The Landscape Moth

Full Moon — 30th May

This month’s full moon card accidentally became landscape.

Which sounds like a tiny thing, but somehow it became the entire point of the piece.

Almost all of the other cards I’ve made this year have been portrait format — upright little devotional objects, almost like tiny icons — and out of habit I automatically started this one the same way.

Except somewhere during the process it turned itself sideways.

At first I genuinely thought I’d got it wrong.

Then I realised I absolutely loved the fact that it had broken the pattern.

And maybe that says something important about me.

I’ve always loved outsider art. Folk art. Handmade things that don’t entirely obey convention. Work with rough edges and visible decisions still left inside it. Art that feels human rather than perfected.

But also — and this is important — I think there’s humour in it too. Playfulness.

I love things that gently disrupt expectation. Giant flowers towering over a room. Knitted animals pretending to be real creatures. Ceramic pots that imitate stitched fabric. Tiny things made enormous. Precious things made from humble materials. Work that makes you pause for a second because something feels slightly “off” in the most delightful way.

The landscape moth gave me that same feeling. It quietly breaks the established rhythm of the other cards and somehow becomes more alive because of it.

Not rebellious in some grand dramatic sense. Just playful. A small reminder that many of the rules governing our lives are invented ones — habits, expectations, routines, ideas about productivity, self-improvement, and the “correct” way to exist.

And sometimes it’s healthy to turn the page sideways and realise nothing terrible happens.

I think part of my attraction to that kind of work comes from always feeling slightly like an outsider myself.

I’m very good at shapeshifting. Adapting myself to different spaces, different groups of people, different expectations. I can become many versions of myself depending on where I am and what’s needed from me.

But underneath that, there’s always been another part of me that quietly resists imposed rules. Especially the invisible ones we create for ourselves.

The “right” way to live.
The “correct” way to improve yourself.
The approved version of womanhood.
The endless pressure to optimise your body, productivity, routines, energy, creativity, health.

And lately I’ve realised how exhausting that constant self-monitoring can become.

The moth itself ended up reflecting that too.

I drew it first, then gradually built it up using acrylic paint markers, Sharpies, fineliners and red pens. It isn’t really a painting in the traditional sense. It’s layered mark-making. Responsive rather than planned. You can still see the adjustments and decisions inside it.

Which feels strangely fitting.

Because over half term I kept catching myself mentally listing everything I hadn’t done.

I didn’t start Couch to 5K.
I still haven’t repaired my bike.
Some of my seedlings died because I neglected them.
I rested more than I planned to.
I drifted away from routines I thought I’d established.

And underneath all of it was this feeling that I was somehow “doing life wrong.”

But who decided that?

Who decided productivity is morally superior to rest?
Who decided every hobby must become self-improvement?
Who decided middle age should become a relentless project of fixing ourselves?

So much of it is inherited pressure. Social pressure. Internalised pressure. Stories we repeat until they begin to feel like objective truth.

The cinnabar moth felt perfect for this moment too.

Bright crimson against charcoal black. Warning colours. Survival colours. A creature that continues regardless.

On the back of the card I wrote:

Intention
To allow myself to change direction without shame.

Practice
Tend what is still growing instead of mourning everything that didn’t.

I think that’s what I’m trying to learn at the moment.

Not to abandon ambition entirely.
Not to stop caring for myself.
Not to give up on health or creativity or movement.

But to loosen the grip of perfectionism.

To stop treating every pause as failure.
To stop narrating every change of direction as weakness.
To stop assuming there is one “correct” way to move through a life.

This afternoon I’m going back through older art cards and filling in intentions and practices I forgot to write at the time.

Not scrapping the whole project because parts were unfinished.

Just returning to it.

Sideways if necessary.