Eloise Birnam-Wood
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birnamwood.bsky.social
Eloise Birnam-Wood
@birnamwood.bsky.social
530 followers 680 following 91 posts
Artist + writer. Poetry! Folklore! Feminism! Medical Humanities! Art! The Gothic! ‘90s Music! Zines! The occult! Collage! Books! Ginger cats! More art! Sylvia Plath! Aesthetics! Tarot! Cake! Bit more art, maybe!

www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BirnamWoodPrints
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birnamwood.bsky.social
Watercolour and coloured pencil, Windsor and Newton Indian Red and Castle Arts Chinese Orange. Very pleased with this face in particular, given my relative lack of experience with the media.
December 5, 2025 at 9:09 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Fans of the aesthetic might recognise the first image, which has been floating around online since 2013. Finding a source has confounded three image searches, so, unable to contact the artist for purchasing, I’ve created a master copy. Original on the left, my version on the right. Moon to follow.
December 5, 2025 at 9:05 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Reposting my Craft tarot, because it’s Halloween and I can.
October 31, 2025 at 5:21 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
The veil thins; the beloved dead come home.
A photo of an altar decked for Halloween, with candles, incense, sweets and bottles of water, a sage plant in a terracotta pot, a skull ornament, and, in a silver frame, a photograph of a young woman with long light-brown hair.
October 31, 2025 at 5:08 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
And a bonus witch because I’m feeling generous.
October 26, 2025 at 2:40 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Well, since you mentioned it… here’s four I made into tarot cards. Can you believe The Craft turns 30 next year?
October 26, 2025 at 2:38 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Couldn’t sleep last night, so at 2am I decided to have a go at bookbinding. As you do.

I had a knackered old paperback kicking around, and some fabric and paper and glue and board. It’s not perfect, but for an impromptu first attempt I think it’s pretty good.
A fat hardback book, bound in William Morris-style fabric and lined inside with gold-and-cream printed paper, presented on an orange background.
September 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
A heat map of the name distribution might be the best I can do — that bright red bit is maybe two days’ ride from Manningtree.
August 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Obligatory cat tax.

The timing was perfect, I must say. I’d just managed to get over all the stupid stuff I said between the ages of 13 and 35 and now I’ve got something new to keep me awake in the small hours.
A ginger tabby cat, asleep with his head on a red paisley pillow, on a red with a cream calico canopy. He is very handsome and looks very comfortable.
June 21, 2025 at 11:01 PM
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June 13, 2025 at 10:50 AM
birnamwood.bsky.social
If you get me out of bed on the hottest day of the year just to do goldfish impressions when I ask you a simple question, you get a sign.

