Taking The Plunge -Ma Contemporary Craft Musings

The Mask Stone, more formally referred to as Danish Runic Inscription no. 66, is a Viking Age memorial Runestone, honouring a man named Fúl after he died in battle.

It is carved from granite and was discovered in Aarhus, Denmark. The depiction of a mask or face on Viking Runestones may seem rare, but there are a handful of other stones which use similar depictions for similar reasons, and it’s believe that the mask carving would ward off evil spirits.

The back of the stone is inscribed as follows:

Old Norse:

   Gunulfʀ ok Øgotr/Øþgotr ok Aslakʀ ok Rolfʀ resþu

   sten þænsi æftiʀ Ful, felaga sin, æʀ warþ … døþr,

   þa kunungaʀ barþusk.

Modern English:

   Gunnulfr and Eygautr/Auðgautr and Áslakr and Hrólfr raised

   this stone in memory of Fúl, their partner, who died

Alison Lowry is a glass artist based in Northern Ireland,  she enrolled on an art course and focused her interest on textiles, a craft she is rather passionate about. She concentrated on creating textiles work for two years however in her last year she became very interested in glass and turned her focus towards glasswork. Alison is influenced by three other artists: Louis Bourgeois, Clifford Rainey and Silvia Levenson 

Alison had an interest in using imagery in her work  and decided to make decals which she then applied to glass. She made a small series of cast kiln glass blocks and she entitled it “Triptych of life” , it was three kiln cast blocks of glass and each one contained a decal of a christening dress and some text of the bible printed onto the glass. This gave an interesting contrast between the delicacy of the dress and scripture, and the solidity of the cast glass itself.

triptych of life

She then produced another series very similar to this which is called “ The holy innocence/innocence lost”  this was a reference to the child sexual abuse that was happening in the Catholic church in Ireland at the time, the subject of institutionalized child abuse and the scale of it is something that is often disregarded by mainstream media, so I am impressed that Alison has addressed and researched this subject and hopefully the message of her work will encourage other to do so too.

Alison created a series called “stitches in time” that was a commissioned by the culture company for the city of culture celebration of 2013. Here she created slumped square glass panels and arranged them to suggest a quilt. This glass piece commemorates the women that worked in the factory over the years, with each little square showing an image that relates to the shirt factory and the women working the machines and stitching. Each woman was allowed to take home a scrap of material at the end of the day, which they then turned into quilts for their families, this was the influence for the the design of “stitches in time”.

 stitches in time 

Alison has created some truly beautiful pate-de-verre vessels, whilst working with pate-de-verre Alison discovered that pate-de-verre held some similar properties that she liked in textiles, such as the delicacy of the material, and its texture and translucency along with the use of pattern that is frequently incorporated into pate-de-verre vessels. The pate de verre vessels in the image below were part of a collection called “vessels (of remembrance) and was part of a series called “born on a Monday" which is a poem that inspired the collection. 

vessels (of remembrance)

sanskrit vessels

In secluded fields, on the walls of churches, and beneath construction sites, stones have been found with intricate markings that rise from the lower left up to the center and then down to the lower right. This is the ancient Celtic Tree Alphabet known as Ogham (pronounced owam). Archaeological linguists have managed to translate the symbols, yet no one knows for certain how or why this language came into existence. Efforts are being made to preserve the relics, however, the stones are weathering and crumbling at an alarming rate.

Dolwyddelan Castle (Castell Dolwyddelan) Conwy, Wales by nicnac1000

Restormel Castle (Kastel Rostorrmel) Cornwall, England by Zoot Steeples