Dance The Old Ways

 More words that move me, written by Cari Ferraro

Dance the old ways

Trust the knowing

Mend and heal

Energy Flowing

For this, I used wood dyes for the background, pencil crayons for the lettering, a chalk pastel spiral and decorators filler for the 'stones'.... so I guess that qualifies as mixed media!

I originally wrote about this piece over here... remember the posts are in reverse order, so the 3rd post on that page is how it started out & the first one is my reflections at the end! 

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Sisters Of The Red Moon

we have met before, you and i

somewhen, somewhere.

in time out of time, the space between,

the space where the veil thins and the mist floats across

moonlit oceans.


in the swirling chaos of now,

tendrils of light flicker in the darkness.

reminders of a lost tribe,

of ancient ways where blood was holy

and wisdom shared.

reaching across the chasm of time.

over expanse of space and the shackles of fate

there is hope that in the dreaming

of this and other things, we shall meet again.

somewhen, somewhere.

By Melanie Leavey

Mmm, I love creating textures... with lettering or with paint & I found these words so inspiring. Layers of blacks & reds with some bronze powder....

This piece is 56 x 76 cm on cotton rag paper, which with all the layers, was quite challenging to write on! I've written more fully about the process & my thoughts on the words here, at Spirit Whispers...  

If you are interested in purchasing, please get in touch....

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Accordion Book: Rose

This wrap around concertina/ accordion book was made to go with a 'femme' made by ambermoggie. (they're so gorgeous!). It was a special gift for a special young lady!

I chose Saunders Waterford Not, 190gsm and sloshed (technical term, lol) watercolour all over two strips torn to the same size... basically I flooded the paper with water and brushed colour into it, using several shades to match the hand-dyed colours of the femme (whose name is Rose). Rose represents the maiden aspect of the goddess... the flowering of womanhood... the goddess within... her link to the earth and generations of her female line. To echo this feeling I used flowing sweeps of the brush... curving movements...spirals...

I didn't have any preconceived ideas of what this may turn out to be, maybe a bit of collage, definitely a book, but probably smaller than it turned out... it ended up being about 4 feet long when fully stretched out, but at approx 10 inches tall & with 4" pages, it folded up nicely... substantial without feeling bulky.

I wrote a few of the phrases that amber used to describe Rose before deciding on the final size & where to fold... once I had an idea of how the layout should pan out, I made the folds & attached a second section to make the wrap around cover... then I finished the lettering.

The book looked fine as it was, but I wanted to add some collage elements... for these I used torn off bits of the background... added a bit more colour, some gestural marks & random words. I added them to look like mini-canvasses within the book. Not as 'collagey' as I had maybe thought to begin with, but definitely enough for how it developed! 

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