Creating & Holding Space

Wombwood House, is inspired by the flexible hospitality of willow (affectionately termed ‘wombwood’) and the lifegiving realm of the beaver. It refers to images of twigs, sticks and logs skillfully woven together to create space for life. Nests! Yes, but the beaver’s endeavor is a larger feat. She creates a watery habitat, a womb, that not only sustains her own life, but establishes room for others to thrive as well.

Authenticity in artistry and human becoming requires personal internal hospitality, holding contemplative, patient space for thoughts, ideas and emotions to exist and find meaningful organization and expression. Time taken to slow down, cultivate presence and welcome the subconscious, deep and hidden can be understood as an important gestational process. Intentional engagement in artisanal practice—making things with our hands—is one way of fostering that kind of potential. Deliberate time spent among the natural world and in practices like welcoming prayer, ecstatic dance and free movement are others, and there are many more. As artists, liturgists and space-holders we craft these opportunities in hopes of catching the divine spark of inspiration so new things can manifest themselves. We pick up stones and sticks, form altars and wait for heavenly fire.

In this way, artists prophetically demonstrate the wider human quest: to be united with the divine, experience wholeness and embody new life in the world.

Wombwood House is the soulful extension of maker, muser and mystic, Talita Jolene. Her work is driven by a desire to provide hospitable space to encounter the Sacred, organically allowing for the meaningful flourishing of both herself and others as a generative realm giving life to those journeying as creatives, contemplatives and especially, simply as humans.