The Asteroid that sparked the Violet Flame

The cosmic idea that landed like a meteorite in the ocean of my mind. A tidal wave of inspiration to kickstart a whole new universe, and an era of healing. This is how it began…

Back in 2019/2020, when the world turned itself upside down, I found myself looking at life in a way that finally started to make some sense. Where everyone else scrambled for a sense of normalcy, I stretched my arms wide in understanding. The endless grind, the pressure, the socialital expectations, it was all just a vultures’s game. The world opened up it’s eyes to the cage we’d been living in, and took a breather. Wildlife filled town centers and rivers saw their lowest pollution levels in decades, from a few months of the community taking a step back and considering their individual impact on others. Sure, most of it was self minded, to only protect those they cared for, but we saw what a difference that slight change in behaviour could make to the world around us. In the sight of impending doom, I finally saw hope for a species I thought it would be easier to give up on.

Ive always seen humanity through that lens, as something Other to me, something outside of myself. It would take me a few more years to really come to terms with the neurodivergent profile of my brain, that finds itself the main contributor to this sensation. Back then, it was just abstract thinking. Just a dash of acceptance that I saw patterns around me that others didn’t pick up, or at least, didnt’ like talking about. Something i’d attributed to my intelligence and enjoyment of mathematics, rather than any programming or learned retoric.
Up until 2019, I’d been in education studying Fashion design, surrounded by parentally molded personalities, the mono culture of influencers and austrasized misfits. Noone risked any depth, noone owned up to hard truths, noone considered before they gossiped. Everything about that environment was foreign to me. Every expression of my creativity was shared ‘incorrectly’, any attempts to meet a project with depth was met with shallowness. And I took on every ounce of toxicity that was thrown my way. Every bitter attitude, every snobby behavior, in a desperate attempt to prove to everyone else that this little estranged student with no back up system could make it there. I probably could have, but I think it would have cost me the very depth of being that makes me who i am. I’d had to walk away from everything that was still pure in my heart, everything my anger was still trying to protect. So I walked away. I closed out a chapter and I moved in silence, directionless, hollow. And in my return to that darkness, the world slowed down with me. I collapsed, unfolded time in the same ways that we were all told, ways that were strategic to safety, to protection, to healing. For survival. My body was on the line of pure survival by that point, every ounce of willpower, of determination, of passion that had brought me that far, was nowhere to be found. I was helpless, unable to walk freely, unable to think freely, the mask crumbling a little bit more of my skillset away every day i fought to take it off. And yet, I’d never felt so understood by so many people than I did during quarantine. I cemented my loving relationship during this era, a miracle of self worth in an period of despair. A meaningful golden chain of hope that sat down, held my hand and said ‘well what shall you strive for next?”

There it was. The first glimpse at the asteroid that would land in my consciousness and awaken everything I’d been searching for. Every question I had on what was next, lead back around to ‘you have to create’. Then everything I wanted to create was ‘out of my experience field’. I had some experience with illustration, but in fashion it’s mostly tracing skills, and the ability to negotitate with a printer without having a breakdown before your deadline. I was a pattern drafting master, but i couldn’t spend a single session in front of a sewing machine without blasphemic curses and excessive profanity. I could do a plain knit, but I couldn’t work out curves and seams. Frustrated I’d collected a dozen hobby skills, and still feeling like nothing was going to save my creative spark. I sat out on the roof and I looked around the metaphorical hole I’d collapsed into. I looked up at the stars, remembering a quote that fueled my motivations before, “Reach for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”. I had missed the moon on my last jump, so where are my stars? The last portrait I’d sketched at that time, I’d called moon goddess, not that I realised it then. But in my hollowness, seeking my stars, I drew ‘Atlas Goddess’, symbolising the weight of the world I was carrying, The moon I did not want to miss, and all the stars I could possibly fit on the page. Floated myself right into a space where I believed some part of me knew There had to be more.

Tattoo design was where I took a natural pivot next, enjoying the fineline pen work that followed Atlas Goddess. The creativity built again. I was churning out designs, many of which ended up on this website as bargain originals. Ultimately, I’d find out that my hypermobilty was going to prevent that being a viable job role for the strain practicing put on my joints, but by that point, I knew I was here to make art. I just needed to find the right channel.

In August of 2020, I took another leap of faith on that golden chain and moved to where my boyfriend was studying at university. The slow pace of this town versus the chaos of Birmingham, was a difficult adjustment even during the slow down of quarantine, however, it quickly revealed itself to be the very sort of change that would give me the chance to recover. Teach my nervous system that we didn’t need to keep trying to run. Ironically leading to having regained the ability to do so physically - eventually. I had walked away from so much, I took a while to see that some friends weren’t supposed to come all the way with me. So I mourned again. Raged. Cursed against the invisible force that must have landed me such foul luck. Then, I noticed a pattern. One my scientific, conspiracy orientated brain did not come naturally to accepting. I was conspiring with the universe, where I asked to be shown my every strength. Every era mapping to a chart of stars I considered total generalised Bull. So I set out to prove it wrong. And proved it right. The stars pulling out another fixed point in memory, where, in hindsight, I see my crossroads.

So, then I explored the natures of astrology, the stories of the zodiac, the history of it. I dove into studying sacred geometry next to my quantum mechanics books. Identifying my chakras while learning neurodiverse regulatory techinques. Started a garden when I painted my fears. Every step a learning curve of blending creativity with logic, mapping every feeling to a place in the pattern that fell between them. A network of duality that rooted my pain into experience, an ocean of emotion in a cosmos of creation. Now I just needed to learn how to swim.

Those years were certainly no easy feat, but to the life I had known, they were kinder. I found myself in a place I could put a foundation down for the first time in a decade. I got myself a mentor and worked on starting this Art business. I turned up to my first exhibition with a handful of folders stuffed with my early print collections and a bunch of tiny mushrooms I’d created impulsively to ‘give the table more dimension’ since I had no real display material back then. Every market event that happened since just got better and better. By late 2023, I could finally see that metaphorical asteroid up in the night sky, and it was about to hit the atmosphere. I started my sacred alignment series at this stage, I knew all the effort I had put in so far was going in the right direction, but I was still acting too scared to shine. My heart was guarded, my voice near silence, my center challenged with fear. The series was created to invoke the fractal that would lead me to the aligned sensation I was seeking, a manifestation and an agreement to the universe. I will put in the work, just show me the way. Then it arrived. The deep desire to create something bigger. A painting so large to my portfolio it was almost comical. Equilibrium.

When the download came through, all I could hear was ‘Essense of duality. Balance of order and chaos.’ So I began by drawing a circle, a starting point I would come to draw off often. From that circle, I drew a horizon line splitting the canvas in two, symbolising duality didn’t need to be complicated, right? I saw the sun, the moon and a swirl of water encompassing them. So I echoed those in the fashion of the sacred alignment series. The pieces usually come together like that. Fragments. Pieced together by instinct or impulse. Only later, in contemplation, in reflection, in consideration, do I discover the depth of what the painting has brought me. The layered subconscious code I’m attempting to translate. That asteroid would eventually deliver a new cosmic visitor, that expands one phrase and circle into an entire universe that brings adventure and excitment.