They’re damned lucky I didn’t open the door naked.
A sign on white paper, taped to a green door with brown tape. The sign reads: “Reform canvassers — do not knock — post no flyers.
June 13, 2025 at 10:25 AM
birnamwood.bsky.social
From Allen Ginsberg’s essay “Demonstration or Spectacle as Example, as Communication or How to Make a March/Spectacle,” some ideas for peaceful protest. This has been credited with the birth of Flower Power. I found it quite difficult to get hold of online, so I’ve never read it before.
The following are specific suggestions for organizing march and turning marchers on to their roles in the demonstration. 1. Masses of flowers—a visual spectacle-especially concentrated in the front lines. Can be used to set up barricades, to present to Hell's Angels, police, politicians, and press and spectators whenever needed or at parade's end. Masses of marchers can be asked to bring their own flowers. Front lines should be organized and provided with flowers in advance. 2. Front lines should be the psychologically less vulnerable groups. The Women for Peace or any other respectable organization, perhaps a line of poets and artists, mothers, families, professors. This should also be announced (publicized in advance). 3. Marchers should bring crosses, to be held up in front in case of violence; like in the movies dealing with Dracula. (This for those who use crosses or Jewish stars.) 4. Marchers who use American flags should bring those: at least one front row of American flags and myriad in the spectacle. 5. Marchers should bring harmonicas, flutes, recorders, guitars, banjos and violins. (Those who don't use crosses or flags.) Bongos and tambourines. 6. Marchers should bring certain children's toys (not firecrackers or balloons which cause noise hysteria) which can be used for distracting attackers: such as sparklers, toy rubber swords, especially the little whirling carbon wheels which make red-white-blue sparkles, toy soldiers. 7. In case of heavy anxiety, confusion or struggle in isolated spots marchers could be led in Sit Down Mass Calisthenics In case of threat of attack marchers could intone en masse the following mantras The Lord's Prayer Three Blind Mice (sung) OM (AUM) long breath in unison Star Spangled Banner Mary Had a Little Lamb (spoken in unison) 8. More interesting Zen/Spectacle SIGNS As In Oakland So In Vietnam Everybody's Made Of Meat Nobody Wants To Get Hurt-Us Or Them Everybody's Wrong Including U.S. Hell's Angels Vietcong Birch Society DON'T FILIP We Love You Too 9. Candy bars carried by marchers to offer Hell's Angels and police. 10. Marchers encouraged to carry copies of the Constitution if they have them; or can buy them. 11. Little paper halos to offer Angels, police and spectators and patriots. 12. A row of marchers with white flags and many white flags in mass. 13. Those who have movie cameras bring them and take pictures of spectacle or any action. (To combine for documentary film which could be used in court in case of legal hassles later, and also to circulate for propaganda and profits.) Monitors who can should have cameras. OTHER MORE GRANDIOSE POSSIBILITIES. 14. Corps of student newsmen to interview newsmen, propagandize and soften and charm TV crews etc. 15. Small floats or replicas in front: Christ with sacred heart and cross (invite church groups to prepare) Buddha in meditation (invite Zen people to come march and meditate on floats) George Washington, Lincoln, Whitman, etc. (float or living masquerade) Thoreau behind bars' (float) Hell's Angels float-with halos, happy, praying (no ugly provocative caricature) Birch Society float (old ladies in tennis sneakers) Dixieland Band float dressed as Hitler Stalin Mussolini Napoleon and Caesar (See "Universal Soldier" song) 3 16. At first sign of disturbance, public address systems swing into vast sound to loud Beatles "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and marchers instructed to dance (if not doing calisthenics or Lord's Prayer). (These could be schematized as strategy 1, 2, 3, etc for diverting crowd and angels from violence.) 17. The Mime Troupe in costume a block down the march, walking doing pantomime. 18. Sound tracks with Bay area rock 'n' roll bands every 2 blocks, Jefferson Airplane, The Charlatans, etc. (These bands have their own sound systems.) Family Dogg people might be able to arrange this. This scheme to pick up on the universal youth rockroll protest of Dylan, "Eve of Destruction," "Universal Soldier," etc. and concretize all that consciousness in the parade. 19. Front (or toward front) —toy army in costume, Civil War or Revolutionary War or WW I uniforms and signs: NO MORE LEAVE ME ALONE Addenda: Pre-March Propaganda 1. Muslims, unions etc. all invited to join inside the masses. 2. Leaflets with above instructions to marchers how to channel their anxiety and respond to attack 3. Daily delegations to Hell's Angels to talk to them, pestering them in advance. 4. Petitions and letters and news releases to papers setting tone of march: Petitions to [Gov. ] Brown, open letter to Hell's Angels one news release (We're NOT going to fight); open letters to Young Republicans, Democrats, Birchers, Army, Johnson etc. All the propaganda suggested at Tuesday meeting- conferences with Oakland police to force them to keep peace. 5. Emphasize in propaganda TRUST THE MARCHERS to be hip, calm and tranquil with a sense of humor and not get sidetracked into frustration/ personal violence. 6. Perhaps as propaganda, an imaginary ladies corps to pull down Hell's Angels pants in case of attack, or a (theoretical) corps of trained fairies to seduce them in mid-battle. This is a sort of press release joke to lighten the atmosphere. WRITTEN: ca. Nov. 1965 FIRST PUBLISHED: Berkeley Barb (Nov. 19, 1965) pp. 1, 4. Reprinted: Liberation, vol. 10, no. 10 (Jan. 1966); Massimo Teodori, ed., The New Left (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970).
