Ashmolean visit

I went to the Ashmolean Museum a while ago.  I really like that museum but it’s now first among equals with Wiltshire Museum and Salisbury Museum.


Here are some of the pictures I took...


Looking at this very cute posy.  I was intrigued as to how they made it and how quickly it might be made.  Now it just so happens that in the Sweet Bags book, it explains how to do it.  In fact there are lots of examples of miniature textile fruit decorating the base of  historic sweet bags and they are usually composed in sets of three.

The posy is very small and designed as a textile brooch.  I adore textile brooches but never wear them myself as they can be so hopelessly sentimental, they give away far too much about the wearer.  This first example is particularly fine.

This next example above isn’t quite so polished but very sweet all the same. Again, it’s tiny.

Next is the picture of the museum catalogue entry.

Lastly is this little flower.

* In my hunt for zoomorphic gold designs I’ve reached Pannonian Avars art, 55AD which looks more Celtic as a style than Alemanni but the really interesting thing about pagan iconography is shared Gods, not only between major tribes, but between ‘Barbarian’ tribes and early Romans.  I don’t think it’s enough to just admire these images, I need to somehow own them.

For things that I’ll never touch or even see in 3-d, some objects are so incredibly striking you just really want to get under their skin, somehow.  There is something so powerful about early patterns and designs, especially of animals and human figures that resonate even now.  In fact, simple designs have to be more perfect than grandiose statements, because every part of them will be scrutinised.

I have a lot of art materials lying around and to my mind, needlework work bridges a gap between 2-d and 3-d that nothing else’s does.  I suppose Picasso’s sculpture made of found objects is an exception.  It’s been my intention for ages to make repro archaeological finds. There, I’ve said it out loud, which is scary in itself.  Time is swallowing us all up.  What is time to a mountain?  What is time to a leaf or butterfly?