Wednesday 18 April 2012

Votive offerings and charms





A votive deposit or votive offering is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for broadly religious purposes.

  • throwing coins into a well
  • buried
  • cast into water or peat bogs
  • broken objects
  • wine
  • oil
  • incense
  • candles
  • food
  • metal objects
  • flowers

A Charm

  • A spell (paranormal) or incantation
  • any "lucky charm" such as:
  • amulets
  • charm bracelets
  • touch pieces
  • painted pebbles
  • Italian charm bracelet
  • Similar to blessing the infusion of something with holiness, divine will, or one's hopes
plaster casts for wax votives
clay figure - votive offering

metal charms




Book spine poetry



A nice idea
which I wanted to
try ...



... a few more


this one is from a friend....brilliant!

Small Blessings - The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

I was asked to take part in a new project based at The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. I will be working with a group of adults from Mind (a mental health charity), observing a new collection of amulets,charms and votives which have been donated to the museum. The collection belonged to Adrien de Mortillet (1853-1931) and contains examples from all over the world. I am trying to find out more about de Mortillet, but so far have not been too successful. I do know that he had many careers including a perfumer and a balloonist!

Over 5,000 objects have been donated to the museum, and it is the job of the conservationists to catalogue these and create a database so that they can be easily found in the future. A separate blog has been set up to document this process which can be found here.

http://pittrivers-amulets.blogspot.co.uk


My job is to work with the members of Mind to discover more about these objects and to create our own pieces, which will be exhibited in the museum at the end of the project.
From observing the amulets, charms and votives at the museum they are mainly made out of the following materials:

clay
plaster
wax
natural materials such as seeds, bark, fruit, grasses
parts of animals and human including hearts, bone, teeth and skin
metal
textiles
food
plaster moulds with wax casts

metal charms and amulets

votive offering - clay

magic bundle placed in the village to lay a curse


I decided to try and keep to these materials...although I won't be using any human hearts! Initially, I will be experimenting with plaster moulds, clay, metals and textiles and see where that takes me.
It's an exciting project to be involved in and I am looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

The Old Fire Station


Last summer myself and artist Rachel Barbaresi, were commission to design and create The opening artwork for The Old Fire Station in Oxford. Read more about The Old Fire Station here:

http://www.oldfirestation.info/

Here is our blog which documents the project from start to finish. We worked with a group of homeless people and based ourselves at The Botanic Gardens, Oxford.

http://artistsofs.blogspot.co.uk/

The 12 month direct debit feeling



I have been away from this blog for too long now. Always with the great intention of posting useless, but sometimes interesting information here, I get dirtily and rudely interrupted by Facebook, Ebay or other online things to while away the hours.
Then, before I know it, I have neglected my blog for months on end. I find this feeling similar to paying for a years subscription to a gym with all good intention of going each week, then missing a few here and there - all of a sudden I'm at home baking cakes and the thought of having to go to a gym is the last thing on my mind.
So with all good intentions in hand, I will hereby attempt to write something here at not-so-vast intervals...I can't promise though, as there may be cakes to be baked!