May 7, 2025 at 9:53 PM
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The Apothecary, digital collages. No AI, I find the natural kind sufficient.
April 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM
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Made this for an open call kinda near me and then realised that it was in-person drop off and collection and I’d never be able to make it. Boo. Posting it here instead because it’s easier than trying to catch three buses and two trains.
A painted portrait of the actress Pola Negri, looking very glamorous, with collaged additions: her hair has been replaced with snakes, making her look like Medusa, and her image is set in an ornate gold frame surrounded by angels with lanterns, roses, skulls, moons, stars and sacred hearts, and an honour guard of extravagantly dressed women with pink banners. Two banners draped top and bottom read “blessed am I among women.”
February 17, 2025 at 10:49 AM
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Go on then, one more…
A collage arranged around a portrait of a dark-haired woman wearing silk brocade and a forehead ornament of coins; her gold frame is surrounded by a peacock butterfly, waterlilies, waves, stars, flowers and a city built of towers. The cherubs on the top of the frame have forget-me-nots as haloes. The image has a banner for text, but it is blank.
January 19, 2025 at 9:27 PM
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These are the header pages for each suit of cards. I’d say that the project was informed by both the fine art collage tradition and also by culture jamming: images, advertising images intended to sell products in particular, are injected into my world and should be fair game for transformative work.
A digital collage in a wooden frame labelled “Suit of Coins.” A woman sits reading a book in a green armchair, surrounded by animals including a stag, a bear, a bird and a jackalope. They are presented against a background of ferns. A digital collage in a wooden frame labelled “Suit of Cups.” A woman in biblical dress sells liquids in glass bottles from a basket in front of a lake. She leans against an armchair with a ginger-and-white cat sitting on it and appears to be in conversation with a small winged figure hovering at head height. A digital collage in a wooden frame labelled “Suit of Swords.” A woman sits in a red armchair surrounded by crystal formations. She is toying with a sword. In the background, a red velvet curtain partly conceals a snappily dressed male escapologist who is suspended by his ankles in front of peacock-feather-print wallpaper. A digital collage in a wooden frame labelled “Suit of Wands.” A dark-haired woman in classical dress sits on a low couch with her grey tabby cat against a backdrop of books. Candles, plants and a guitar are arranged around her and the couch. She stares straight ahead, seemingly deep in solemn thought.
January 19, 2025 at 6:10 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Since I haven’t posted any art in a while, these are the covers and internal introduction pages for the book I’m making for myself based on my Tarot. The vision was to create a maximalist, celestial-aesthetic tarot based purely on public domain, stock, existing art, and advertising images.
The cover of a book on Tarot; a redheaded woman in a blue dress with tattoos of ancient motifs hangs a golden glitterball in a background of hanging gold stars. The action is enclosed in an ornate gold frame, and a banner reads “The Cosmic Love Tarot.” A frame for text, constructed of gothic architecture surrounded by elements including stars, comets, winged women, planets, books, stone angels, and a woman in medieval dress with a telescope and lunar globe. A crowned moon is in the centre at the top. There is no text in the space allowed for it. A collaged image including mermaids, potion bottles, daisies, stars, a golden sun, and portraits of women with wings and gold haloes. A banner reads “The Major Arcana.” A winged anatomical heart is placed underneath it. A collage featuring lotuses, lilies, ivy, shooting stars, and a portrait painting of a woman in Middle Eastern ethnic dress with a halo. In the centre are placed a chalice, dagger, leaf, and golden hoop. A banner underneath reads “The Minor Arcana.”
January 19, 2025 at 5:53 PM
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A coloured woodcut of two schnabelperchten, women in birdlike masks, shawls, aprons, and skirts, carrying a broom and an oversized pair of scissors, with baskets on their backs.
December 13, 2024 at 10:42 AM
birnamwood.bsky.social
If you see this, post a monster.

The Black Swine of Highgate!
November 24, 2024 at 5:43 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
For Bluesky’s first #caturday among so many new friends, a sketch of my boy from a few months ago.
A black-and-white graphite pencil sketch of a ginger tabby cat with a haughty expression.
November 16, 2024 at 5:17 PM
birnamwood.bsky.social
I’m going through this process just now, but it takes a while to get hold of the archive. Perhaps they’re having a lot of requests?
November 14, 2024 at 11:22 AM
birnamwood.bsky.social
Might have got bored and started designing tarot cards.
A tarot card, the High Priestess, designed as a collage with a blue background, celestial elements, roses, and a winged redheaded woman in the centre.
November 13, 2024 at 8:57 PM