Materials Library
The Shifting States Materials Library explores materials and their inherent meanings, offering a way to think about material as more than just a medium. By engaging with materials intuitively, creative practice can support you through periods of change, uncertainty, and transition. This library is designed to help you work with material meaning as a grounding, reflective tool as you navigate life’s more difficult moments.
Material Type
Symbolic Meanings
- absence
- alchemy
- amplification
- Ancestry
- boundaries
- care
- clarity
- comfort
- connection
- depth
- emotional support
- endurance
- flexibility
- flow
- grief
- grounding
- growth
- healing
- identity
- impermanence
- intention
- journey
- legacy
- love
- memory
- patience
- place
- presence
- preservation
- protection
- purity
- release
- renewal
- residue
- resilience
- ritual
- self discovery
- shadow
- softening
- stability
- strength
- survival
- thresholds
- time
- transformation
- transition
- truth
- warmth
Leather
Leather symbolises endurance and the passage of time through the body.
Obsidian
Facing what lies beneath the surface.
Hematite
Hematite is a dense, iron-rich stone associated with grounding and physical presence.
Wool
Soft protection and embodied warmth.
Beeswax
Preservation and change shaped by touch.
Hawthorn
Guardian of the heart’s deepest spaces.
Nettle
Resilience shaped through adversity.