BoneFeatherBodice, ink on Japanese paper
Bone bodice
Allium seed pods
Creamy white empty
Crinkled sleeves
Along the seam
Runs the straight back bone
Holding it all together
Drawing ink on Japanese paper, allium seed pods, ribcage, opened bodice
Feathers and bone
A feather
A bone
Fragile yet strong
Feathers and bone, ink on Japanese paper
Deadly Nightshade
Swallowing just one black berry from deadly nightshade, the unsuspecting victim could die.
Belladonna, broomsticks and brain chemistry, RSC Education
Indian ink on paper
Half of a whole
Fragile tissue
Bone and fibres
Hanging from
Red beads like blood
ink on Japanese paper, pins and red beads
The poison circle
Witches inhaling the smoke from smouldering henbane seeds in mediaeval times reputedly caused the sensation of flying.
Ink on Japanese paper
Digging up a mandrake
…the most famous myth about the mandrake is that “the shrieks of an uprooted mandrake would kill anyone who hears it”.
This superstitious belief was widely adopted in the Middle Ages, when traditional herbalists were considered to be witches associated with Hecate Goddess of Magic and Witchcraft, who is often illustrated as a black dog. This may explain the origin of the suggested practice for extracting the mandrake safely - dig into the ground to expose the roots, draw three circles around the plant with a sword and tie a rope around a starved black dog and the mandrake; throw fresh meat to the dog, which will run towards it and pull the mandrake from the ground…
from The Love Potion by Tavian Hunter, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
ink on paper