For anyone interested in a few detail photographs of the altar mural featured in my recent “Underpainting” video, here is a little gallery of semi-decent shots! The room is quite small which means the mural is difficult to capture within a single frame despite being very easily taken in, in person. This is probably for the best from the perspective of magickal integrity… it is, after all, intended to flank my altar! At any rate, I have included the Makertube link for the video below (via the ad-free, collective, non-profit from France – PeerTube)!
Here is the video…
AND here is some bonus cute kitty ‘content’ courtesy of Gurgi:
Whoever or whatever reads this blog with any regularity may remember that last year I conceieved of a musical project called “The Devil Makes Three”…
I designed it along the lines of Tom Waits’ “Orphans” trilogy – each volume linking together to create a larger picture whilst also functioning as a standalone album. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to say with Vols. 2 and 3 from a creative standpoint. Their soundscapes were different from each other but clearly defined and I felt that they complimented each other nicely. If one listened to them in numeric order they formed a progression of musical style that said (to me) outward hunter/prey to inward haunting/personal.
The problem was that Vol. 1 was 1) only vaguely defined in terms of what I wanted to say creatively, 2) very literal in it’s interpretation of that creative goal, and 3) articulated through the tastes of others rather than a better representation of my taste… and as such also didn’t fit stylisticly into the broader picture. It provided no real conceptual or narrative development in the project as a whole and, in my mind, made it impossible for any (totally fictional would-be listener) to *want* to progress to the others.
I also realised that the three volume set was totally lacking in metal and metal adjacent genres… which was ridiculous as I listen to mostly metal/shoegaze/gothic psych doom rock nightmare-fuel-cruel-harpy-demonic-witch-magical-shapeshifter-shit by faaaarrrrrrr the most in my life!*
Having finally acquired a new (to me) computer, I can now post the finished result. I’m actually really proud of it!
I may do more proper liner notes for each disc in the future because I have really built in a LOT of stuff that I’d like to document… Imagine, if you will, that a witch can live and tell you stories by wearing music as a kind of sonic glamour. That.
But for now, Vol. 1 is called “The Words They Hear”.
If you were to ask,"What is it like to be a born a changeling witch?", or, "What was it like to be a child stuffed to the brim with dark magick?", or, "What does Badb/Nemain sound like to those with an ear to hear them?" ...you may consider this mix to be *an* answer.
In keeping with the rest of the project, there are 15 tracks on the album. There is some chronological progression but this is not an obligatory interpretation. Explicit mention of the Devil themself appears in the tracklisting – in this case you will note that I have featured Gil Scott-Heron’s genius track “Me and the Devil” …which then makes a distinctly more femme-gendered appearance in a Soap&Skin cover on Vol 2.
I would also like to point out the explicit recurring celestial rise/fall/rise theme on this volume… Also “Orion” is an explicit name I have called a certain thing in my life since I was a …teenager? That’s the first time it shows up in my poetry at any rate. But enough concept teasers, here’s the playlist:
Here are links to Vol 2. “The Stories They Tell” and Vol. 3 “The Tongues They Hold” for anyone interested in listening to the rest. As I said, I’ll likely write about each mix in their own dedicated blog post at some point. For now, I think it’s better that any would-be listener just develops their own relationship to the compilations but…
If Vol 1. is Badb/Nemain... Vol 2. could be considered Macha and... Vol 3. Anand.
Though of course, they’re all three all three all of the time.
~ Saoirse.
PS. At some point I also want to draw detailed and specific cover art for each one… because I have nooooo chiiiiiiiiill!
*There are some exceptions of note – one example in this mix is that I don’t listen to The Yagas as a band… but I do like “The Crying Room” as a track.
So, I’m in the middle of a massive change right now and, at the same time, I have also recently done myself the (mixed) favour of getting two full days of colour-work done for a tattoo that covers almost a quarter of my body…
Suffice it to say I’m hecking tired and I’m gonna stay that way for a bit and I did it to myself and that’s what really hurts >_<.
