BIOGRAPHY
My name is Emily Jackson, also known as the Well Witch. I am an artist, career counselor, educator, doula, and menstrual coach living between Santa Cruz, CA and Missoula, MT.
My work honors women and the female body through an exploration of the menstrual cycle. Using acrylic and largely abstract forms, shapes, and colors, I visualize the experience of each day of my cycle—emotionally, physically, and spiritually—beginning on the first day of my period. I do not paint with my menstrual blood, but rather focus on using a traditional medium to express my inner experience. I incorporate gold each day as a reminder to myself and others that every day offers a bit of gold, a bit of magic and joy. As the gold catches and reflects light differently depending on the viewer’s positionality, my work also mirrors how our relationship to joy, meaning, and beauty shifts with perspective. We can often choose to bask in the gold, or to dive into the shadows; and we need to do both.
Our culture continues to stigmatize the menstrual cycle. It is rarely spoken of, and when it is the focus is often limited to pain, inconvenience, or pathology. There remains a disturbing lack of holistic menstrual cycle education for girls and young women, and only in my thirties have I begun to educate myself about the menstrual cycle. Alongside personal research and becoming a Certified Menstrual Coach (IPHM), my art practice has become a primary site of learning. It is a way to listen more closely to my body and cultivate a sacred relationship with my cycle. Through this practice, I have come to honor my need for quiet solitude during my bleed, the gentle reemergence of energy in my follicular phase, the aliveness and radiance of ovulation, and the deep wisdom and boundary-setting of my luteal phase. In a patriarchal and capitalist culture that demands consistency and linear productivity, tracking my cycle through art allows me to honor the unique truth of my experience each day. In creating this work, my intent is both to deepen my own embodied practice of cycle awareness, and to invite curiosity, reflection, and a reimagining of cyclical wisdom for others.
My work has been inspired by the groundbreaking menstrual cycle education and awareness work coming out of the Red School in the UK, and is in dialogue with menstrual artists such as Jasmine Alicia Carter and feminist artist collectives like Hilma’s Ghost. The aesthetics and use of gold in particular has been inspired by Gustav Klimt and the broader art nouveau movement.
What's in a name?
The moniker the Well Witch came to me during a soul-exploration nature retreat on Vancouver Island in 2024 with the Animas Valley Institute, an ecological and initiatory organization that guides people through nature-based rituals and soul-centered practices to cultivate belonging. I am, and have always been, a deeply emotional person, as well as a magical one. I cry easily and often, and have been known to weep through friend gatherings and team meetings alike. On that retreat, I was grappling with the depth of my feeling: why I feel so deeply, and what purpose this emotional intensity serves for me and for my community. When I touch grief, it feels like all the grief; when I touch joy, it is all the joy, as if I am connected to a vast undercurrent of humanity. While walking alone through the forest, brushing my fingers along a moss-covered tree, a voice rose clearly from within: I am the source. I am the well. And so, the Well Witch was born.
Only later did I learn that across Celtic and broader European traditions, sacred wells and springs were understood as living thresholds between worlds, and guardians of the wells emerged as mythic figures tasked with their protection. These guardians were often goddesses or female spirits, and ensured that wells were approached with reverence, ritual, and reciprocity rather than extraction or control. The protection of wells was also practical, in that wells provided access to clean water, essential for life. Women are the protectors and creators of life; we are the source of the spring waters and the guardians that protect it.