On Hagitude and Grandmothers

And the thread that binds us through space and time

In only a couple of days Hagitude: Reimagining the second half of life will be available to purchase all over the world, and I am still a little disbelieving that I have been lucky enough to be a small part of such a wonderful project.

At the very end of 2018, inspired by some art prompts over on Instagram, I tagged Sharon Blackie in a post where I presented my rendering of her ‘Old Crane Woman’, which you can see below. Sharon had written a series of blogs, Grey Heron Nights, “a Celtic antidote to the mythical Greek ‘Halcyon Days’, which bridged the Winter Solstice”. The imagery in those words moved me so deeply. Though I live about as far away from the lands of the Cailleach that one can get, my familial heritage ensures her stories still run through my veins, and my connection to her through Sharon’s writing opened a floodgate of enchantment. Sharon responded to the artwork with such kindness, and our to-and-fro through digital missives sparked a friendship that led to her asking if I might like to create some illustrations for her upcoming book. Of course, I was utterly thrilled - and still am. 

(The original Old Crane Woman (2018) that started it all)

Sharon’s brief was exceedingly generous. She gave me the general archetype or story that she needed an illustration for, provided me with reference if it was more obscure, and encouraged me to be inspired to represent her however I wished. What a dream - to research these stories and archetypes and let my imagination run wild! As I started the project I realised how profoundly we have collectively minimised the immense power and wisdom of our elders, but also how poorer we are for forgetting these important mythical stories and all that they have to teach (and inspire).

I was fortunate to have both of my grandmothers into my forties, and I knew that this was an opportunity to not only honour our feisty mythical and mythopoetic forebears, but also my own strong, tenacious, resilient and wise grandmothers. My Gran, with her Scottish and Irish heritage became the Cailleach, making mountains out of the boulders she carries, looking over and protecting her deer.

My Nan became the fairy godmother, with the sassy pose she would often strike for photos, one hand on hip. She also took on all three forms of ‘the three’, a loose interpretation of the Norns, the Fates, all of those ancient world weavers. Nan passed from this mortal world just two months before her 101st birthday, and we spent a lot of time together in her final years of life. She was a very animated talker when she was enthused by a story, but could be equally focused and ruminative, and that is what I was inspired to honour here: animation, concentration, contemplation. Weaving a tale, weaving the thread of life, their hair woven together in the complexities of connection, entanglement, the braid of a long life well lived.

The energy of these wondrous women who had such a profound effect on my own life has joined that of the powerful women before them now. And one day, so too shall mine. Until then, I want to learn more from my elders, to grow into being a strong, generous and empowering elder myself, and to live a life rooted firmly in connection to the land and our other-than-human kin (from which there is so much to re-learn).

(Fairy Godmother, aka Nan - Pearl Rivett Eslick)

Each of these illustrations was a conjuring. Research and immersion in the tale, forming a loose composition, searching for reference, and then the magic. Manifesting her visage, her story, the feeling she gave me deep in my bones, through thousands of tiny scratches of graphite across bristol paper. Building up the value, the interplay of light and dark, also became a process of raising her energy. Absorbed in the detail of her life lines, the glint in her eyes, was a meditation on her power, her wisdom, the strength she shared. There is always magic in the creative process, the connection between my heart and mind and hand and the subject being honoured. But here, even more so. I felt the thread that binds these ancestral mothers (real and mythic) to my own modern (but still wild) heart with every reflective stroke of my pencil. The connection is powerful and palpable, and as I edge ever closer to half a century wandering this beautiful pale blue dot, ever more needed, respected and revered.  

(Old Crane Woman, 2022)

The Old Crane Woman revisited, her kind gaze, seen through her own and the crane’s eyes, one wild heart tethered to the other, was a profound coming of full circle to me personally. I can see how my skill has progressed, I can see how deeply I am connected to this work, and I am empowered by the creative energy my work gives and receives.

I am so proud to have been able to honour my grandmothers in this way, and to find a graphite-on-paper-imagining of many other archetypes and tales too. I am already imagining a series to come, goddesses and world weavers, shape shifting women, forgotten tales and empowering stories.

Tell me, were I to create a series of Celtic goddess artworks, who would you like me to start with?

I am excited to hear from those of you who will be reading Hagitude. It is a wonderful book, meaningful, empowering, transformative. I am pretty sure both my Nan and my Gran would have absolutely loved it.