Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Syrian Eye Idol





















Apart from Taking Sense of Place to Syria in february of next year I have also been invited to bring more of my own work as well as that of Jenny Bowker. I have been playing around with things inspired by my visit to Syria earlier this year. The treasure in the Museum at Aleppo was marvelous ( and I did not get to the one in Damascus- it is on the to do list for next year!). One of the things I made drawings of was the so called "eye" idols- although some believe it is the body of a woman with the head cut off. However why have a hat then? Not all have hats. There has also been some other suggestions that the eye idols which have holes drilled into the head part may have been used for spinning yarn- now that sort of thinking is right up my alley and allows me to connect these idols with textile!And when I saw these little idols- and there were quite a number of them at first glance you think they are all the same- but really each one is different to the next- quite individual really which makes me wonder if they were individual votives.

The circular button with the eye idol image on the inside is actually a "brooch" made form a cd . This is a sample for the workshops we are having at the Samson Hill Winery in January for fundraising for Sense of Place - the idea is to make fun things that do not need a sewing machine and minimal hand sewing. I think I might make some more of these- however a cd brooch is quite big and makes quite a statement!

I am also fascinated by the cylinder stamps which were used to seal all sorts of containers by rolling the seal in a tablet of wet clay- pretty much like intaglio printing. I love it when I can connect a process of an ancient culture with a process I am using today- things really don't change that much! But if you do follow the link for the museum check out image #8- a stone envelope and letter no less- wonder how the mail man got that into the post box???

For all of you that responded to the image of the previous post- it is actually the sole part of my husbands flipflops ( we call them thongs in Australia)- who could imagine that the ordinary old flipflop could have such nice markings?

And I am chuffed because the countries counter is slowly but surely creeping up!

6 comments:

Shirley Goodwin said...

You intrepid traveller, you! I haven't been anywhere, but since i don't like flying, I guess that's hardly surprising.

The Idaho Beauty said...

I am curious as to how you transferred the image to fabric. It looks like perhaps you painted it on or is it stitching? I ask because I am trying to do a similar thing with faces off of 18th century Puritan headstones. Your lines are much better than mine done with paint brush.

Anonymous said...

Maybe this helps with the CD thing. Tell the ladies it's a bag brooch! I'd be very proud to have one on those on my bag! Love the work! Love the sketches (I hope you keep all these for history).

margaret said...

The clay envelope -- this will have the same text as the "letter" inside. What they did was write the laws on both, and completely seal it up, so that if there was a dispute about whether the one written on the "envelope" was a forgery, it could be opened and the wording on the letter could be read. I heard this at a gallery talk at the British Museum, many years ago, when there were two talks and usually a lunchtime lecture every day!

Anonymous said...

Hi, I was googling for eye idols and yours came up. Refreshing and fun. Thanks, you inspired me. Laura

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