ailie bee olympia
Toward the end of last year I felt like I needed a new archive to connect with in this new house, something that could inspire me. I’ve done this in the past and it’s often helpful. I’ve meant for a long time to post about it here, and I do wish I had done that because I feel a bit disconnected now from the articulation of the concept, but when I look at the pictures I saved, it still makes perfect sense. (Ailie) Bee Olympia is something like a Merlin, a medieval witch who is a time traveler, who is connected to those ways of living & knowing, but here in the present. She cares for her home as a witch / shrine maiden, gardens, and feels her interconnection with magic & the world & animals. I think this came out of my re-ignited interest in the medieval world & medieval art after J & I visited the Met Cloisters, and the thinking I’ve been doing on gardening, medieval gardening, the new garden I have in my backyard, and the way that the Met Cloisters reminded me of my Grandma’s garden.
Hilary Berseth, Programmed Hive #2, 2007. Honeybee comb on board mounted on hive super, wood, polystyrene foam, wire, metal.
Photographed by Steve Heitt for Marie Claire, 1985.
Chappel Roan
Kate Bush in the music video for “The Man With the Child in His Eyes,” 1978
Natasha Pickowicz
margot terc
Ann Demeulemeester S/S 2025 photographed by Angela Ricciardi
Sasha Elage
gothic sculpture of Mary Magdalene, Écouis, France, 1311-1313.
Kate Bush
Angela Eastman’s Braiding the Knoll project
Kate Bush
Kevin Lucbert, A soul’s journey, ink on paper.
Cassandra the Sphinx Portal door protector
Met Cloisters
X (2022) dir. Ti West
Dóra Maurer, Seven Rotations 1 – 6, 1979
Photographed by Steve Heitt for Marie Claire, 1985.
Oregon sunstone
Photographed by Steve Heitt for Marie Claire, 1985.
Joanna Newsom’s Ys (2006)
Chappel Roan
Legend
Meryl Streep rehearsing for Shakespeare in the Park (1979)
“making a garden is plenty”
Ulrich von Pottenstein, Austria, ca. 1430
shrine at a spring in Wiltshire, England
Kate Bush in the music video for “The Man With the Child in His Eyes,” 1978
Chappel Roan
Angela Eastman’s Braiding the Knoll project
New York City Ballet production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Suzanne Farrell as Titania & choreography George Balanchine, 1966
