Joan and Bridgit say Sharpen your Claws by Evelyn Albrow

In this new body of work for Collect 2026, I continue to explore alternative matriarchal utopias. The past, present and future meet on celestial and earth- bound planes, creating dreamy worlds inhabited by monsters, matrons, saints and goddesses. 

Inspired by contemporary and historical spiritual and secular utopias, from Beguinages (founded in 1200s) to everyday communes like the Maison de Babayagas (set up in 2014 in Paris), this work explores ideas around community, solidarity, and feminism. 

The Calliach, a powerful, ancient Gaelic matriarch,  guides them on journeys across the sea in search of new beginnings and their own terrestrial paradise, where, on the horizon, a Beguinage style community offers them respite within walled gardens. They can avail themselves of large baths, choir stalls, and a well-equipped alchemy workshop to prepare for their insurgency against the male-instigated apocalypse.

Joan and Bridgit say Sharpen your Claws

In 1568, a book of proverbs published in Antwerp claimed that ‘One woman makes a din, two women a lot of trouble, three an annual market, four a quarrel, five an army, and against six the Devil himself has no weapon’.. This scene represents a moment of calm before going to battle. 

I was finishing this charger at the end of January over Imbolc, the day belonging to Saint Brigid Goddess of the Hearth. Known to preside over midwifery, poetry, crafts and iron work, her name means fiery arrow. She’s a fitting namesake for this scene: an alchemical workshop in which weapons are forged. Axes, arrowheads, and gloves with sharp metal talons (inspired by a real Victorian self-defense glove). A small yellow-haired man, the reminder of a persistent threat, is bound and ready to be tipped into the cauldron. 

The workshop shelves reference the Voynich manuscript (an illustrated codex believed to reveal late medieval gynaecological beliefs and sex secrets), and a very fun 18th century female urinal with her lover’s eye painted on the base with the words “Ha! I see you little rascal”. The table is scattered with Calendula flowers, known for their anti-inflammatory and menstruation regulating properties. Joan of Arc figures on the wall as an emblem of the female warrior. 

Inspiration for this came from a Charterhouse Coventry, a Carthusian monastery which has large rare Medieval wall paintings and Tudor ‘black and white’ murals. I also drew on from a 15th Century Rhenish painting of a nude young witch in funny pointy clogs called ‘Love Magic’ (artist unknown), an image of a good friend who’s just given birth, and Remedios Varo’s veiled figure from ‘Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle’. 

Stoneware charger.

2026

53D cm