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!

Where's yer Mama gone?

... Picking Blackberries. Far, far away.

This morning Lebowski and I took a stroll to the Corpus Christi Playing fields, over the railway tracks.


We spotted lots of blackberries. I've been meaning to pick some all week and keep forgetting to bring out a punnet to collect them. All I had on me was a 'poo bag' (without poo, I hasten to add!)


There were some lovely bushes full to the brim with ripe berries, ready for the picking. I managed to collect 1.5 kilos of them, however, I made sure I left some for the wasps and birds and spiders too.
Whilst picking the blackberries it made me think about fairy tales - the use of brambles and thorns and overgrown forests. It all seemed quite enchanting and peaceful... until Lebowski started barking that is!








According to folklore legend, on the 10th October the Devil pees on the blackberries and they become unfit to eat.


Lebowski was rather impatient and continued to whine and bark at me every time I stopped at another bush. I did try to explain that she wouldn't be complaining when she's having toast and jam!



We discovered a plant which seemed as if it was related to Lebowski...



We also spotted the places where the deer had been lying the night before. I really like the different directions of the flattened grass, it seems to possess lots of movement.




When I got home I rinsed the blackberries and left them to drain on a clean tea towel, ready to turn into jam. I have been trying to find an interesting blackberry jam recipe, and thought about adding vanilla. We'll see.....





When I got home the smell from the blackberries reminded me of when I was a child, picking blackberries with my Mum by the cemetery. I remembered all the little worms crawling out of them when she left them to soak before making them into jam.


Jam recipe ideas:

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8075/beautiful-blackberry-jam.aspx

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8112/blackberry---apple-jam.aspx

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8450/seedless-blackberry-and-elderberry-jam.aspx

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9293/blackberry-chilli-jam.aspx

Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Foxy Loxy Jam

Label for the jams designed in Photoshop. Might change the fox illustration in the middle though.







Next stop...making a Mr Foxy glove puppet from handmade felt. I'll keep you posted. Till then watch out for the sky falling in!

Jam, more jam, a different jam...

FOXY LOXY JAM





I have recently got into Jam Making. I have a fine collection of books on preserving and making jams and cordials etc. I decided to start off with something simple, and opted for the Strawberry Jam.
I went to the Pick Your Own at Binsey Farm, near Port Meadow in Oxford. It was a rainy day and there was just me there, all alone in the fields collecting my 2 kilos worth of Strawberries.
I rushed home and set to on my alchemy!
After preparing my own pectin from cooking apples I eventually made about 8 good-sized jars of jam. It was very nice, so definitely something which I wanted to try again and experiment with.



Binsey Farm strawberry field, from the car

So off I went, back to the PYO. This time the sun was shining and the strawberry fields were much busier, so I opted for the lonesome gooseberry field.

The deserted gooseberry field. Just me and the gooseberries.


and raspberries...
I even wore my special strawberry belt and polka dot top!


The punnet of gooseberries ready to go in the pan!









To me, jam making and preserving is like alchemy. The equipment, the colours, textures, smells and of course - the taste.
I have always had a love of old fashioned laboratories and would love to have worked in a perfumery. All the bottles, raw materials, and the imagery of a certain magic evolving within the glass conical flasks and pipes!
Well, if I can't have that, jam making will have to do.
I would love a copper preserving pan (one which I could spend hours polishing), but until then I found this rather nice aluminium one in the Oxfam shop for a mere £15. It does the job, plus it has a rather nice old hammered handle with a nice curl on the end, so it satisfies my aesthetic need too.
So, without wanting to bore you with the facts of jam making I will whip through the different stages and try to illustrate them with photos instead.


These are the gooseberries softening in the water. Apparently gooseberries contain a high level of pectin so there is no need to add any extra to this recipe. Look at my thermometer, lovely!




When the gooseberries have softened you throw in the raspberries and just when they start to bleed you add the mounds of sugar. This is one of my favourite stages. I love the way the brilliant whiteness stands out from the colour of the fruit.





So once all the fruit has been added, you have to get it up to the right temperature and to a rolling boil.






220F





The next stage is to check for the setting point. It is important to remove the pan from the heat each time you do this.




a chilled plate used to test the setting point...





The setting point is reached...




I like using a funnel to ladle the jam into sterilised jars.




Sealed and ready to be labelled and packaged.




oh, and eaten...with toast or homemade scones.





and a pot of tea.




Someone else likes toast and jam too!

The next job is creating the labels. That will be my next post!