Terra Mater - Earth Mother

Mater Sacra  - Mother Sacred

Sacra Terra - Sacred Earth

 

An evolving body of work exploring my deepening relationship with the peatlands of Somerset, inspired by the role of the peatlands as restorative carbon capture, cultural narrator and spiritual mystery.  Liturgy of love, written to the sacred feminine – mother earth, with the altar being a place of thanks and sorrow, offering and acknowledgement, representing birth, life, death and the circular rhythms that exist beyond time and place.

 

 

‘Earth Mother Sedge’ Banner

Earth Mother Sedge banner was created in recognition and reverence of the world’s peatlands, connecting with my context, the wider world and climate concerns.

The Somerset Levels contain large areas of peatland; buried deep within the ancient earth lies Glastonbury Lake Village.  This Iron Age village is a small wetlands settlement preserved in peat, discovered and excavated in the 1900s and now reburied.  Analysis of the peat revealed a high content of the plant Pendulous Sedge, (Carex Pendula), this plant is abundant across the levels and has self-seeded in my garden, full circle, I sense a deep connection and reverence for this plant and its relationship to time and place.

The banner also acknowledges the earth as feminine power and energy, reuniting and reclaiming the peatlands as sacred feminine, with peat symbolising the interconnectedness between birth, death, fertility and energy.

 

Earth Mother Sedge

A ceremonial banner to accompany the Terra Mater Altar, decorated with words shaped in dried sedge, textile circles coloured with paint created from peat, red embroidery and acrylic painted muslin sedge leaves.

Material: Sedge, muslin, peat, peat paint, embroidery thread, stitching, acrylic paint, wire, wood.

60cm x 50cm

2025 Emma Bartlett