Thursday 29 December 2011

Atingting Kon

Slit drum-to-be after examples from Ambrym Island Vanuatu AKA New Hebrides


Brookfield Produce & Pet Pavilion Brisbane QLD August 2011

On seeing this holiday snap, three days ago, my mother asked whether this was going to be my next project? Well, I guess it has to. If only as a go-between.

A first sketch





















Ambrym Island [Vanuatu]

Kröller-Müller Museum



Dreamtiid


Dawn over Queensland.
July 2011

Saturday 26 November 2011

Dreamtiid


Armstrong Beach QLD, August 2011.

Just a beachwalk and a random pattern. It looked like a Tolkien map of the Shire, and it looked like Aboriginal art. This moment has already become a slice of dreamtime to me.

When I was a student and we read Caedmon's Hymn and Beowulf I got fascinated by the cosmic notions of the Anglo Saxons and the world picture of the Dark Ages
Se Middangeard - under heofones hrof.
The middle of the earth is where you are. At the crossing of the cardinal directions. It is you, under the roof of heaven.

Maps have fascinated me ever since I was a child and became aware of travelling distances.

In Pushkin's words (Boris Godunov):
Excellent, my son! As if you were looking from the skies, you may thus oversee the entire realm. Its borders, rivers and towns.

Kak khorosho, moy syn! Kak s oblakov yedinym vzorom ti mozhesh' obozret' vsyo tsarstvo: granicy, reki, grady.

In my own language, Frisian:
Dit is it wurk jong! As wie it fanút e himel wei, sa kinsto yn ien eachopslach it hele ryk oersjen: grinzen, djippen, stêden.
[Boris Godûnov]



This is perhaps why I climbed the roof of the gym and sports hall next to my grandmothers house in Harns(Harlingen), at age eleven or twelve. Just to look at things from above, and to see the sea.


This past is present


A slice of Dreamtime

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

[TS Eliot, Burnt Norton]


Sunday 30 October 2011

Ancient of days

Urizen - Blake

















Me - by contrast















Soon on view


Thursday 22 September 2011

The True Icon-Lettering done


Posted by Picasa
Спас Нерукотво́рный 
I added the HOON (omicron, omega, and nu - 'He Who is') lettering today.
Makes a difference, I think.


Me In Print

http://resource.wur.nl/en/organisatie/detail/hans_sculpture/

Tuesday 16 August 2011

On the road



From DAlby tot Towoomba QLD

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Sarina QLD

The people I saw today were Hobbits. Barefooted and thick-waisted. Not the wealthiest ones though. And life must be a some rather bad dream to them -I guess

Monday 8 August 2011

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Ceci n'est pas Ayers Rock


Nor is it Uluru, but Mount Coolum (QLD) is essentially a similar shape.
Less iconic perhaps, but still enormouslyinpressive to me.

The name would appear to be derived from local Aboriginal word "gulum" or "kulum", meaning "blunt" or "headless", referring to the shape of Mount Coolum, which has no peak. According to Aboriginal legend, Ninderry knocked off Coolum's head and it fell into the ocean and is now Mudjimba Island

[http://www.library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=coolum]

http://www.coolum.com.au/display_listing.asp?id=556&catid=229

Saturday 23 July 2011

Membra disiecta


I bought this vellum-bound Concilium Tridentinum/Index Librorum Prohibitorum more than 20 years ago on a book fair in Amsterdam.
There were scraps of parchment from an earlier manuscript on the inside, which had been used to sow the sections on, thus producing a book block. In addition, it contains pieces of a text printed in italics on vellum. These Membra disiecta can be quite difficult to identify, but these were easy to google.

Codex I




















Vellum scraps app 48 mm wide



Partial transcription: [...]iti sunt. Qni ego i[...] meus in co[...]
matches with:

Vulg. Ps 37:17-18
...et dum commoventur pedes mei,
super me magna locuti sunt.
18 Quoniam ego in flagella paratus sum,
et dolor meus in conspectu meo semper.

KJV 38:16-17 For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me:
when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.
For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.




Partial transcription: [...]magna ecce labia[...]
matches with:

Vulg. Ps 39:9
...adnuntiavi iustitiam in ecclesia
magna ecce labia mea non prohibebo Domine tu scisti

KJV 40:9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation:
lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.


About Membra disiecta


Codex II
Pieces of printed vellum, which would suggest an incunabulum or post-incunabulum.

Below: Loose vellum slip [no longer interlaced]
transcription: *ten*



















Top headband
transcription: ?le-/nis /in [or de-]



















tail headband
transcription: ** pr/quám / Le





















The type used is clearly Italic, not unlike early Garamond as it appears to me.

The book proper, opened on title page with membra disjecta visible.

Published Cologne, Germany 1664.
Hand-written Ex-libris on title page, name struck through:
Ex libris B. S**ellmayr
Hand-written Ex-libris on left endpaper:
Ex libris Ioannis Fransisci/Wagner IV[=JU] Doctoris
Bookblock dim. app. 177x109x44 mm
Laced vellum binding.

Printed contents of the book.
Note Martin Luther [as Martinus Lutherus] banned.


Literature:
JMM Hermans, Het Middeleeuwse boek in Groningen, verkenningen rond fragmenten van handschrift en druk
Groningen : Universiteitsbibliotheek Groningen, 1980.

Sunday 3 July 2011

New old tools

They were clearing out some old electronics shop, last Wednesday. And I spotted a very worn and damaged chisel. Yes I could have it.

Bent, splintered and very blunt.


On Friday, fully restored and razor-sharp.

And I finally managed to make that adze from an old plane's cutting edge.


This started in 2009
http://gafpa.blogspot.com/2009/03/adze-in-making.html

Saturday 11 June 2011

It's a monster


Didge in the making... with my new Aussie woodcarver from Arbortech

With the Arbortech I could finish the whole process of felling, shaping and hollowing out within one afternoon.Not exactly slow carving, but it does leave more time for finishing.

Sunday 22 May 2011

Stan-fah


Pigment made by grinding the typically North West Frisian brick (lytse gieltsjes) with fresh egg yolk.




I added a little red pigment(ground terracotta) to get a slightly warmer hue.
I'm still in doubt whether I should make the helmet gold-fah or perhaps iron-fah.

Thursday 12 May 2011

Saturday 7 May 2011

Frumsceaft


A boy's drawing, an ancestor, an Asmat Shield, a helmet-like shape.

The pattern reminded me of swaddling. It all combines with the foundling king of Northern mythology.




Wednesday 4 May 2011

Monday 2 May 2011

Saturday 30 April 2011

Scyld Scefing




...syððan ærest wear(ð)
feasceaft funden he þæs frofre geba(d)
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah.
oð þ him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde
gomban gyldan þ wæs god cyning.



A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
in the end each clan on the outlyling coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.
[Transl. Seamus Heany]


Sunday 10 April 2011

April is the cruellest month...

again(!)



It has been two years now, since I started on this work. Click the label [W093] below for an overview of all the posts.

www.gafpa.nl

Saturday 2 April 2011

Sunday 20 March 2011

Spring


Time for a Masque du Jour

Which was then turned into a lectern




After Kitty's book of hours.