To make up for the lack of posts – but *not* the lack of creativity and general witchery – this post essentially contains a photo dump of (some) recent projects and artistic goings on amidst ::wooooooo:: big change ::woooooooo:: ^_^
Recent shots of my desk – homemade beeswax candles, card readings, and musical practice. You may recognise the first image as the thumbnail for my most recent video post. Terribly cringey and an algorithmic shot in the foot… sorrynotsorry!Before and after mending a rip in my skirt (not pictured is the black cotton backing I incorporated into the stitching) & some homemade earrings (paper layers, glue, varnish; real wishbones, cleaned and varnished; paper mache clay, gold paint, varnish.)Recent shots of glamour altar (including perfumes, paper mache clay horns, and ultraviolet pigments) & a shot of the colours my tattoo artist was mixing and blending directly onto my skin!Adventures in making my own nail polish colours! Ultraviolet green (in various layer combinations)… I called it “Poison Apple” but my partner wants to call it either “Mutant Ninja Ooze” or “Aggressively Green”… thoughts?Random OOTD shots of the general vibe I’ve beeen going for these days! Complete with Evenstar & glow in the dark bugs and sex dice! ^_^
That’s all for now folks. Have fun storming the castle!!!
The paradox of wanting a place online to express creative process (or the development of visual languages, portfolios, bodies of work…) is that the effect can only be viewed over time and in retrospect. Time passes between visible stages – in my case probably a lot of it – because the internet is where we come when we have full sentences to say, or photos to share, or sketchbooks to showcase and so on. That’s why I like it here! I want to show those things.
The trick is understanding how to pace that expression and what constitutes something ‘share-worthy’ in the context of our platform goals. But let me explain that better…
Each person is going to have different aims for any platform they choose to build. They may establish goals at the outset, they may develop and change them as they progress, and they may or may not ‘end up’ where they thought they would be. Ideally, along the way, a person will be able to say “yes, this is what I mean to say/share and here is why”. Each point in that journey would reflect what & who they are as authentically as possible… right? It would represent them accurately… right?
This is how the internet – especially sites like youtube – work in real time.
But what do you do when the way you process information and think about creativity doesn’t break down in a granular fashion like that? I very much doubt that anyone in my life could look at any one thing I’ve made or said and understand not only why it exists and what function it plays in the larger whole BUT ALSO that I approach what I do like… not just an album of family photos, but years of albums of family photos!
My inner archivist is showing. My favourite books, documentaries, and radio broadcasts etc about artists are always the ones that talk about the greater stylistic trajectory on which an artist functioned over time. Some academic saying, “well, what you have to remember is that by this time, post war, so and so had only just come into contact with such and such a philosophical circle… it would be years before they were all more closely knit and years before they relocated and that reflected in the fragmented nature of their style at this time. Part of my research is dedicated to tracing the development of [insert now classic leitmotif here] in their body of work!”
So… If I write too many poetry posts in a row, that’s awkward if this isn’t a poetry blog and I don’t ‘brand’ myself as a poet. Am I supposed to ‘cultivate an audience’ that has the patience for that? Is that my ‘brand’? I’ve written poetry my whole life, but I’m not a poet. I make most of my own clothes, but I’m not a fashion designer/costumer/commissioned sewist… I like folklore, slow living, flowers, skirts and candles, but I’m DEFINITELY NOT cottage core. I wear lots of black, I’m #deathpositive, I love macabre dance music, I’m interested in decay and darkness and strange fantastical worlds and corsets…but I’m not ‘a goth’. The list goes on. You get the idea.
Or… if I write that for the past months I have been not only making several changes in my personal life – not least of which are increasing the accuracy of the lexical gaps around my sexuality and gender (xenine, bi, & flammasexual… if you’re curious) and a potential change in living arrangements – but I have also been very slowly working on improving my health and seeing the results as I continue the journey of leaving neurodivergent burnout… what exactly about that do I show you online?
