Unwell Women.
Elinor Cleghorn.
I have been reading Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn as part of my research, and it has made me think a great deal about the body and the stories it holds. The book traces how women’s experiences have been interpreted over time, often through the understanding available in each era, starting with Hippocrates in ancient Greece through to the modern day. What struck me most was seeing how easily ordinary symptoms were shaped into something else, simply because the language, knowledge or understanding was not yet there.
One example that stayed with me was a description of the witch trials. The list of “signs” used to identify witches was made up of things we now recognise as symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Hot flushes, sleeplessness, changes in mood or energy, shifts in the skin. All completely natural transitions, yet in a different historical moment they were seen as evidence of something suspicious or even criminal. Reading this, it became clear how fragile our interpretations can be, and how much they are influenced by the time and culture we live in.
This sits alongside my own experience of trying to understand my body more fully. I live with fibromyalgia, hypermobility and scoliosis, all of which have shaped my relationship with pain, movement and energy for as long as I can remember. Over the past few years I have also been working through the screening process for autism, wanting clarity about the way I think, experience things and move through the world. I have known for some time that I am likely autistic, but there is still an uncertainty that lingers until it is formally confirmed. What I did not expect was to learn that I also show several strong indicators for ADHD. It was never something I had considered, yet as I learn more, it explains patterns and behaviours that have always felt slightly out of step with those around me.
Discovering that there is a high correlation between autism, fibromyalgia and hypermobility has also shifted the way I think about my own body. For a long time these things felt separate, as though I was carrying several unrelated strands that did not quite fit together. Learning that they often occur alongside one another has made everything feel a little less scattered. It offered a sense of recognition, as if these pieces of myself might all fit in the same puzzle.
The place where everything feels simplest, though, is the landscape. When I am in a forest or standing at the edge of a quiet stretch of water, the noise around labels and diagnosis fades into the background. Nature does not ask for explanations. It allows me to be present without having to justify anything or feel as though I’m being constantly observed by others. My body feels less like something to manage and more like something simply taking part in the world.
This feeling carries into my paintings. Ink, in its own way, mirrors that honesty. It behaves as it chooses, settling where it wishes, and there is something steadying about that. When I paint, I am not trying to escape my body, but I am looking for a way to work with it. The slow washes, the repetition, the places where the ink moves just slightly beyond my control, all of it feels grounding. An act of listening.
Cleghorn’s writing also reminded me that women’s experiences have often been present in quiet ways rather than declared openly. There is something reassuring in that, in knowing that many of the things we feel or struggle to have recognised have been felt before. It makes me think of painting as a way of holding those quieter stories. Not to explain them, but simply to allow them space and give them a voice.
As I continue with my research into memory, belonging and the emotional pull of certain landscapes, I keep returning to the idea of in-between spaces. The space between the body and the land. The space between certainty and uncertainty. The space between how we are seen and how we quietly understand ourselves. Painting with ink gives me room to sit in that space without forcing a conclusion. It lets me express what I cannot always put into words, and lets the landscapes I return to hold feelings that are still finding their shape. In that sense, the work becomes a place of its own, somewhere that feels honest, and somewhere I hope others might find a reflection of their own quieter experiences too.
