Roots

Crystal Morey, Sculptures.

Hand built porcelains sculptures by artist Crystal Morey who explains her work as, “we sit at a pivotal moment, faced with monumental questions leading to difficult, uncertain answers. My figures exist on this frontier, absorbed in their own feelings of stress, anxiety and ambivalence. Sculpted from the silken white earth of porcelain, I see these delicate figures as containing power – as modern talismans and precious telling objects. They are here to remind us of our current trajectory and potential for destruction and downfall.”

I’d have to say that these are some of the best, most intriguing sculptures I’ve ever come across, ever.

my bloody valentine

Aurora consurgens, St. Gallen 15th century

Ian Miller

https://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2017/11/ian-miller.html

Here’s a giant spider crab from Japan, featured in The American Museum Journal, 1904.

“Remember, remember the fifth of November…“

Guy Fawkes is said to have been carrying this iron lantern when he was arrested in the cellars underneath the Houses of Parliament on the night of 4–5 November 1605. Fawkes and his conspirators planned to ignite barrels of gunpowder concealed under firewood in the cellar during the state opening of Parliament, with the aim of blowing up the chamber and killing the Protestant King James I. Thanks to an anonymous warning, the cellars were searched, Fawkes was discovered and the plot failed.

Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London, and later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure.

Gifted to the University by Robert Heywood in 1641, the lantern joined the Ashmolean collection over two hundred years later in 1887. Guy Fawkes’ lantern is currently on display in our new gallery, The Ashmolean Story, on our lower ground floor.

Guy Fawkes’ lantern. London, England c. 1605. Iron and horn, 34.5 cm tall.

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators. 1605 print on paper, unknown British artist.

climbing down Satan’s fur

Dante, Divina Commedia, Urbino and Ferrara 1477-1478