When I read Grimms’ Fairy Tales I was drawn to the image of the cottage glowing in dark forests and a figure like Mother Trudy inside. Such a dwelling attracts the cold, hungry or curious but, as in Hansel and Gretel, it is a sugar trap and home to a diabolical anti-mother. My cottages in the forest also contain witches and sorcerers. Some are also candy-coloured with a figure seen in the window, but this figure is ambiguous, genderless and not identifiable as the lethal crone of folklore. As I developed the series, the cottages moved even further from their source and became places of creativity or reflection. I interpreted the cottage as an artist’s or contemplative’s place in which the witch’s firelight has turned into a ribbon of illumination streaming from the cell of the monk or maker.