This isn’t *directly* reflected in my sketchbooks (yet?). I have continued to sew. With the exception of the pearl-beaded hair net (and second-hand boots) featured at the top of this post, I’m not ready to show what I’ve been working on until I can think of a more cohesive way to put it (because… again… my personal preference is to provide at least *some* context for ‘content’)… I have been called slow in the past and while it was meant in a mean way, it’s not necessarily untrue.
One thing I will endeavour to do is begin migrating some of what I collect as inspo/reference on my personal pinterest over onto the tumblr account I have associated with this platform. At least, on tumblr, it’s understood that the point is in the aggregation of images and posts … rather than in the minutiae or specifics of any one image. I have my work cut out for me though, I have multiple pin boards organised by topic, time period, and to some extent a hierarchy of intention for each… and some of them have more than 1000 images in them! It’ll be fun though, I hope? This idea seems to have given me a better sense of what each of my sub-platforms (tumblr, Youtube/Makertube, blog) are separately for.
Another thing I can say is that I am continuing to make my own soaps and experiment with homemade cosmetics & perfumes (I have to re-make my lip balm after someone I recently ‘met’ not only sampled it but also literally *licked me* in a pub… long story) as well as some store-bought makeup… and because that familiarised me with working with beeswax, I have progressed to making my own candles too! ^_^
Lastly, here are a few recent photos. I take photos of my readings alllll the time… though not with any consistency. I’ve been having a blast dancing more, especially for a few hours each Friday night, which of course is desperately sweaty work. I’ve taken to lighting candles, putting on my projector light, pouring myself a glass or two of ice cold Jade Absinthe (my FAVOURITE is Esprit Edouard yum yum yum yum yum!!!) and dancing the night away. It certainly feels ritualistic. ^_^
Thus, resisting the urge to explain everything to death, I have now posted something resembling an update. Don’t get to granular about it, folks, but resonate with whatever point appeals to you on a very much non-static continuum.
So we’re officially entering summer-like weather here in Ireland which, of course, means I’m losing my will to think. I have, however, been steadily working away on various creative projects the past few months and my aim is to continue this emphasis on gradual progress. It’s causing an interesting layering of imagery in my projects as well which, ideally, will lend itself to something like stylistic and symbolic cohesion…
The idea for my latest video had it’s origins in a conversation with a friend. We were talking about the impact (over the years) of specific moments where you’re shown what you really aren’t to someone else… human, in this case. I brought up Cake’s “Friend is a Four Letter Word” being pointedly played at me as an example to which she replied “UGH what girl of a certain age HASN’T had that song used at them!?”
To which I would like to add, I’m sure there are a lot of people who used that song either at others or even at *themselves* to absorb or express something toxic that so many of us have internalised.
I myself don’t have the strongest bond to the “she/her” social identity. I have explained this in part in the aforementioned blog post. I don’t spend time calling myself a ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ in my head. That’s something that other people call me… usually the rudest people I know, too. I am less and less willing to have “she/her” plastered everywhere and have been opting instead for “she/they”… and the magical and artistic process behind this video (and other projects) has helped me to draw a crucial line in my life more generally: I can no longer sustain connections with people who see me as a ‘girl’ before they see me as a person.
Good conversations with good friends inspire so much don’t they!?
Thus, rather belatedly, it struck me that this was a bigger picture issue… but in my case this needless dichotomy that as a femme-ish person I may *either* feel human *or* sexual but not both in a patriarchal system has taken on this rage infused haunting quality. Of course, we see this theme all throughout demonic witchcraft tropes and mythic narratives and it’s not accidental at all that the goddess under whose auspice I live is imbued with sexual identity and expression… in a shapeshifting and often horror-based way!
In my opinion sexuality in general is a deeply fluid & poetic thing. It is beyond gender, of course, because gender is non-binary and sexual preferences and identity isn’t really map-able. It’s much like magic. Felt, learned, practiced, explored, poured out, drunk in, sung, quietly spoken… everything everywhere and nothing nowhere all at once. In the mind and/or in the body as you please. Mythicly real and woven from autonomy, agency, and consent.
