Hello World!
Sunshine forced itself past the glistening dampness as we gathered around our market tables, waiting to make sales or answer questions. We chatted casually but also with excitement as this was the first time a dedicated market time had been held where all the vendors were together in one room at Cloudcatcher Witchcamp. It was so nice spending time with fellow artists and four of us dreamed into what it would be like to join a collective and amplify our work and our voices. Of course any festival or camp has these moments of collective dreaming through shooting the shit. But somehow, just a couple months later, we all ended up on a zoom call together and poured more life and magic into this idea. An Art Witches Collective.
We met weekly for a whole year sharing our struggles, hopes and dreams as artists, what it’s like to be both a witch in community and a creator and mused on collective project ideas and where to start. We toyed with various ideas from group exhibitions to a retreat, workshops and more. In the end we settled on a website as a starting point for all of it. A central place that visually represents who we are and reveals it to the world.
I remember not long after we had finally made the decision, feeling a gap in the group, like there was a piece missing. It’s a delicate thing, inviting someone new into an established circle but I had my mind on a member who did so much work with a community art space and got little time for their own practice. It didn’t take convincing and before we knew it Susanne Rae had joined Faerie, Raphaelle, Luke and myself in our weekly sessions, which were now divided up. We had heart space checks ins, art dates and project meetings.
I toyed with a draft website which I titled ART COVEN. We had spent the previous year agonising over a name for ourselves, going round in circles, asking other people, the internet, eachother… nothing stuck. But something clicked in me when I saw these simple words on the draft website. I kept this secret at first, unsure if it would resonate with anyone and left space for something else to emerge instead. But to my surprise (and relief!) it seemed that the same ‘click’ was shared by others and suddenly we had a name. And with it came the notion of being an actual coven, too. Not just any group, guild or collective. But a coven.
What does it mean to be a coven of art witches? Witches who gather weekly for an hour online, working on mundane world projects but bridging the worlds with the magic that is creation? I’m still figuring that out. I think we all are. So far we are sure about some things.
We are 5 witches. We are artists, makers, creators and dreamers. Visual art is a way we create change in the world. It is a medium we use to contact other worlds and the godds and it’s a way we bring pieces of this back to share. We play, discover, make meaning and manifest it physically into what is commonly known as ‘art’. On a personal level, we support each other through the trials that come with being a maker in a world that is replacing our unique voices with machines and mass producing items devoid of soul, life, magic. We offer encouragement, advice, accountability and a place to drop into our work.
Our wish is for this magic to inspire something positive in you. This coven is evolving. And I hope it will always be evolving. For the moment, we are excited to have made it to the point of sharing ourselves and our magic with you. We are looking forward to sharing more processes, rituals and offerings with community. This may take the form of art dates and crafternoons, workshops, exhibitions, retreats and all other manner of wonderful events both on and offline. Hopefully we get to see you there.