Why art,
not words alone
There are things that are hard to say plainly, but easier to find through colour, shape, or a mark on a page. A feeling doesn't always arrive as a sentence. Sometimes it arrives as a colour you're drawn to, or a shape your hand makes before you've thought about why.
The creative practices in Motherlines Mail work with that. They're not about making something good, or even making something at all in the traditional sense. They're a way of listening to what's underneath — a feeling, an impulse, a state you haven't quite named yet — using a different language than words and going for it.
You don't need to be artistic for this to work, and there's no right or wrong way to do it. I'm not interested in what you make — I'm interested in what making it brings up, what you see. Because only you can really see it. Your body already knows, if you lead with your inner impulses, guiding you to get whatever it is inside, out. Then your mind will catch up with the body.
That's the whole practice, really — not the art itself, but the moment of honesty it creates space for.
My story
Before Motherlines, I spent sixteen years working as a Graphic Designer and Art Director. In 2021, I began studying Art Therapy — drawn to the way art, dance and music could express what words sometimes can't say. I found that drawing, and even movement, could get to the heart of a feeling, and bring a greater understanding and connection with myself.
In 2024, with the arrival of my child and my entry into motherhood, the studies paused. But what I learned and experienced in that time never left me, and I intend to return to it when my baby is a little older.
The art exercises I use in Motherlines are simple techniques — the same ones that brought me into the present moment after a stressful morning, grounded me, and reconnected me to myself. I think it's these small "tasks" that can really help others too.
What I found, through all of it, is that art can be used to notice what is true, real, raw and authentic. That's the practice Motherlines is built from.
How I work
Every piece of art I make for Motherlines comes from the same place — an intuitive process, not a planned one. I don't begin with an idea of what a piece should say. I begin with colour, or a mark, and follow it. Often the words that accompany a piece — the "intuitive message" that comes with each print — arrive the same way: not decided in advance, but found in the process of making.
I've learned, slowly, that my strongest work happens this way — abstract, unplanned, made in a kind of flow rather than worked out ahead of time. It's also the closest I can get to offering you something honest, rather than something polished for its own sake.
I'm not a qualified art therapist, and Motherlines isn't a substitute for therapy or clinical support. What I offer here comes from my own creative practice, my studies, and my lived experience of motherhood — not from clinical training. If you're navigating something that feels bigger than a creative practice can hold, I'd always encourage you to reach out to a qualified therapist or your GP alongside anything you do here.
Motherlines is a companion, not a treatment. It's here to sit beside you — not to fix, diagnose, or treat.