Autumnal collections: maker diaries in meaning and personal synchronicity

I’d like to share about how I build collections for Melusae. My work always carries a through line of inspiration, and each collection is designed around a visual idea or thematic personal synchronicity. Often both; art has a way of communicating with the subconscious and the subconscious communicates in symbol.

This year was one of extreme change and uncertainty in my personal life. The pieces I’ve released this fall have all referenced this specific theme; navigating uncertainty and indecision in a world full of mysterious paths in tumultuous and uncertain times. The yes/no pendant began the series, to aid in decision making on a journey, choosing which fork of a road to take. The star adorned pendants of the all hallows drop feature glimmering star settings, symbolizing the stars that light the way; the joys and boons and glimmers we receive along the path. Every journey at times feels like holding up your little lantern to the vast dark woods ahead of you, filled with gnarled old oaks and tree roots, woods that feel both ominous and protective. The double sided starry woods pendants reference the double sided nature of every thing.

Vasilisa at the hut of Baba Yaga, Ivan Bilibin

Autumn is also a big time for folklore, magic, and honoring our ancestors while we gather around fires and retreat a little more inward for the year.

I think everything is folkloric, and the story of Vasilisa’s journey through the woods mirrors the visual themes of the collection, with a glowing skull, the deep woods, and the spirit of her mother helping her navigate a series of daunting tasks from the witch Baba Yaga.

“The Dreaming Dead” pendant from the All Hallows drop

The story goes like this. Vasilisa, whose evil stepmother sends her through the dark woods to get fire from Baba Yaga’s hut, hoping she will be gobbled up by the witch. Vasilisa has a magical boone on the journey; a talking doll blessed by the spirit of Vasilisa’s late mother, who promises to guide and protect her. When she arrives to Baba Yaga’s hut, she is met by Baba Yaga’s fence, made of glowing human skulls which illuminate the night like lanterns. Baba Yaga grants Vasilisa’s request for fire, but only on the condition that she complete a series of impossible tasks under pain of death. Vasilisa completes all the tasks on time with help from the enchanted doll. When Baba Yaga asks how she did it, Vasilisa replies that she did so by her mother’s blessing. Baba Yaga recoils at the idea of a blessing, and throws Vasilisa out of the house. We see a mysterious kindness in the witch here. While she could have eaten Vasilisa, she instead sends her away, but not before gifting her a human skull with burning eyes, which acts as a lamp to light Vasilisa’s path through the dark woods back home. Upon returning home, the enchanted skull incinerates her evil stepmother and stepsisters with the light from its eyes, and guides her to a better life. Listen to a more complete retelling here.

The blessed doll and the image of a skull serving as a guide to illuminate the path ahead recalls a hallmark of the season: ancestor veneration. Late October into November is a time you have probably heard the term “the veil is thin.” That veil is referring to the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. Samhain, halloween, dia de los muertos, all celebrate our dearly departed and honor them at a time when they feel closer to us. This feels particularly potent when times feel so globally tumultuous and uncertain, and political decisions out of our control affect our every aspect of life to a seemingly greater and greater extent. We say we are in unprecedented times, and we are, but it is also true that our ancestors all lived through unprecedented and frightful times of their own. This doesn’t make me feel better but it does give perspective. Honoring and speaking to our ancestors this time of year can provide a support and comfort for the times, and gently brings us into the dark winter season where we celebrate the little light we get in the northern hemisphere with our still living relatives and continue to honor those before us.

In my own ancestral tie-in, the star setting is a feature of one of my grandmother’s necklaces that I always adored. It became a big goal of mine to learn how to do it, and because of that it has become a feature of what I chose to release this fall. I think of this grandmother often, who stayed in a town that I don’t think fit who she was, and put her dreams aside at her husband’s request. As women today, we have so much freedom and choice compared to the lives our grandmothers experienced. Being able to choose to leave a relationship, a job, a life that feels stuck and stagnant, was not a reality for all the woman of our bloodlines. And I think because of that, it’s all the more necessary to navigate new and uncertain waters. I think all our grandmothers past are cheering us on as the stars that illuminate those metaphorical trails through dark woods.