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
Hawthorn
Guardian of the heart’s deepest spaces.
Quartz
Madder Root
Earth-rooted colour tied to history.
Drift Wood
The story of a long journey shaped by water.
Indigo
Deep transformation through slow process.
Nettle
Resilience shaped through adversity.
Rose Quartz
Gentle warmth for the unsettled heart.
Pewter
Alchemical transformation held in metal.
Clay
Rootedness and belonging through earth.