encompasses walking, writing, clay work, sculpture ritual and incantation. She set these things in relation to one another in travelling live installations that invoke powerful feminine energy and enrich our own connection as viewer with the earth.
For Imbolc, we meet some of the ancient goddesses that she embodies in clay and we walk with her and with them as she explores her home patch at this delicate turning of the calendar. She blazes with the intensity of the coming light and through the journey we take together we watch her transform into the iconographic being she is searching for, stepping into that power in her own right, and perhaps encouraging us to do the same.
“Keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more”
VINCENT VAN GOGH
“Rediscovering my creativity
after a long break was like drinking
from a deep well,
and I was thirsty for more.”
I remembered my love of clay,
a passion that is with me still.
After the sometimes torturous process of academia
while completing my sculpture degree
I struggled to find my way back to the bones
of what my art is to me
and to become more real and clear to myself.
My practice now involves a lot of being;
walking in woods
or the peaceful sanctum of the cemetery,
lying in the long grass or exploring forgotten paths
and allowing it all to feed into what I make.
I am seeing the worth of my previous
nascent ideas and realising I was on the right track,
but I didn’t have the right support
or faith in myself back then
I’m fascinated with and curious about ancient clay artefacts,
connection in nature,
myths, stories and rituals
(which often make more sense to me
than the shrill cacophany of the ‘real’ world).
Problems fade into the distance
as I step out into nature
and my refined senses absorb so much,
my attention no longer scattered but honed in
on the tiny movements of birds.
The delicate colours of the sky
move my deeply emotional soul
and the traipsing ivy
becomes an enchanted bower
in my limitless imagination.
I am able to express myself fully and convey my true intentions in my art.
My images and clay forms speak for me
without the spoken words that are so often
misinterpreted or misunderstood.
Our Lady of the Green Heart by Maddie
My art is me, and sets me free.
About Maddie
Maddie Millet is an artist who uses raw, sustainable and found materials in her clay and installation work. Having recently moved house to a home on the edge of the town but surrounded by fields and trees, Maddie engages with the natural world around her by going on walks and sharing her wanderings with us. Through photography weaved in with her own words, her clay goddesses, and other inspirations from poets’ pens and ancient tongues, we discover the fiery light that burns brightly all around and from within her.
Guestbook in response to the Artist’s Work
Here is feedback left by visitors to Maddie’s Guided Walk.
Thank you so much for this beautiful exploration of the creative process, especially the ways in which walking and the natural world both soothe and inspire. I particularly loved Maddie’s use of clay and all the meaning that it holds. Thank you!
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Bee, Folkestone, UK
Beautiful, absolutely loved it. Thank you so much Maddie. Xx
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Lorraine, Dudley, West Midlands, UK
I love Maddie’s guided walk and her beautiful photographs. I’ve been a Facebook friend for a long time.
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Vanessa, Western Australia
Hi Maddie, just what was needed to ponder on and delight in – As a friend of yours, Maddie, I am loving the creativity that you are scooping from your depths. Thanks for your inspiration and sharing the coming of Spring through your reading, clay goddesses, meanderings and photos xx
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Kait, North Wales, UK
Hi Maddie, loved your pictures of marigold, holly, ivy. Your sculptures look tactile. I too love graveyards. Your video is a good explanation of things i am not familiar with like ‘Imbolc’. I am just getting to know about pagan history. Thanks for a good inlet. Xx
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Wendy, London, UK
Festival For Imbolc: Ashley Ferrari
events
Festival For Imbolc: Ashley Ferrari
Online event
A few words from Magical Women about Ashley’s work
The playfulness, movement and relation to light in Ashley’s work are a perfect celebration of the Imbolc spirit, reflecting the movement and light we start to see playfully teasing itself into the early spring days.
And Imbolc is the perfect time of year to check in with our inner child, reflecting on the things that might need addressing in order to cherish them moving forward, to talk with them of long held dreams and set firm intentions for growth.
Ashley’s paintings offer the perfect imaginative canvas in which we might visualise this meeting and play together once our planning is done.
Please note: This exhibition is best viewed on a laptop, tablet or computer.
MAGICAL WOMEN are dedicated to making our work accessible to as many audiences as possible so we have created an audio description for blind or partially sighted audiences. Click on the play button below to hear an audio description of Ashley Ferrari’s solo exhibition:
“I am a self-taught artist who paints using oils.
I aim for my paintings to have a soothing
effect on the viewer and to create
feelings of peace and serenity. ”
“The ideas come from my head and
I try to create a fantasy, otherworldly feel.
I love the tactile nature of oils and
paint everything but the fine detail
using my fingers. ”
Tranquility – 20” x 16” Oil on Canvas, Nov 2020
“I paint mostly at night
when I feel most creative,
starting with a black-painted canvas
and building up layers of colour and light. ”
Stargazing – 8” x 20” Oil on Canvas, Dec 2020
“I am strongly influenced
by the seasons and how they
affect the nature of light. ”
“As an autistic artist, I’m irresistibly drawn
to exploring my favourite themes –
a glowing full moon reflecting from water,
or shrouded in mist and clouds.”
Mostar Dreaming – 16” x 20” Oil on Canvas, Dec 2020
“Sunlight filtering through leaves of a summer forest.
Skies laden with aurora, nebulae,
or an unearthly quantity of stars;
usually out of reach but
brought closer through imagination. ”
Wilderness – 20” x 16” Oil on Canvas, Dec 2020
“For me, Imbolc is the returning of light;
the first glow of dawn in the mist on the horizon.
To celebrate Imbolc I have shared a series of paintings
created during the winter that embody this idea.
This happened subconsciously;
I had not planned my paintings
but let whatever
was in my head onto the canvas.
I can see now that they represent both
acceptance of darkness
and
yearning for light.”
— ASHLEY FERRARI (ENCHANTED FANTASY ART)
Guestbook in response to the Artist’s Work
Everyone who sent in a post for Ashley’s Guestbook has been sent onto the artist. We shall share quotes on here with first name only on the website.
INCREDIBLE PAINTINGS IN ALL RESPECTS!
– RICK X NOW, Leeds, UK
Ashley, your work is magnificent and I enjoy every piece. I’m intrigued that you do it all with your fingers. That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing.
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Stacey-george, Essex, UK
What a beautiful show! Great work Ashley!! Stunning and calm audio descriptions.
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Hannah, Leeds, UK
Amazing!! Still cannot get over how talented you are. Tranquillity achieved – which is a feat to win over my brain! I am so mesmerised by them all. I always feel like I could never get tired of looking at them! <3
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Charlotte, Leeds, UK
Loved looking at these…… Felt the energy and the peace and wonder you aimed to create. Just beautiful and food for the soul. Would love to see them at a physical exhibition one day. Lovely to gaze at.
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Natalie, Leeds, UK
Total magic Ashley … you capture what I dream of. You are a true Artist 💚
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Wendy, London, UK
Beautiful uplifting. Reflective skies. Majestic. Soothing. Connecting. Talented artist. Tactile. Stay with you but also dreamlike. Thankyou ashley ❤️❤️❤️
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Donna, Leeds, UK
Just beautiful!
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Heather, Danbury, CT USA