Growth..

🌸

Cherry blossoms have always made me emotional.

The slower I began to heal, the more I found myself standing beneath them in silence, watching the petals flutter softly to the ground like tiny reminders that beauty was never meant to be rushed.

When peace finally reaches you, you feel it in the deepest parts of your soul. Over the last year, those quiet moments have felt like awakenings.

And somehow, cherry blossoms began following me everywhere.

On slow nature walks where I would stop and stare at them for far too long. In the artwork I surrounded myself with without even realising. In the films I gravitated towards during this season of my life. It was as though they kept appearing softly beside me, over and over again, guiding me toward this piece before I even understood why.

Spiritually, in Japanese teachings, cherry blossoms symbolise impermanence, presence, and the tenderness of slowing down long enough to truly feel your life as it passes through you.

I think that is exactly what this chapter of my story became.

Ten years ago, I trained as a hard cap wig maker under the guidance of a beautiful soul called Tyrone.

We laughed our way through long workshop days. He saw something in me before I ever saw it in myself. He saw my heart.

A young, overexcited girl desperately trying to find her place in the world.

I saw him too.

His gentleness.

His grief.

His extraordinary gift.

His love.

His hands moved like magic, I was captivated by him.

After he retired, life carried me elsewhere. My happiness dimmed for a while and I spent years trying to outrun myself.

Travel became my escape.

And somehow, by fate, that little girl from Essex found herself seeing parts of the world people only dream of. I thought I was searching for adventure, but really… I was searching for myself.

Every place I visited, every person I met, every heartbreak, every beautiful cultural difference slowly changed the way I looked at the world.

With softer eyes.

With gratitude.

With wonder.

I love people.

I love culture.

I love finding beauty in the things people are taught to hide.

I have always believed flaws are where the soul lives.

I experienced a lot of darkness growing up. Trauma and pain shaped behaviours within me that I have spent years slowly and compassionately unraveling.

And only now do I feel like I am finally returning to myself gently, softly, like blossom petals finding their way back to the earth.

This hard cap wig piece is inspired by 1800s Regency hairstyles, the roots of British pantomime dame wig artistry.

Braids.

Top knots.

Sculpted curls.

Romantic exaggeration.

And woven throughout the piece is delicate gold leaf inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese philosophy of repairing broken things with gold rather than hiding the cracks.

For me, the gold represents every mistake I have made, every wound I have carried, every version of myself I once tried to hide.

Maybe that is what growth truly is.

Not becoming someone new, but having the courage to return to the person you were before the world taught you to harden.

Sometimes it is simply learning to sit peacefully within yourself again.

To soften.

To trust your own hands.

To create from love instead of survival.

Like cherry blossoms, we are constantly shedding old versions of ourselves to make room for something gentler, wiser, and more alive.

Ten years later, after all the running, I finally came home to my art.

But most importantly…

I came home to myself.

I feel like I am finally blooming where I stand.

With love always, Loz