INSPIRED BY THE GODDESS (and my beloved sister)

My Goddess Inspirations Yearbook is back for 2014!

If you follow my blog or my work on Instagram and Facebook, then you will, of course, know that I am inspired by the goddess. With the release of my 2014 Yearbook, I thought it was timely that I say a little bit more about my inspiration.

The goddess energy first inspired my life and art work in the mid 1980's. I was a few years out of university and my paintings then were large abstracts based on landscapes. It's difficult to pin down one event that changed my work and invited in the goddess but my dear sister, Jacky (12 years my senior and who sadly passed over in 2000) was a big influence on me.

Here we are circa 1982, I was 25 and Jacky 36.  We look so young!  I so wish she was here now to share these Goddess goings on.

Jacky was active in the Women's Movement in the late 70's and 80's; she ran assertiveness training workshops for women and wrote two books on this. She introduced me to femininism and women's consciousness raising. I loved her and looked up to her  because she was my big sister, but I also knew intrinsically that what she was teaching and talking about was right. Not just logically but with my heart; women needed (and still very much need) to take their rightful place in the world.

Around the same time I discovered the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and also went to see Judy Chicago's 'Dinner Party' in London. O'Keeffe's beautiful paintings and Chicago's celebration of the feminine spoke to me in a way other art had not done before. My own art work started to change.  Female imagery started to come into my work. I found that I wanted to make paintings about myself as a woman. I made large paintings using myself as a life size motif.

But then another element came into my paintings. One evening, working late in the studio, I felt that another energy was guiding my hand and my paintbrush. The painting was nothing I had planned to create. It was coming onto the canvas with almost a life of its own.  The Goddess had stepped into my painting.  This was the 'Bird Goddess', the first of a series of huge paintings about the goddess which I now know were painted 'intuitively' rather than based on drawings and sketches.  

These paintings celebrated the goddess or the Divine Feminine within me. I also wanted to reach out to other women through my art and let them know that they could celebrate their own goddess within. I loved those paintings, I still love them - the ones that survive - I have two left out of six. What I didn't bargain for was the reaction I got from the then predominantly male art world. They didn't like them. I took this rejection totally to heart and started painting landscapes again. Then I stopped painting altogether. Until 18 months ago...

When I started painting again after so many years of drought, the goddess wasted no time in leaping straight back onto my canvases and journal pages. In February 2012, I took Flora Bowley's first round of her course Bloom True. Her intuitive, heart centred method gave me permission to paint again and her imagery and motifs the permission to paint the goddess again. Artemis had returned...

Last year, I was guided to write my yearbook, 'Goddess Inspirations', combining the seasonal journey through the rhythms of the year with the goddess energy, creative activity and my own artwork.

It is now available again for you to enjoy through 2014. To buy, just hop over here

If you're not sure, this year you can 'try before you buy'. Sign up for my newsletter and as a gift, you will receive a booklet for the month of January completely free with no obligation to buy the full yearbook. Try now

There is also a chance to win a copy of Goddess Inspirations 2014!!  My lovely friend Julie Gibbons is hosting a giveaway for her birthday and to celebrate her Mama. Join in the big birthday blessings giveaway over at juliegibbons.com today. A circle of creative women, including me, is offering prizes galore, one of which is a copy of Goddess Inspirations 2014. Go to http://bit.ly/birthdayblessings to join the party...

I have so much to thank Jacky for. So grateful to my big sis...for her part in putting me where I am now. Today I'm remembering her with great fondness and love.   I know she's loving these goddess gals and the joining in circles with other women.

From my goddess heart to yours

Rachel xox