Wiltshire Museum

Ok so here’s the thing, you pour over extracts and comments all over the shop about hand axes and you see over and over again, the egg heads saying “well of course we don’t know if they put anything around these stones”.  For ages I felt they must have, to protect their hands and to be able to really put some pressure behind their work.  Then they go on about using them as misiles and how they don’t show signs of wear but took a long time to make. Finally, they were of no interest, it was the flakes that came off them that provided the arrowheads and spear heads to hunt. 

Hand axes were fashioned over a stonking million years! I honestly fail to believe how humans would just do the same thing over and over again for a million years, sorry, but there is no way I’m falling for that ‘interpretation’ on the hard fossil evidence.  One thing is for sure, no matter when you’re born, people have had a deep reverence for their dead and the long long line of continuity that people are part of.

My feeling is that handaxes were used to break open bones to suck out bone marrow which is what humans lived on before they started cooking barbies.  Ask yourself, why continue to make handaxes when you were not using them anymore for their intended purpose?  Well it turns out then we started to make huge handaxes out of jadeite that were never used but important items to own. Continuity see...

The debate about handaxes goes on and I for one soak it all up but apply liberal pinches of salt to such interpretations and wish I could own one of these things.  They jury is still out about handaxes, but make no mistake they were everywhere, I mean everywhere. 

So here’s a great image from the front of the Wiltshire museum floor plan showing a handle for a descendant of the handaxe. 

Just look at the handle on that dagger!

Now here’s a better picture of the item itself.  You can just make out the gist of the catalogue entry.

Just look at the fine work on that thing.  I didn’t manage to photograph the museum catalogue entry but there’s always a next time.

Just look at this Bronze Age jug.  Usually you don’t see any wood, but this time you do, lots of yummy ancient wood.

And here are some bowls, they might be shields, but if they are, they’re very small, so I’m going with the bowls theory.

Now here’s a picture of a recreated dwelling, you can walk inside and I think it’s so much better than a picture or miniature model ever could be.  It felt very cosy and safe.  

All of this evidence was gathered from around the Stone Henge area, which is dripping in ancient history, echoes, vibrations, shadows and.........magnetism.  Hold that thought!

Now this image above here is very interesting. So this is a model of Stone Henge made about 200 years ago.  What’s interesting is that it shows there were many more slabs of rock around then and there was a whole heap of stuff going on.  What struck me was the configuration of the main slabs, this is exactly as ancient man would have seen it.  I say this because you have to remember Stone Henge was dismantled during World War II.  I’ve always been suspicious of the configuration since I heard that, because it could be a tad ‘neat‘ and ‘mathematical‘ in its reinstatement, if you know what I mean?

Finally here’s a lozenge with its blurb

I adore the Wiltshire Museum and gladly pay my entrance fee.  

Most entrance fees are optional, so some I pay, some I don’t.  This one gets paid. 

It’s a dinky museum but truly stuffed with goodies. 

I sorted out Nefertiti’s bust

 

I’ve almost finished the short story on the Venus de Brassempouy, simultaneously researching Celia and her bloke. Can’t find a lot on them, only that they were together since 1968 till 1992, some domestic photos and a short Pathe  news clip on cat rescue by two models from bomb sites.

Both short stories have beginning, middle and end and both pack a punch.  You’ll see what I mean. 

I don’t know if people round the world can access Radio 4 archives, but you should google Simon Schema Dream Dinner Party with dead guests. So, he’s taken various interviews with famous people and spliced them together to make a dream dinner party. The piece is utterly fabulous.  I liked it so much, I transcribed the whole show. But it’s the laughter and the clinking of glasses and the vast sweeping canvas of creative output, inspiration, inner or outwardly driven, the whole bag is there ppl, go get your ears round that.

I’ve got to go, real life is calling....

Actually there are three images to compare

I missed out Nefertiti in the comparison I am about to make.  You’ll have to forgive that, because since post Modernism, her imagine is also much more part of popular culture.

So here is the black and white image that I sketched yesterday.  

This is my interpretation of the famous photograph of Celia Hammond.

Here is my rendition of the famous Nefertiti bust

And here is the Venus de Brassempouy again, in profile which in my view, reveals very accurately why she was maybe about twelve or thirteen.

