Calendar: November 2015

post last updated: 31st October

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Farewell, you gorgeous thing

I’ve written a number of times before about old works … pieces we’ve made, hold on to, unwilling to throw away but aware that equally we don’t actually want to keep them for we don’t like them, they don’t say what we wanted them to, we’ve moved on, etc.

With the benefit of time (it’s almost nine years since I made this piece) I’m ready to let go of ‘Scale‘ (from my third year at RMIT).

I have photographs I’ll treasure, but I no longer need the object – it just takes up space and I don’t have it on display.

Scale, 2006

I adored making it. I loved researching and drawing for it. Planning it. Obsessing about it.

I’m planning on giving it to someone to re-purpose the metal (stainless steel, aluminium, monel) … for a new life.

Old things

I’m going through a minimising phase. I want to reduce what I own, and perhaps hand on things to new owners who will gain new knowledge or joy from them …

In doing so, I’ve rediscovered some notes I made when I was traveling in Spain a few years ago.

holiday gallery visiting

Ah memories.

It’s a joy to relive, though it doesn’t half slow down the tidying endeavour!

Gold of The Hochdorf Prince

Documentaries … they’re just the best, right?

Recently I was indulging in my wont to watch documentaries on art and history, particularly a new BBC show ‘The Celts: Iron, Blood and Sacrifice … with Alice Roberts and Neil Oliver‘, and my eyes have been opened to the amazing Hochdorf Prince (from the Iron Age, about 550BCE).

Look at his shoes!

Not strictly shoes as we know it, but decoration on (what are assumed to have been) leather shoes. Too gorgeous.

screen shot of documentary

screen shot of documentary

Naturally I searched the internets for more information …

• he’s famous for the many other artefacts (including a rather massive cauldron) he was buried with, many of which are shown in reproduction at a museum near where he was uncovered
• of course, Wiki ; though it’s a bit light-on to be frank
• most fabulously, another documentary covering similar territory – but this one is from the mid-80s and has dated poorly; the moustaches in the reenactments had me in giggle fits

from Wiki; click on image for original source (image credit: Rosemania, see Wiki for more details)

There just isn’t enough gold shoe-decorations nowadays.
Or massive cauldrons.