Folklore Workshop – Yuki-onna

Each Tuesday afternoon workshop will centre around the myth or folklore topic of that week. The aim will be to discuss ideas surrounding that belief or narrative and to come up with a finished piece using any of the methods and materials that are available. You will have access to paper/card, printing materials (linocut, block, mono or collagraph), paints, drawing materials, 3D resources (clay, paper mache, wire, wool), paints and other bits and pieces. You will have an experienced artist to help you develop your ideas and produce your artwork.

A Yuki-onna, which translates to “snow woman,” is a famous spirit or yōkai in Japanese folklore. She is typically depicted as an ethereally beautiful woman with long black hair, ageless pale skin, and icy eyes who appears during winter blizzards to haunt travelers or drain their life force. She often preys on lost wanderers, using her icy breath or a kiss to freeze them to death. Depending on the regional tale, she can be seen as the vengeful ghost of a woman who died in the snow, or as a spirit of nature itself—indifferent and deadly. In the most famous version of the story popularized by writer Lafcadio Hearn, she spares a young woodcutter’s life on the condition that he never speaks of her. He later marries a mortal woman—unaware she is the Yuki-onna in disguise—but eventually breaks his promise, causing her to vanish into the night.