In comparing the three images of Venus de Brassempouy, Nefertiti and Celia Hammond, I’m linking three elements in Western art and culture.

1.  Very long neck

2.  Very deep head.

3.  No body

It goes without saying they are all very ‘pretty‘ faces, that’s why they are immortalised, but there is more going on in those three images than statements of beauty.

The long neck is by far the most striking feature, but when you add it to the depth of head, then what you end up with is an exaggerated axis between the bottom of the chin going through the skull, right to the top of the head. In my view, this is an ideal proportion of beauty that persists to this day and is so deeply engrained in us, words are sometimes inadequate to describe the effect of something.

To my mind, it’s almost as if Mother Nature herself elevated these perfect heads onto a special plinth, aka the neck, to best show off these unique people?  Is that what’s going on here?

After all, very few people are born with necks like that but when you do see them, you always stop in your tacks.  Are we simply talking talking about ‘height advantage’?  I don’t think so.  It’s something else and possibly it has more to do with placing where there is most unique value in a form? 

I think we do this all the time unconsciously anyway, its just the way we are.  With all food, livestock, land, buildings, shop space, pets, jewellery, artefacts, people, from luxury goods right up to scrap metal yards, we are constantly evaluating where there is most value in the form?

Some people have great all round form, but by passing that test you usually find, in isolation, their heads or faces are never as exceptional as the three examples mentioned above.  

You see plenty of people, all the kinds of people born everyday and everywhere, millions and billions of people, and they all have something that is the ‘best thing‘ on their form, be it great hair, great cheek bones or great skin.  

But notice how very few people pass muster in a 360 degree appraisal!  Usually, from what I’ve noticed, if the cheek bones are good enough to still fill out the face at a three-quarter turn of the head, then you find the shape of the head is at fault and the whole impression sinks on the full 360 turn of the skull.  

In my view, the three heads pictured above are perfect 360 degree portrayals of ‘idealised’ beauty.

I was sitting around  a swimming pool once and this man in his late 60s got up and walked to the poolside and took a shower before his swim.  During which time, every single person round the pool was eventually alerted to stop reading, talking and applying sun lotion and to glue their eyes onto his legs, because he had the legs of a guy of about 25, in perfect proportion and condition.  But it was more than that, it wasn’t that his legs were simply incongruously younger than he was, but that comparing his legs to 3000 or more standard 25-year-olds legs, that mans legs were exceptional.

This is a radar that is constantly on and hardwired into our brains.  It has a huge effect on our psyche and history.

I need to do a little more work with Nefertiti because there are so many images of her famous bust that you can really do ‘anatomy’ on that amazing artefact.  

Apart from that, I’ve written two short stories in my head about Celia and her bloke Jeff Beck, the guitarist and another of the Venus girl and the chap that carved her image.  I’ll work on those this week I think because......well I want to....

Gotta go people, the day job awaits...

Guess who....

The Venus de Brassempouy reminds me of only one other image in Western art, and that is a black and white photograph taken in 1962.

Here are a couple of clues that I sketched in about 30 minutes.

Gotta go ppl, I need to rest...

Venus de Brassempouy - colour study

 

Venus de Brassempouy

Venus de Brassempouy approx 25,000 years old 

Damian Hirst famously said “All an artist ever wants is to create an arresting image”.

Well here is, to my mind the most arresting image from a whopping 25,000 years ago!

This is my sketch study of this incredibly artefact.  

Discovered in a French cave in Brassempouy in 1892.  “It is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face.”

I think that is an understatement for sure, because it is so much more than just a rudimentary face.

The link I’ve placed at the top is where you can actually see it, at the SALLE PIETTE of the Musee d’Archeologie National at Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris,  but only by prior appointment.

In the main archaeological museum they only display a replica due to the implications of thermal stress on the organic mammoth tusk.

To see the real thing you have to ring and book.  The image I worked from is of the actual artefact, linked to above.

So, on the lead page of the Wikipedia entry, they have included a photo of the replica.  This is OK, because the museum main building houses the replica. 

How can you tell the replica from the real thing?  Firstly notice there are no score lines made by the carving tool.  This is because the replica is made of ceramic.

