Seasons of the Witch continues my interest in photography’s materiality, surrealist strategies, and the occult history of photography. These self-portraits are tintypes, made using the historic wet collodion process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. For this process, a metal plate is coated with sensitised collodion, exposed in the camera, and developed while still wet. Each plate is unique. Streaks and swirls of chemistry merge with the portrait during exposure and development, enhancing the ethereal quality.
My portraits embody the mythological and magical symbolism of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year. Many witches mark the changing seasons by observing eight sabbats (night-time meetings) that occur roughly every six weeks. The seasonal rites were developed by Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca, a modern Pagan witchcraft.
Although a mid-20th-century synthesis, the rituals draw on ancient traditions, Celtic festivals and agrarian practices. In contemporary Paganism, these celebrations are linked to a story about the Goddess and the God, in which their lives reflect those of Nature. For Wiccans, these allegories of birth, death, and renewal deepen the human experience of transcendence and transformation.
