Women + Patterns + Plants
Sarina Mantle
Liminal 11
December 2018
This “self-care colouring book” by Sarina Mantle is 50% coloring book, 50% journal, and 100% work of art. (Don’t question the math, just embrace the patterns and relax.) Within its pages, you can find peaceful and powerful images of women, lush landscapes to bring to life, places to write and reflect, and soothing patterns to lose yourself in. A celebration of the feminine, Women + Patterns + Plants provides shelter from a harsh and abrasive world.
From the moment I laid eyes on the cover of Women + Patterns + Plants, I could tell I was in for a treat. Bright oranges and pinks give the book a warm, welcoming feel that invited me to open it and explore. Paging through the book, it quickly became clear that this is a work that embraces and celebrates the feminine.
I don’t mean a stereotypical Euro-centric white woman feminine, either. Mantle’s feminine is unapologetically, vibrantly black. Hair with kinks and coils, puffs and braids. Patterns inspired by her parents’ roots on St. Lucia. Headwraps and geometric jewelry.
Mantle makes no mystery of the purpose of her book, laying it out in her introduction:
“There are three things which create a revolution in my heart: women, patterns, and plants… This self-care colouring book awakens the divine feminine energy through hand-drawn images to inspire and empower you.”
I have to be honest here. When I first opened Women + Patterns + Plants, I wondered if I had any business reviewing it. I worried I might inadvertently white woman all over something that isn’t for me. Because in many ways, this coloring book isn’t for me; it is the work of a black woman of color creating for herself and other women like her. Mantle’s work adds another voice to a shelf that includes LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis’s Ebony Essence, and E.B. Davis and Julie J. Sheah’s The Rhymes and Hues of Ebony.
Determined to do right by the book, I dove into Women + Patterns + Plants. My stress ebbed as I flipped page after page. Patterns calm a racing mind. Potted plants and climbing vines soothe. Journaling prompts and blank pages provide space to reflect. Illustrations of women engaged in yoga and self-care generate feelings of serenity.
The result is at once deeply personal and extremely relatable. At first, I fretted about coloring well enough, both to do the illustrations justice and because I wanted to share a page I had done in this review. But I realized that was working against Mantle’s purpose in creating the book. I wasn’t taking care of myself; I was stressing out and setting off my anxiety. Once I embraced the book as it was meant to be, I enjoyed myself more and found the time I spent in its pages to be genuinely calming. I stopped fretting over periods of forced inactivity and used them to refresh myself.
If you enjoy combining art and journaling, or just want to explore what the feminine can include, Women + Patterns + Plants might be right up your alley. It’s not a universal feminine—because I don’t think there is a universal feminine—but it’s a wonderful, powerful, inspiring one.