When you’re really appreciating something from the Stone Age, you want to see little dents and scratches and pitted or worn areas.  You want to see how they made it, as much as what they made.

Now remember ppl, they did not have metal then, so just imagine how hard it must have been to carve into  mammoth tusk with only flint?

Now when you start studying the real object, you quickly realise how many misleading notes there are on the internet about the original archaeological artefact being made of “early ceramic”. That is totally wrong and quite annoying.  It’s the replica in the main building, that’s made of ceramic.

The actual Venus artefact is made of Mammoth Ivory, and was carved in the Upper Palaeolithic period called the Gravettian Culture.

Those people had large heads we have to remember that.  Once we cooked our food, our brain size increased and eventually plateaued, (must have been hell to give birth....save that thought) but once we settled down and started farming our brain size shrunk and by then giving birth was comparatively straight forward.

Now this where I break off and start my own interpretation of what my own eyes tell me...

I believe this head to be a portrait.  We are told it was part of a larger piece, but I’m not so sure.  I base this on the observation that larger pieces that have included a head, depict a face with no features.  Most of the time those heads are lowered and all you see is the top and the back.

Furthermore, I would argue she is not wearing a wig, but a hair net, that is often depicted in Venus artefacts of the period.  When men write about women, they are so quick to say ‘she’s wearing a wig’ what a negation of all the evidence!  We have to remember, these people caught their animals for food with big nets, in large groups.  They were mobile, in contrast to the earlier Neanderthals and used caves much like a Travelodge.  They were not decorating these caves by then, but were into ‘portable’ art, more than likely with talismanic connotations.  Live births of babies with big heads must have been a constant source of concern and hope. In my personal opinion that’s why they made so many little Venus figurines... but more about that another time.

Back to the hair net solution.  Can you imagine trying to comb out Palaeolithic hair, with no hair products and then have flapping hair strands near an open fire?  My own opinion is they probably greased down their hair with some kind of animal fat, then placed the hair net over it, to keep it from tangling and in style. What the hair net was made of is unknown but we can take a guess at what practical women, with children running everywhere probably used.  In all the Venus figurines made in this period, the women are wearing hair nets.  Why am I the only person that has twigged this?

Her brow bone is particularly prominent and her face is wide.  This has led people to believe she was sexless and probably male. 

Those precise features indicate to me that she had more Neanderthal genes in her, than we do now.  This is not an unfair assumption. 

Now her head shape is truly fascinating and that’s why I believe she was based on a living person at that time, because her head shape is much finer than was probably generally around at that time. 

Head shape, apart from any aesthetic preference that may have been desirable then, would be a serious consideration if you wanted to give birth more easily.  As radical as that sounds, I think the point should be considered.  We have to bear in mind, dogs were being bred for hunting 30,000 years ago... so for 5000 years people knew, two big headed dogs were going to produce big headed pups.  

I put this girl’s age at the time of the sculpture to be around 14, but she could have been slightly older, or younger. I would say possibly 12 if you really had to put money on it. 

What fascinated me was that I felt strongly that if I copied her upside down and cast aside assumptions of what she should look like, I could simply be absolutely true to the tonal values of each area of the image.

So I worked that way.  Then, when I turned her up the right way I saw her looking right at me and to be honest I gasped.  Then things got weird...

This is what happens if you really, really study exactly what you are seeing, instead of taking a photograph, or pen and wash and fudging it.  What you are trying to do is not allow preconceptions to get in the way.  They have to go out the window, so that you relate honestly and faithfully to what is before you and not what is in your head. 

More later...the day job is a heaving pile of loose ends and large tracts of dense spiteful script in red biro....ew!

A glimpse into the past...

 

Can you work out who this is?

Clue 2

Clue 3

Answer tomorrow....

I know what I’m searching for...

Well, I think I’ve been looking at so much cave art that it’s started me on one of my ‘journeys‘.

I have to admit, I’m excited but also a little scared.  Thoughts and ideas that I had a while ago are now sprouting seed leaves and starting to swell in my head.  But there are already ideas in there that are elbowing for room?  What is a mere mortal to do?

I’ve met a few people like this, they’re on a similar journey, but is the journey inward, or outward?  

