Jomon Spider Kit by Paul March

…ax and abdomen make for an appealing biological contrast with its metallic components. The whole is elegant but nevertheless provokes discomfort. I want to pick it up and rattle the legs. I even house a tiny desire to return at a later date with several metres of fishing line to revive it as an enormous spider-marionette. I am intrigued and somehow intimidated. I would like an insight into what was in its creator’s mind when he put it together. I… Continue reading

The Dry Stone Walls of Cape Wrath, Scotland

…of the stones. Other words come to mind. Resilience. Permanence. Balance. Complexity. This is beautiful stuff on a major scale. I find a little bonus to looking closely at these walls. Over hundreds of years each plays host to its own ecosystem of lichen, moss, grass, bracken, spiders, mice and beetles. However, it is more than the the skill required to build these dry stone walls, their beauty and their place in nature that I dwell on. It is als… Continue reading

The knives of Blackbird Valley

…nd see it slicing through the skin of a ripe tomato. The knives of Blackbird Valley raise the whole question of aesthetics and function and the aesthetics of function. These are beautifully crafted objects without doubt; but the perception of beauty comes from picking them up, turning them in one’s hand and imagining their use. They become beautiful objects when looked at in terms of their potential function. The Blackbird Valley forge is worth a… Continue reading