CYCLATURE
The Full Story
Cyclature is a multi-media project spearheaded by composer Amy Wurtz, visual artists Anna Lentz and Erin O'Neill, and ceramic artist Carmen Petralia.
The Cyclature project began in 2017 when I began to compose a set of pieces for piano which were written specifically and exclusively on each individual day of my monthly menstrual cycle. I wanted to explore the physical, mental, emotional and energetic influences I was under and isolate each day, and I thought music would be the perfect medium to explore and understand the differences between each day of my cycle. I approached the project methodically, working daily on the music and also journalling about my emotions, physical state, energy, and feelings for each day. I had initially thought the project would take me one year to complete, but it ended up taking almost ten years from start to finish.
From the beginning, I had wanted to invite artists of other media to create work in the same way I was, and in 2023 I made an open call for collaborators. Anna Lentz, Erin O'Neill and Carmen Petralia responded, and after hearing about my ideas decided to join me and create their own works of art in the same fashion. Each artist simultaneously kept a journal in the same fashion.
Each piece of music--each "Cycle"--was finished, one by one, between 2021-2025. Anna was the first to finish her quilt, followed by Erin with 30 paintings on napkins and Carmen with 28 ceramic figurines in 2026. In a nod to the universal nature of this project, I invited 20 other Chicago-area pianists to record the music with me. The recordings were made during 2026, with the album being released worldwide on September 27, 2026.
The project continues, with performances of the music and exhibits of the artwork planned throughout 2027. Carmen, Anna, Erin and I also offer workshops in the process, inviting the community at large to create their own creative work in a similar fashion. Cyclature comes together as an artistic practice for people to understand, harness and create with the variable energy they have as a result of their monthly cycle.
We channel the energy and power of the cycle to bring more art into the world. We deepen each individual’s understanding of their own cycle and its influence and create more resilience and knowledge in the face of hormonal and physical fluctuations. We fuel an open conversation about menstruation and the lived experience of over half the world population as they go through this daily cycle which has traditionally been shrouded in silence, stigma, and mystery. While the original project was based on menstruation, we invite anyone to observe the various cycles in their own life and share in the experience of self-understanding and deepening intuition by working in our own methodology and we provide tools and resources for this journey of self-discovery.
The Pianists
Twenty Chicago-based pianists joined composer Amy Wurtz to record the entire set of 26 Cycles. The result is an entire album of piano music almost three hours in duration. These pianists brought sparkling skill, expressive interpretation, and their enthusiastic energy to this project and made it truly come to life.
Anna Lentz
Anna Lentz is a visual artist and arts educator living in Dundee, IL. She studied anthropology, women’s studies, and studio art at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN as well as community art at California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA. She earned her MA in Art Education at School of the Arts Institute, Chicago, IL. Her research interests include community-based art education, hospitality, and vernacular art. Anna currently processes her emotions and life happenings through painting and sewing vibrant colors and shapes. She also explores the natural worlds of her woodland home where she practices conservation and agroforestry.
In creating my quilt for the Cyclature process, I relied on my intuition to direct my daily choices. Each day of my cycle, I would pick from a bounty of colorful fabric scraps and a rainbow of embroidery threads without thinking. After making my selection, I would appliqué (using the embroidery thread and a rough-edge appliqué technique) little circles cut from the scraps onto the neutral ground of an antique, heirloom napkin designated for that particular day of my cycle. I would sew as many as I could - often carrying it with me wherever I went. While the circles came from a variety of colors and fabrics, I limited my embroidery floss to a single color per day.
This whole process helped me immensely to connect to my intuition through locating my desire to create whatever I want to create - choose colors that satisfy me in some way, etc. I did not have a grand, comprehensive picture in mind of the finished quilt, it was merely composed one small circle at a time - guided by that day’s whims.
Erin O'Neill
Erin Elizabeth O'Neill (b. 1983, St. Louis, Missouri) lives and works in Chicago. O'Neill received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2008 for Painting and Drawing. Her work reflects a deep love of figurative symbolist art.
O'Neill began working in watercolor at the age of 17. While she formally trained in oil painting during her academic years, she returned to watercolor and ballpoint pen after her child's birth due to their accessibility and low toxicity. After becoming a mother, O'Neill's work became a way for her to understand herself postpartum. She started with small, manageable
studies she could do on her couch or while riding the bus to work. Eventually, her images evolved into a more extensive series of paintings that addressed the shift in personal identity
postpartum.
Her paintings and watercolors have been exhibited in notable galleries such as the ARC Gallery (Chicago, IL), Paradice Palase (Brooklyn, NY), Dallas Metro Arts Contemporary (Dallas, TX), The St. Louis Artist Guild (St. Louis, MO). Pikchur Magazine and Harbor Review are some of the publications that have featured her work. O'Neill received an honorable mention at the Watercolor 2020 Juried Exhibition at the Norris Cultural Center (St. Charles, IL).