So here’s the thing, when it’s was 11.59pm on 31st December 1999 and we were all watching pictures from round the world of people getting very excited about the new Millennium, fireworks, music, people squealing with delight, car horns, whistling etc, it was at that moment, that very moment of the clock striking 12 midnight that I had a weird experience.  

I basically saw everything in slow motion, all sound ceased and I kind of drifted off.  Where I drifted to was to the crystal clear realisation that we, all the millions of people in the world joined in that one moment were going to all be dead in about 100 years.  So there you have it, in that unique once-in-a-lifetime moment of joy and hope, I had intense confirmation that all that I could see, would be gone in not that long.  

So ok, we’ll be replaced, we won’t die out as a species, we might all go to live on another planet, there is hope for mankind, always.

But what about now? and more than that, what about all the millions and billions of people that preceded us?  We need to spare a thought for them. 

That’s why when I see a photo of a cave painting, or ice age sculpture made of bones and mammoth ivory, amber beads, fishing nets, fragments of textiles, human hair, all those remnants really me stop and wonder. 

Most poignant of all, I think are hand prints on cave walls.  Now we’re learning they were made mostly by women.  

There we were even then, confined, near the hearth, trying to mark our environment with a simple ‘I woz here’ emblem of a hand print.  Like the wave of a hand as we sail by, but this time from the past.  A simple human expression of being alive, made permanent.  

Ethereal doesn’t even begin to describe the vibration a human life leaves behind.  Where there were once people, they are always ‘echos’.

Remnants of Bronze Age hair particularly gets to me.  

But going back to Cave Art times, just think about it, in the days before combs, how to keep your hair tidy, but on display, was very important, so they devised a Paleo way to do both, and that was to make a criss-cross hair net, probably out of grass.  You see countless ice age sculptures of fertility Venus’ with the same hair net.  These artefacts span vast geographic regions.  But all are basically found either side of The Steppes.  

In fact, you can go on about hair forever.  

We’re all so advanced now and yet, we still all admire a good head of hair.  Think about it, why would you do that?  Hair is like nature itself sprouting from our cranium, I mean hair is so old, we don’t even need it anymore and yet billions are spent on this living fossil that grows out of our heads: hair?

So, I was dipping my foot into how to approach a reproduction of a piece of cave sculpture in 2-d, (I think 2-d is all I can hope for with all the stuff that’s happening in my life.) 

And so, I got some materials out and started, you know, doodling, scribbling, whatever you want to call it, I was trying to get in there, as they say, with all this creative stuff and this is what came out...

I can see water, sky, birds, landscape, vegetation, spray, mist, heat, light, sun, wood, smoke, a clearing, damp, humid, noise, wind and rain.

This is weird. I like it, it’s a surprise, especially when you look at how I managed to arrive at this point...

Basically I did a deconstruction type, David Bowie, Bauhaus process thing, where you experiment, overlay, distress, reorder and finally evaluate.

I saw this section first and realised finally it was happening.  

Then I saw this...

This one is better, but not as ok as the one I said I liked.  I think what this one says is wistful, eerie etc but it’s not saying whatever it’s meant to be saying, clearly enough. This one gets an ‘interesting’ label.

It’s ok as an effort to begin to describe the close-up, organic landscape of bone...

Oh well I have to tear myself away now and go feed a starving husband....(they have a tendency to walk around like shadows from the Netherworld if their abdominal hour glass is empty...)

The Sea and stuff

 I’ve had an interesting few days.  I found something I thought I’d lost and was so overjoyed about it.  Then after that, more and more stuff took over my brain, you know how it is.  

Can I say that women are amazing, and I don’t think that’s said enough, or it seems, ever.  What women put up with, endure, withstand, cope with, persevere at and just hang on in there, to me is nothing less than truly awe inspiring.  

From the moment we’re born and the world starts moulding us, no matter how stifling it can all be at times, inside us is a wonderful being just waiting to make a difference to others. 

OK so we talk probably a tad too much, we don’t trust each other (husbands are known to run off with best friends, as we all know) and we probably buy a lot of stuff that is not absolutely essential, but in all of this we are actually running the planet, behind the scenes, if you ask me.

Our hushed army of diligent ants, lugging things back to the nest, carrying children, bags of food, heaps of laundry and buckets of whatever.  IT ALL GETS MYSTERIOUSLY DONE!  As if by magic, we don’t even think about what we have to do next, because we’ve already done it and are thinking about the next 10 things. 

