To coincide with the launch of Mother Moth by Adrian Bell, I decorated 4 cellos with designs taken from my illustrations to the book. The idea derives from a quote from Chapter 24, ‘The Mantle of Vulning’:

A terrible suffering was anciently seared into this cloth. You will feel that by its touch. Its revelation is undeniable. But I warn you, there is no poetry sad enough to sing its song, and no cello sad enough to play it. Not a whole quartet of them.

I think the Mantle of Vulning intends to embody on one hand our awareness of mortality and on the other the physicality of existence, or how embodiment seems to us. The cloak’s weight, like the burden of death salience, presses always upon us. Yet, the cloak, as a traditional symbol of the human body, is our only way of interacting with the world. Thus it represents the open sensorium that lets us experience the wonder of life.

Like any garment’s two sides, life and death are woven together in the Mantle’s fabric. The outward-facing side is life, engaged with the world, while death is the inner lining, ever-present though out of conscious sight. Each cello offers a different perspective on the Mantle symbol, revealing the multifaceted nature of Mother Moth’s tale and the profound interconnectedness of life, death, and the human experience.

The four cellos seen above are left to right: the Moth Cello, the Emblem Cello, the Goblin Cello and the Tree Cello. An example of the symbolism of these cellos images can be seen on the front of the Moth Cello at left. Here you see the figure of a mother working with distaff and spindle. This is an ancient image, related to the three Fates and destiny. Thread approximates to hair. For a shivering, neotenous creature, thread substitutes for a covering of hair. It is provided by a mother’s love, and supplies vital warmth for survival. Thread, like hair, denotes health and vitality. The texture of thread—clothing—eventually becomes as familiar to us as the feel of skin. It is a magical feeling, the kind of magic that’s so much a part of life we are unaware of it. We barely notice how culture and society swathe our lives like swaddling. The shawl that wraps us delivers the same comfort as our mother’s arms.