These ink paintings were created as part of the Cyclature collaboration along with other creatives tracking their menstrual cycles through intuitive art making. My birth control prevents regular menstruation symptoms so instead I followed the moon cycles, an ancient way for women across cultures to track their menstrual cycles. Despite the disconnection to my symptoms, noticeable patterns still emerged across my paintings.
Each painting was made intuitively. I used blue ink in reference to the commercial presentation of menstruation that sterilizes people's perceptions of the experience from a young age, regardless of gender. While I don’t expect a tampon commercial to lead these conversations through their visuals, our lack of public discourse about the reality of menstruation means it is sometimes the only representation we see in our culture.
The use of napkins was also intentional as a reference to the term “sanitary napkins”, which is language that furthers our commercialized and cultural commitment to disassociate from any honest representation of menstruation. Napkins were also what was traditionally used to absorb blood before the contemporary invention of menstrual products. I have chosen to hang these ink paintings using clothespins like laundry on a line hung out to dry.
Carmen Petralia
Carmen Petralia is a Chicago-based multi-media artist heavily focused on clay art and its healing properties. Telling stories through clay and other art allows a release without using a literal voice. Whether that’s ceramic sculpture, claymation, creative writing or painting, the link between humans, earth and creating is something to be used to help her heal from trauma through artistic expression. She studied Cultural Entrepreneurship with an art minor at the University of Minnesota leading to becoming a creative entrepreneur. She teaches and makes ceramics, and bakes generational recipes. Ceramics is her true love, and is shown through various techniques such as, wheel-throwing, hand-building, sgraffito, mishima, underglaze slip trailing, and freehand painting.
During the Cyclature process, my method started with journaling. I’d record the date, time, day of my menstrual cycle, starting with the first day I bled. Then would follow a check-in focused on my body’s physical sensations and whatever emotions I was feeling that day. After writing, I’d sculpt according to that day of my cycle. Then, I would fire the figurines, and glaze them the next time it was that specific day of my menstrual cycle. The clay I chose was based on whatever I had available to me that day. Choosing to leave the faces blank was intentional since this was a daily practice that I wanted to stay consistent with, so a simpler form was necessary. Each hairstyle was an actual hairstyle I was wearing while sculpting them. Some days, I was so tired, they ended up bald. Glazing them was up to my own desires.
Each figure took a minimum of two cycles to complete. At times, there were casualties of these little ladies meaning I would either repair or remake the figures also only on that specific day of my cycle. Towards the end of this process, after many legs, arms and heads falling off, there were several figurines that had to emerge mysteriously not according to the process I had previously followed. Interestingly enough, these casualties occurred around the same time each month. It almost always corresponded with the week leading up to when I began bleeding. This is very indicative of how our cycles repeat and how we persist despite dealing with various hormones, mood swings and varying levels of pain.
The Art & Artists
Amy Wurtz
A fervent advocate for new music and the community that surrounds and supports it, Amy Wurtz is a vibrant performer, composer, and curator of new music.
Her recent album, Cello Dances at Night, with the Wurtz-Berger Duo, a cello-piano collaboration with Alyson Berger, features Amy’s work Songs and Dances which was commissioned by the 2016 Ear Taxi Festival. Originally from California, Amy has lived and worked in the Bay Area, Southern California, throughout the Midwest, South America and Europe. In addition to composing and curation, she is in demand as a solo pianist, chamber and choral musician, teacher, and collaborative pianist.
Amy performs regularly with the Wurtz-Berger Duo, Access Contemporary Music, the Calumet Chamber Musicians, and as President of New Music Chicago, is an active force in the new music community. She curates New Music at the Green Mill and the Impromptu Fest, and performs regularly at the Thirsty Ears Festival and the Sound of Silent Film Festival in Chicago.
Cycles is a project I have been working on since 2017, and is deeply personal to me. It has been a lifelong struggle for me to understand the monumental shifts in my mood, energy and focus on a monthly basis. They Cycles project is my attempt to use my art to understand my physiology and my psyche. The daily work which is specific to each day's hormonal and chemical makeup is like a microscope for me to examine the effects of my cycle. I am honored to be joined by Erin, Anna and Gloria on this journey, and invite others to join us in this process of discovery.
My method for creating each of these pieces was simple — only work on each piece when I am living the corresponding day in my cycle. So, for example, I began writing Cycle 1: Invocation, on January 15, 2017, and then continued working on it 26 days later, February 10, and then again on March 8, etc. The process was the same for each piece, ensuring that it had the same types of hormones coursing through my body and roughly the same physical feelings while I was working on each piece. The other artists worked on their pieces in a similar fashion.
This was a lengthy process, and a new way to compose for me. I found that some of the pieces started off quite fragmented, as seems natural with this method, but others flowed very easily and after 26 days I could pick up where I left off without any problems at all. While I believe there are certain musical elements intrinsic to my compositional voice that are the same across all my music, I hear each of these 26 pieces as unique unto itself, while the pieces speak to me with a common vocabulary which I believe arose from my method of composition.