Day in, day out, it all gets done. And if we’re lucky and we can carve out 10 stolen minutes to ourselves, are we ever idle, no way. 10 minutes to a woman with six children is a long time to achieve something.  I base that anecdote on a real lady I knew once, who has six children and told me about THE POWER OF TEN MINUTES.  

So here’s a 10 minute sketch of water that I did while listening to Byzantine liturgical incantation called Dostoino Est by Lege Artis Chamber Choir

I actually like it, it came from within, as they say.

Then I did this strange doodle in trying to push the whole ‘automatic drawing’ idea, and being not absolutely certain what it was that emerged, some kind of microscopic view of something or other, so put the two together...I think the colour doodle was more about the sound of water, than the view of it.

I made a new base for the bird table.  It turned out OK even though it was an ordeal to cut.  I didn’t measure anything or get my screw driver out, I just stuffed a piece of paper in it and pressed along the sides to make a template.  Of course I cut the wood on the outside of the line, which meant the thing didn’t fit and I had heaps of fun trimming it down.  But all the while I felt the little beady eyes of a particularly cute plump robin watching me.  We had a robin nesting in our garden last Spring, I hope the darling comes back.

Notice how even the wood stain has a sea theme....

I used marine plywood, but after cutting it out, I think it wasn’t waterproof so I added the stain, front and back.  The piece shrunk in the process, so I figured it’s probably pretty well waterproof now.  We’ll have to wait and see...

Fibula news

I finally managed to find - thanks to Meri - a very fine HD image of the filigree detail. I can’t wait to work with it in the next few days.

Looking ahead, I’m starting to get quite interested in a stunning archaeological find from France, made of bone found in a cave. I won’t say anymore for now...big clue: it’s very famous..

Fibula de Breganza

Well it turns out there is only one of a kind, and it’s at The British Museum.  Naturally, it has bullet-proof provenance as you would expect with BM acquisitions, because there resides a very stiff panel of experts that can really decipher what they’re looking at.  See ‘Bolton Forger‘.

Breganza Brooch

Thankfully there are a ton of images out there of this particular fibula and it’s been exhibited many times prior to its present location.

It’s even been copied by a jewellery workshop in Toledo, who then wrote a book about how they did it.

I think the copy they crafted is good, the colour’s wrong, but overall it’s good.  I don’t like the warrior’s face though, so, back to basics.

Here are three versions of what I’m dealing with here, see below. As usual the first one is probably best, the rest get progressively more heavy handed.  What was I doing with that gold Sharpie? Since then I found more of my materials.

Aside from that, I think I retained the essential drama of the piece.

Now I find however, that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the viewpoint of the piece from what I know now about it’s history.

“Hellenistic craftsman commissioned by an Iberian client“  (methinks warlord) who was possibly (methinks probably) not himself Celtic?   Then owned much later by the House of Breganza for many years.

The House of Breganza I believe and have no problem with, especially as the Celtic region in Spain stretched across to what is now Portugal.

What I’m a little uncomfortable with is, that in my view, it was made to impress non Celtic people, and worn by a non Celtic person.  You have to ask yourself why? Think about it, why would this high ranking person commission a Greek goldsmith, why not remain within ‘the tribe‘?  IMO it was because he was advertising his potential strength in battle.

But at least it’s a detailed description of a very successful and proud Celtic warrior.  I mean he’s looking at the huge dog as if it were a Yorkshire Terrier, in fact if you think about the story the piece tells, it looks like all the dogs were probably his.  Dogs used in battle were very typical in ancient times and still are. (I think the later Roman battle dog was particularly frightening, if you ask me.)
The Celts were famous for breeding battle dogs and I believe in Ireland the Celts had a high reputation for that.

Looks to me that by the time this piece was made, the Celtiberians were mercenaries who were losing most of their territory but were trying to adapt (survive).

Always great miners, warriors, craftsmen and lovers of gold.  Notice how there is always a Celtic community living near a gold mine, in fact, much later, by the time the Romans reached France, they discovered the Celts actually had many secret gold mines.  In England there were and still are, active gold mines in Cornwall and Wales.  English gold tends to be subtlety more pink, whereas Iberian gold tended to be a very warm yellow.  The Sky Disc of Nebra contains Cornish gold.

