Brigids
Brigids is a set of ten small, brightly-coloured statuettes made of clay, foraged bones, and feathers, based on Brigid dolls.
These dolls, called Brídeógs in Irish, are traditionally made from straw, rushes, corn, and fabric to celebrate the annual festival of Imbolc, which marks the return of spring.
Imbolc typically falls around February 1st in the Northern Hemisphere, as a midpoint between winter solstice (or Yule) and spring equinox (Ostara or Easter). The festival is strongly associated with Saint Brigid or Brigid of Kildare, the patroness saint of Ireland, where Imbolc is accordingly also known as Saint Brigid’s Day. However, this festival is believed to have pre-Christian origins which may date back to the Neolithic. It is similarly thought that the figure of Saint Brigid was produced by syncretisation with Brigid or Brigit, who was a goddess of pre-Christian Ireland.
Brigid is traditionally characterised as a poet-seer goddess, with two sisters of the same name, dedicated to healing and smithing. Due to Brigid’s connection with the return of spring, her figure is strongly associated with the sun and fire, prompting lamps and candles to be used in depictions, rituals, and ceremonies dedicated to her. Brigid is also associated with livestock, and with holy wells located in both Ireland and Britain. In Ireland, where many places have taken versions of Brigid’s name, these wells are traditionally visited at Imbolc. Both Saint Brigid and the goddess Brigid were said to have links to fire and thermal springs, and to be able to control the weather, multiply food, and bestow livestock.
Outside of Ireland, Brigid appears in Haitian Vodou, and is represented in the Scottish place names of East and West Kilbride, a number of places in Wales, and in historic carvings and frescoes in Glastonbury, England, as well as in names of locations in the Americas, Germany, and Antarctica.
The figure of Brigid has also been claimed in recent years as a popular feminine deity in contemporary Ireland, and as a component of modern pagan religion internationally, which some scholars feel has exaggerated the significance that the goddess traditionally held. This perspective is likely valid, given the decision in 1985 to name a tholus on Venus for the goddess Brigid, and the creation in 2023 of Saint Brigid’s Day and Imbolc as an annual public holiday in Ireland.
These statuettes represent Brigid in a wide, colourful variety of forms as a way of reflecting the vast scope of the associations this goddess has accrued, particularly with brightness, flowers, water, seasonal shifts, flight, outer space, and fire, as several of these figures hold candles, or are decorated with foraged bird bones and feathers.
The forms of these statuettes were also inspired by Alexander Girard’s Wooden Dolls, designed in 1952 as a family of diverse animal, human, and mystical characters, in tribute to the traditions of the folk arts that he and his wife Susan Girard collected and later donated to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Girard’s Wooden Dolls are still reproduced by the Vitra Design Museum, based in Germany.
Brigids are intended to be used in a cluster to observe the yearly festival of Imbolc at the start of February, in its traditional association with the coming of spring, and to represent the significance of the ancient and enduring goddess figure of Brigid, as her character continues to expand and evolve.
Jennie Cole, Brigids
2026
Mixed media
A set of ten statuettes.
Jennie Cole, Brigid I
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
22.5 × 6.7 × 6 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid II
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
30 × 7 × 7 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid III
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
23.5 × 9.3 × 8 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid IV
2026
Clay, foraged bone, brass, acrylic paint
19 × 5 × 8.5 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid V
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
15.6 × 16 × 7.7 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid VI
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
28.3 × 8 × 5 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid VII
2026
Clay, foraged bone, brass, acrylic paint
14.7 × 6.6 × 5.2 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid VIII
2026
Clay, foraged bone, feather, acrylic paint
19.5 × 8.5 × 4.5 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid IX
2026
Clay, foraged bone, brass, acrylic paint
19 × 6.7 × 5.7 cm
Jennie Cole, Brigid X
2026
Clay, foraged bone, brass, acrylic paint
17.5 × 5.5 × 5.5 cm