People don’t get to hear nearly often enough how sensually beautiful they are… because humans really can be like living walking poetry. Embodiments of sacred verse! Yet time and space are wasted in saying you are either ‘friend’ to me or ‘something more’!? What is “more” in this scenario!? I was a mystical sexual being before I met almost everyone I know now (as well as certain people I knew *back then*) and I continue to be when people leave my life story. Yet somehow I could still read a book, climb a mountain, perform in concert halls across cities and countries, have thoughts and opinions all my own about whatever I wish… and appreciate the sensory, sensual, and sexual beauty of my friends regardless of gender.
One thing I have been doing for these projects is constructing “what’s playing in the studio” mixes. I made three that function as a whole unit (not unlike Tom Waits’ “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards” trinity) but that can also be listened to individually. Each one has a loose narrative structure on its own but as a group of three albums they also progress from the more collective/general (and femme)* to the more vulnerable/authentic/personal.
*[Edit February 2026 – dissatisfaction with the lack of direction and gendered nature of the first playlist has led me to re-do it to represent the idea of cosmically ‘heard’ words & magical power… making all three volumes subjective and biographical, “auto-” or otherwise. The new thematic progression might be said to be Volume 1 – (Changeling) Words/Volume 2 – (Murder) Stories/Volume 3 – (Nonverbal) Tongues…]
I made the second ‘disc’ first and it’s the one that fed most directly into the video above.
Each one features 15 tracks… see what I did there, tarot-nerds? ^_^ They’re mostly what they say on the tin except for three things: 1) it is worth bearing in mind the unreliable narrator as well as the idea of incompatible yet simultaneous truths; 2) these are not necessarily a faithful representation of *my* taste (although of course, they are born from the limitations of my exposure***); and 3) the third album is my answer to the question “what would I play if I let myself really say what I wanted to say musically?” Note, there are almost no lyrics or words on it at all.
Unfortunately, I can only make these available through youtube at the moment because the third album has two tracks I had to alter slightly to allow for a more natural fade into the next track. If anyone knows a good, free, freely available, and less-ad-ridden way to host these let me know!
Lastly, I’ll give you a visual glimpse of one of my other recent projects completed as part of this on-going process:
“Now where the Devil is that devil of mine?” – Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, “The Soldier and Death”
I made myself earrings inspired by the Devil’s foot in Jim Henson’s the Storyteller! You can barely tell, but I am wearing them in certain shots in the video (and in the header image for this post!) The screencaps above are taken from ‘the’ tube but I *DO* own a copy of the DVD series with John Hurt (I don’t have the Greek myths with Michael Gambon and have actually never watched them either.) These are paper mache clay, acrylic paint, and varnished to make them water proof etc.
Ok that’s all for now. Bear in mind, this is all a work in progress and likely poorly expressed! Back to feeling demotivated in the gathering heat.
~ Saoirse.
*** For example, Laura Marling features on the second album twice but I have REAL issues with her worldview as an artist. She’s made some good music in the past, that is all.
Time for some #spooky #autumnal #fallvibes! Featuring tarot and witchy shit. Call me crazy, but I think there’s something in this group of concepts – something creatively stimulating at least!
Decks featured:
The Somnia Tarot by Nicolas Bruno
The Deviant Moon Tarot (Paradoxical edition) by Patrick Valenza
I wanted to discuss some basic inspiration & information that went into this project as well as some aspects of what the reality of sewing historically inspired clothing looks like… and of course some of how this applies to (my) witchcraft.
First – on my channel I have addressed a few of the reasons I prefer corsetry but, at some point, I will write a blog post with a proper explanation of the practicalities of corsetry in my life. That day is not today.
Q: What are my design references and aesthetic aims? What am I hoping to achieve visually?
This tends to shift around a bit but stays loosely within the parameters of 1) my time periods of interest and what potential I think they have for overlaps in design and 2) silhouette and colour blocking. Additionally, I like to evoke a mood and set of associations: a medieval decadence (in terms of color and texture); the proportional strangeness & darker shades of Northern Renaissance painters (Petrus Christus, Roger van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck etc); and a tongue-in-cheek reference to Victorian societal dysfunction (I like inverting value judgments based in puritanical virtue, assumptions around sexual permissiveness and mental health differences, reliance on religious institutional hierarchy etc.)