I think gold mining in Spain ended around 1500, or possibly earlier, but before that, they had a lot of gold and it was truly luscious.

Gold Mining in Iberia

The amazing gold torcs of the Celtiberians have been unearthed around Stone Henge a heap of times.  You’ve only to go to the Salisbury and Ashmolean museums to see them.

The Celtic world had very strong links and their oral history must have been amazing., hence why we all love a good story.

Also let’s not forget, much later, the legend of Tristan and Isolde, he was supposed to have been Iberian, that one could say “came over here and got a job” quite easily, kind of thing.

Anyway, now back to these foundation drawings...

There are finally 8 swirls of hair, but there is a mistake at the bottom of the composition.  In better photos I can see it’s solder, but for this drawing I didn’t have that information and so um, fudged it.

I think the part of this design that makes my eyes bulge most is the ‘filigree’ around the inner curve of the ‘dragon’s’ neck.  It’s not a dragon per se, it’s a dog or semi wolf, but in my view, it has to have been an influence in the dragon motif evolution blah.

So I’ll do a blow up of the section of ‘filigree’ and show you a very interesting design detail.

Gotta go ppl, but before I do, here’s my rendition of Isolde....I wish....hahaha,

Celtiberian or Etruscan?

This is an interloper post because I found something really interesting that can only be described as a truly divine piece of jewellery.  There are six animals in the design and one naked man with a shield.  I bet you won’t work out which the sixth animal is?  I mean when you see something like this it just leaves you winded.

For a long time I had the impression that the Etruscans were a Celtic tribe originally .  I based this supposition on a stylistic trail that I kept stumbling across and also, you need to look around at rich and poor artefacts to really see their similarities.  Motifs of wild boars, ducks, horses and hares kept popping up.  All with the same circular symbols used as decoration.  I was looking for dragons if you recall.

Now I saw this piece ages ago labelled as Etruscan, then I saw it labelled as Celtiberian, then as Romano Celtic etc.  Style wise it’s Celtic for sure.  The only way I can discuss it in any detail is if I copy it.

Ok so this is a really quick sketch, say 30 minutes.  I’ve got all of it down but I have some problems, well two actually and that’s two swirls of hair from the lion’s mane are missing, he’s supposed to have eight.  The piece is gold, it’s another fibula and it seems to be a little damaged in two parts, but that doesn’t detract.  You can find the image on Pinterest.

I need to tidy the drawing up, add some colour etc.  I think I need to maybe start again on a larger piece of paper?  I don’t know if I have the time.  It depends how much it plays on my mind.

I figured it could be made into clay relief and then painted gold?  I like that idea but having the time to make it is another matter.

I’ll stop there because the day job is a groaning pile of queries.  Don’t these people understand when one is obsessed?

Celtic Dragon Fibula - Baltic

Anyone following my train of thought will know what I’m talking about.
Big question: griffin to dragon or horse to bird then dragon, or horse to dragon.
Decoration exactly the same as Celtiberian ‘Xavier’.

Soapbox Time
I really object when egghead types say the Celts didn’t travel, didn’t trade and basically didn’t really know what they were doing.  How shortsighted can people be. The Celts were very sociable and they had massive feasts and religious ceremonies.  Stone Henge has revealed artefacts from the all over the Celtic world.  They were excellent goldsmiths and jewellers and they knew what they made, what they designed and worked, were very high quality, desirable items that were durable, wearable and contained a balanced aesthetic.  Ok, so they had human sacrifice, and wife sharing in remote places, but we also have to remember, for a village to have a young warrior from amongst them fight for his village was a very proud thing, for all parties concerned.

Saying all if this, I need to say at this point that my own personal preoccupation happens to be centred on Mesolithic communities, that’s the end part of the Hunter Gatherer era.  I’ve included this that at this point to shed light on my own journey to understand the ‘bigger picture‘.

Next time I want to talk about Celtic language, migration and neglected Celtic tribes that are still basically living a Celtic life, give or take some invasions and that sort of thing.

Oh what goodies are in store!

P.S. The tree stump is turning to mush.  That’s the great thing about using organic material to speed up the work of detritivors, neighbouring plants stay healthy.

