The Manmade Black 'Death' is the 'Life' of Laura

Some men may call her The Black Death...although she's only a woman. But for some it would be a metaphor. She traverses dark woods and lonely places, perhaps the shadows of man's misogynistic past. Maybe to him still a Witch, but I see no broom, spells or potions. Perhaps you've always been afraid to come under her spell, a mystique that you helped her create. And her long gown of black silk, an adornment of allure that you dressed her with, only to conveniently dismiss when it suits you. When really you hate to admit, you made it to conceal her heart of Gold. Which you hate to accept because you do not want your lives to be so perfect. So now she has become your lifetimes curse, one that you Invoked in the first place.

Which brings me to the liberation of Laura...Laura Knight, who was one of the leading painters of her generation, a figurative artist who embraced English impressionism. 

She worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. A painter in the figurative, realist tradition where her most popular paintings reflected the backstage world of performance – circus, ballet and theatre – capturing performers in fleeting, intimate moments. 

She became the first woman elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1936, the first in nearly two centuries since its foundation in 1768! And her large retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1965 was also the first for a woman. She was also selected as a War Artist, famously documenting the Nuremburg Trials in World War Two.

Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for women artists.

So don't hate women...you played your part in the hate. You just need to understand that avoiding your own emotional potential and deflecting it by putting it on women, has made her a Queen...and you not equally rightful King, but an emotional pauper :((


Ballet Profusion! From Laura's backstage kind to taking center stage and embracing your freeer and vulnerable side. Adopt a swan pose, spread your wings, imagine your own swan lake, where you are the only one graceful and beautiful.


Which leads me to Gillian Lynne, a former ballerina, and Bafta and Olivier winning choreographer and director, of musicals and films. Known for her choreography of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals Cats (one of the longest running theatre productions across the world), Phantom Of The Opera and Aspects of Love, and loads more. On what makes a good dancer she stated:

"You have to understand the element of movement in the core of your being, but you could do that without being a fantastic dancer, I think. You have to understand that movement and thought are wedded together. You can't just go and dance without a thought in your head. You need to know why you are doing the movements, what they mean to you and what they may mean to others."

[Below is Gillian in rehearsals with John Cranko, a South African ballet choreographer for a show at Hammersmith, London].