… A witch, at any given time period, would have existed largely in the same clothing expected of most people around her (and may well have identified with them religiously too). I like to explore that dissonance… An almost severe black silhouette with cheeky splashes of colour, perhaps? Dress me like a puritan but invert my cross!!!
Q: What about construction details? Isn’t it squeezy!? Did you make any mistakes!??!??
In terms of construction, I wanted practical movement and a well placed waist-line. I wanted better bust accommodation and garter straps for my socks! (On shorter sock days, I use garters just below the knee, fastened to the outside.) The basis from which I built this custom corset pattern was an early 1910s corset style called a ‘long-line’ corset*. This is not to be confused with the early Edwardian ‘s-bend’ corset. I am already exceptionally curvy and I wanted something that was elongated and smoothing to accommodate my more medieval days. (Corset didn’t exist in the middle ages). Think, John William Waterhouse paintings as a visual starting point… or something by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale.
The added benefit to this type of corset is that it is structurally already quite difficult to lace down too far. It’s a very flexible fit. The waist line cinches where the tummy and spine is the squishiest and most flexible – which serves as an anchor point – and the rest of the corset provides gentle support radiating out from there, up and down.
Without romanticising the ‘rustic’ or glorifying deplorable 19th century working class conditions, a lot of what I am going for is based in working class clothing and practicality. Minimal waste, strategic reuse of mostly second hand fabrics, patching and mending as needed… and planning for movement and more active daily patterns. I make my own soap, I like to cook, I cut out fabrics laid on the floor, I paint, walk, run errands, and frequent pubs in what I sew and the corset is part of what *enables* that (especially as someone with bad spine, joint, and inner organ problems! It works much like a flexible, custom fit back brace with almost no singular pressure points such as a bra band or staps!)
Here is a lovely tertiary resource – a youtube video by Cat’s Costumery – on working women’s corsetry:
In terms of the reality of sewing and making mistakes, I discuss various changes and design elements in my corset video but here is some added detail:
You will see in the photos that I made the corset too big and had to fold down the last panel on either side! At some point I’ll unstitch those panels and adjust them more thoroughly…You will also see, in the photo below, that it seems I made the bust too high originally. My body has also changed slightly in recent weeks so I have re-cut the top and sloppily rebound the edge. It looks messy but it’s strong thread and fits like a glove!
I think this is SUCH a fascinating process… homecraft & creative techniques to fashion a look and way of moving embued with dark mystique!!! I’ll be happy to answer any questions in the comments or even just say hi! And there will be more posts about sewing coming soon. I’ve been up to some pretty crafty shenanigans of late!
* Some basic starting points for this kind of corsetry:
This woman’s making process is documented on her blog – I found her info and visuals helpful as *an* example of the over-bust option for these later corsets. (Please note, I no longer support the Truly Victorian pattern company.) https://historicalsewing.com/1913-blue-floral-corset
I have put together a playlist creators’ resources to do with costuming/sewing techniques on my youtube channel. It’s called “Clothing is Magic” and covers techniques, diversity, inclusivity, and various different time periods I find interesting as well as some old footage of clothes in motion!
Further resources & citations on working clothes and photographic anthropological/social/immigration documentation:
Photos of Icelanders come from a brilliant free resource – the Online Collections of the Danish National Museum (including satelite tools to hone in on where photographs were taken etc.!): https://samlinger.natmus.dk/
The photo of two girls from Norangsdalen came from another amazing online resource, the image collections of the Norwegian Folk Museum: https://digitaltmuseum.no/folkemuseet
I also recommend having a look at the work of Francis Meadow Sutcliffe – especially of women knitting by the docks!
NOTE: While there is a prevalence Nordic or Northern European imagery in this blog post, this is mainly due to a different (personal) research project on which I am working (very slowly). What I mean to illustrate is that there are practicalities of silhouette and construction that interest me in folk costume and working clothes. This post has also been limited by what is available in the public domain etc.
