Metafiction, Myth and Language: A World in Words (and Pictures)

 Trying to figure out exactly how the finished, printed book will look with very little actual time remaining (I reckon I'll need at least 3 weeks to allow for the printers getting the job done and delivered, depending upon 'the situation' out there), so this evening I cleaned up a couple of the character designs into .eps image format so they can be resized to any scale. The 'marching band' of Ulfhednar border design and the Gifli character turned out quite nicely:  I'm not sure how much of this kind of thing I want to use - or how I could use it - as one of the plans at the outset was to produce visual work with physical and material qualities in order to get away from any form of 'illustration'. Besides, there's plenty of great artists out there who can do this kind of Celtic design work ten times better than me with beautiful knotwork and so on, but what I can bring to the visuals is a certain individuality, I reckon.  But I did always see the Ul...

 A few thoughts (and collected fragments of research) regarding oral, written, and recorded texts and stories… Whilst the printed text of the Gyldlandsaga can best be described as an ‘epic saga’, I decided to deconstruct the meanings of both those descriptive terms (both of which can also be used as nouns). Namely: epic ( derived from) Epos < L. < Gk. epos = “word, song”; stem of eipein = “say” → early unwritten narrative poetry celebrating incidents of heroic tradition. saga < O. Norse (Icelandic) 2. Partly after G. “sage” – mythical story, handed down by oral tradition; historical or heroic legend. (Source: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3 rd . ed., BCA, 1988). The interesting connection here is the oral nature, or unwritten aspect of [what has become] the text. The origins of the epic are in song – that which is spoken or sung – and numerous references to songcraft are made throughout the text. Several times, Sigfri recites (or sings) to an audienc...

 Managed to find some time today to visit my exhibition space and begin to arrange things. The solid display case has been delivered and I'm thinking now of putting the two largest stones under glass. Will we have a public show of any kind in August? Only time (and the government) will tell, but it's a nice goal to be working towards anyway. In the meantime, the writing of the epic saga continues...

 While this week has proved to be the most harrowing I've ever faced to date, yesterday I still managed to find time to sneak in a flying trip to Auchmithie on the coast to capture a piece of very impromptu 'cave art':  The whole operation took no more than 20 minutes, including actually finding a suitable cave spot on the beach (luckily the tide was out, as I hadn't had time to check beforehand). The painting, intended to resemble the ancient red ochre tradition, was simply ground sandstone powder ( prepared in a previous post ) applied with a wet brush (and finger) and, I think, looks actually OK. The painting is designed to resemble the head of the raven god Hrefni, who is lord of storms, and is therefore an invocation to him by fishermen for calm seas: As I forgot my sketchbook with the full-length figure of Hrefni and his shaman's drum, I would like to revisit the caves at Auchmithie and spend longer realising another piece of prehistoric cave art, which can th...

 Family business having delayed development work somewhat, today I got busy again with one of the 'museum exhibit' explanatory printouts - namely, a full list of the Gyldish rune set: This looks like the final version of the runic character set. Having spent several hours yesterday getting the engraved stones up onto the 6th floor of the art school for final display, arranging some pieces of paper for the exhibition ought to be comparatively simple.

 Friday afternoon, and I started to think ahead to the final public 'installation' concept - namely, one (or more, resources allowing) pieces of 'prehistoric wall art', most likely to be created here , at Auchmithie. I found some chunks of sandstone lying around the garden and ground them down. Research shows that a glutinous binding agent of some sort - like animal fat, egg white or some such, is what was probably used by actual prehistoric artists. I opted for water since it was readily available, and after scattering some of the finely-ground powder on a slab, was able to produce a decent-looking result using only a wet brush: In the right light (or with some subtle Photoshop manipulation) it could look pretty much like red ochre, the traditional medium of ancient artists. A trip to Arbroath in the coming days or weeks will be a nice break from stone grinding and donkey work.

 Today I managed to finish off the very tricky 'Gydena and Hrefni Cosmic Stone', which features the solar goddess and the raven storm-god standing on the two cosmic beasts who beget all the animal species in Gyldland cosmogony.  This was definitely the hardest one yet, given the relative size and the detail, and in the end I had to simplify a lot of it. It was also very hard to engrave as the surface wasn't smooth, but the shallowness of the line makes it look old and worn, which is helpful. I think this is the last one - five stones is probably enough unless I decide to render a fragment of something later on. I'll be on campus soon to look at the availability of glass-topped museum style display cases for the show, which will have to be discussed re: a) lighting conditions so the lights illuminate the engraved lines well enough but don't reflect off the top of the glass, and b) the ability of the case to support over 60kg of stone. So I may need two cases - or els...