Celtiberian progress - colour drawing

Update
Colour drawing 3

Celtiberian Horseman 2

Update

Ok so here’s a quick sketch of the new image I’m working from.
My eyes have been really irritated these last two weeks so not much progress has been made.   My fringe was too long and my mascara was a lockdown purchase from an inferior vendor.
I do think that a sketch is better than a tracing for this kind of thing, as the animation that was moulded into the clay design originally shows through. These people really knew their gee gees.
I’m content with the scale so will press on.
I think the Xavier actually pivots to open the clasp, as there is a bolt running into the side of his knees and a rod under his horse’s belly.

P.S. The cherry tree stump is still there and I’ve hacked away at more softened material.
For that, I used my turbo boosted compost accelerator recipe, see below:

This is essentially a Japanese recipe for Bokhashi composting. It’s a very convenient way to rot down organic material in an odour free way. You basically nurture Lactobacillus with oats, molasses, yoghurt, wood chips, rain water and I make it go even faster by adding dried ammonia and sulphate of iron.  I’m not being funny but if you left your hand in that mixture for two days, you’d probably only be left with knuckles. I say this because the mixture is very very potent. I can turn a heap of compost into black gold in under a week!  My compost heap is my pride and joy because from that I make up compost tea twice a year for my Triffids.

After I added all the gloop I covered it with grass clippings.

Celtiberian Horseman update

Well I’m very pleased, because during my hunt for all things Celtiberian I found a much better image of ‘Xavier‘ - I decided to call him that because I like the spelling.

The better image contains all things patina, design, connecting bits and even the depiction of the horse’s eye.  I am so exited.

I also found other artefacts that explain the position of his arms and his head gear.

The idea is that he will be mounted up for my bedroom.  I’m about to redecorate my bedroom Al Morocco.  I’ve been working on the design for a while.  I was going to decorate it myself but in the end I hired the most amazing Brazilian decorator, because last year I decorated three rooms and painted the kitchen units (in chalk paint, finished with a lacquer glaze) - that was 160 coats of paint!  Yes ppl you read that right - one six oh!

There will be a Moroccan Palace feature wall, I bought the stencil in America.  I won’t discuss colour because I want to max out the wow factor.

But the most exciting thing of all is the centrepiece will be a painting of Marrakesh.  I decided Moroccan palace for the walls, but the painting will be a view of Marrakesh, as if through a window but unlike Bonnard, will not include the window frame.

I have all the paint now and the design is safe in my sewing bag.  I also bought a few Moroccan pieces.  I’m not changing the curtains or the radiator colour,  but I will paint the bedstead.  I’m not sure what colour the bedstead will be, it depends on how much colour vibration takes place.

Don’t get me wrong, I want COLOUR and my soul needs it, but I also want balance and to create a retreat.  Basically I want the room to be a colour experience but not for the view from the bed.

Before I call the decorator to fix the start date I have to sort out some preliminaries.

One of them is this:

Well this is bigger than it looks and the more soil I remove, the wider the thing gets.  It was a cherry tree....say no more, the roots are like concrete!  It’s only five years old, but I think the root stock must be from some kind of Mega Prunus Alto-Pain-in-the-Butticus, because I am hacking at this thing daily for a week now and it still has not budged even one millimetre!

I’ve stripped away the cambium layer, so at least technically it should be deceased now, but I can still feel the life force pumping through it.  I kept a piece of root to remember this time.  I’m in awe of this tree species, it’s from the Almond genus and was one of the first trees, eg. 127 Million years old!

For the love of forests, big majestic trees and that whole nature continues thing, I think ancient Viking music is perfect. Ok so maybe you do have to be 11% Neanderthal to really appreciate it, but it’s so haunting, it’s ‘weird’.

* Weird for me = haunting, ghost-like, ethereal, timeless, ancient, containing spirits of past life, echoes, vibrations, sort of ‘aura’.

So here are three videos that I particularly like featuring amazing Viking sounds, the middle one is my current favourite, especially when the camera pans out to the mountains, these are sounds that make you feel you ‘belong’:

Wardruna Aurora & Oslo Fagottkor 

Eivor Palsdottir

Maria Franz - vocals