Feathers & Folktales offers beautifully handcrafted linocut prints inspired by ancient folktales of women and the wild. Celebrating earth keepers, wild witches, goddesses, maidens, mothers and crones. Each piece is a timeless reminder of the enduring and enchanted relationship between women and the wild.
What weaves its way like an underground warren beneath the borders of conquest and control, dancing through differences and softening divides, preserving our collective wild sisterhood with the earth across time, cultures and landscapes? The ancient folkloric association between hares, woman, and moon traveled from Asia, through Persia and the Nile, across the forests of Europe and to the Americas, not by conquest and control but by word of mouth through storytellers, pilgrims, elders, weavers, healers and wanderers. The mystery and magic of this trio’s unyielding presence across landscapes and cultures is nothing less than the eternally regenerative aspect of the Earth Herself whispering through worlds and weaving Herself beyond borders untamed and free.
La Huesera, the ancient folktale of the mythical Bone Woman of the desert southwest, wanders the arroyos gathering scattered bones of wolves, singing over them until they reassemble and return to life. What if Bone Woman’s song is also ours to sing—the mythic medicine, the nourishing bone broth we can heal from if we dare to gather what’s been forgotten and scattered together at the same table, into the same circle of honoring? Bone Woman is the sacred feminine, known by many names, in many tongues. Her task is not to forge new connections, but to uncover what’s always been there. This is Old Story Medicine, the elixir She offers from her sacred cauldron when the world seems starved of connection, and in need of healing and repair.
What wild and precious part of ourselves have we lost and forgotten in the ocean between and betwixt our domesticated divisions, that finding and reclaiming will bring us to a deeper sense belonging? Exploring the synchronicities between two oceanic folktales, the Irish Selkie and Vietnamese Dragon & Crane, is a journey of self-discovery and a form of maritime medicine. Reconnecting these folktales requires that we swim fluidly with the restorative tides of underworld love magic and surrender to the cross cultural currents that transcend our modern national and cultural categories, shifting the way we think of people, place and belonging. . .gifting us with wisdom to weather the stormy seas of our times.
Bridging continents and cultures, the Eswatini folktale of Cloud Princess from Africa and the Haudenosaunee folktale of Sky Woman from North America, offer us their shared and relevant wisdom enriching, deepening and expanding our understanding of the meaning of “generosity” in unexpected ways. We learn generosity is the vital and sacred choice that can weave us back into relationship with each other, draw us into closer kinship with the wild, and open ourselves up to belonging to a larger whole.
A linocut print is a kind of relief print, similar to a woodblock print. A design is hand-carved out of artist’s linoleum which is then rolled with ink, paper is hand-pressed on top to reveal the final art print. The effect is an image that is both bold and simple, making a perfect medium for conveying classic, timeless themes and beloved folktale characters.
From its origins in China, during the course of its journey across the world, block printing has undergone many iterations and transformations so the block prints you see today are an embodiment of a combination of innovations, creativity, skills, and knowledges that bring together contributions of people from vastly different cultures and continents.
