Hello curious one...
I am Jade Moon a multi-disciplinary animist artist working with story, ritual, symbolism, nature, movement, sound, image, film, poetry and sacred craft.
I work with creativity as a soul-retrieving ritual act and create spaces where you can explore this too.
I believe in the necessity of enchantment to lead a full and happy human life, and that retrieval of soul connection is part of
this re-enchantment.
Artists Manifesto
Make art focused on beauty and usefulness.
A beauty, not limited by aesthetics, that can be meaningful, moving, awe-inspiring, connective, deeply truthful—vulnerable, honest.
A usefulness that extends beyond function and has purpose: to be inspiring, awakening, supportive of soul-making and culture-sculpting — not simply making life easier, but making it deeper.
Let art speak to the needs of humanity, the more-than-human, and the planet.
Let there be soul speak, heard in community through shared creativity.
Let there be meaningful acts honouring connection, symbiosis, collaboration.
Let there be art that remembers its place in society, has sloughed off it’s solipsistic obsession with talking about itself and remembers it is here to be a conversation that includes many voices.
Art focussed, not on product, but on healing and connection.
Personal Creative Practice
My personal practice is centred around exploring creativity as a soul-retrieving, ritual act.
I create within a methodology motivated by the sensing body, animist feeling and meaning-making.
What this means is my work assumes that my body has wisdom; that the world is full of spirit and that, to feel whole in myself, I need to feel connected to it.
My practice is to pay attention to my senses, to stories, to symbols, and to synchronicities then to move towards and interact with whatever arises to guide.
We know that mankind has made art and ritual to express and connect since the first time we arranged objects in a grave, or carved a voluptuous woman laboriously from a piece of Mammoth tusk. We create from a motivation to connect and make meaning.
An impetus speaks to us, our creative urge invites us to follow...
Sometimes a dream haunts us, a song line repeats in our head, a feeling lingers in the body, a story sticks to us like a burdock, a life eddy keeps us swirling around in a repeated pattern and this is when we must begin the process of tracking.
The first gesture in the creative act says "I am open to connect." - this can be to our own souls or to another living spirit. We make a mark, we hum the tune, we record the first words, we dance the first step. We say "I am both listening and responding". Through the mark, the hum, the words, the steps, these things born from the initial impetus, we see something looking back at us, an outwards expression of that which we wish to connect to - we see the reflection, and then begins a conversation.
In my personal practice i am exploring the dark lands of chronic pain and trauma through gestural movements, expressive make-up, image and film.
In counter balance i am also leaning into the sweet supportive landscape of the land i live on - dancing in the fields near my home -- with the moon, the stream, the dying oak tree, the buzzards, through their feathers and the wind.
I am writing all the words my body wishes to speak about these things.
I am letting these creations loose to be whatever they choose, not focussing on product, simply, at this point, letting them reflect something back to me, so i can respond and we can deepen in a reciprocal call-and-response interaction.
I am learning to retrieve what was lost.
I am engaged in ritualised expression for my own healing, staying deeply connected to this ever revealing and evolving process.
This is my personal practice - because we cannot teach what we do not know, we cannot embody what we do not practice ourselves.
Of the full moon and the spring...
Of the Buzzard and the Dying Oak...
Creative Development
I am a multidisciplinary artist with a degree in Contemporary Arts. Since leaving university I have worked as a community artist, performer, dancer, performance poet, nature artist, storyteller, and maker of objects—ritual tools, talismans, and sculptures.
I have run workshops with people of varying ages and abilities, and organised and facilitated performances, charity fundraising projects, art groups, and exhibitions with various councils across the South West, South Somerset Mind (the mental health charity), Oxfam, the youth service and with other creatives.
My creativity flows into whatever form is appropriate; the form follows the connection to the subject and the needs of the expression.
What remains as a consistent presence in all of my creative expressions, storytellings and workshops is a connection to enchantment.
This I have consciously carried with me and cultivated since I was a child. There is a difference between being child-like and childish. Many perceive enchantment as a childish attitude, but I would contest that a child-like sense of appreciation and wonder for the majesty of this planet, and the interesting phenomenon that is being human, are qualities that we could all do with more of if we ever hope to backtrack on the great mess we are making of this beautiful planet. Along with many others, I feel our sense of connection to the planet is blighted by our disconnection to our own bodies and souls, to one another and to the numinous. Humans long for connection, beyond all other achievements, this is what people often celebrate, or long for, at the end of their lives: a sense of having lived in harmony with themselves, with others, and with the world. This, to me, is beauty made manifest, it is the highest art.
I believe that soul-making—understanding ourselves at a deep level, including the many parts and motivations within us—allows us to access wisdom, compassion and an alignment with our souls purpose, through a higher understanding of self and our place in the wider whole. From this place, real change in the world becomes possible. One of my core beliefs and maxims is: the many minds change the mass mind.
Therefore to become a creative, to make it your work to know yourself better, to connect to your community in a way that is healthy for you and for them, to be witnessed, to create through meaningful private and communal acts, is one of the things we can contribute to the betterment of the world.
A previous artistic incarnation
Jewellery
Ceremonial
Sculpture
Since my son’s birth in 2013 I have been working as an artist mostly in the mediums of talisman making, sculpture and creating sacred objects.
My work is influenced by echoes of the past, inspired by archeological finds, dream symbolism, old stories and myths. It speaks my souls yearning to remember what was useful to us as evolving humans in our deep history, when culture was emerging - a time when moving with the seasons, working as a group, valuing our position in the group, acknowledging the phases of our lives, on our particular land, was valued and echoed in stories, rituals and art.
Our adornment was intentional - each element of a piece of jewellery made by hand. Our sacred objects were precious, carved with bone or antler tools over hours and hours. Our stories had deep wisdom - memorised and passed down through generation after generation.
We Made Sacred. We knew the qualities of honour, praise, acknowledgement, expression, ritualisation, trance and remembrance.
All of the pieces in these galleries are expressions of these memories buried deep in the akashic connection that all of our souls harbour. Many of them were commissioned by kind souls who trusted me to make talismans for them filled with the energy of this remembrance.
It has been my great joy to do this work, it has filled my life with a purpose aligned with my own creative flow. To know that these works are now nestled in with new bearers, who will tend to their little soul fires, just as i did in their creation, gives me peace and a heartfelt feeling of wholeness.
As i move now into menopause a new phase of creative expression is coming forth...
Being creative is an act of communion.