Recent Ceramics
Starting new work for Ladies of the Midden Kiln Exhibition
More work influenced by Shillito’s research. A potential Lady for the LotMK exhibition in July in association with Archeology Scotland.
This exhibition will be focusing purely on the Orcadian site, and rather than recreating statuettes found on the site, I will be creating figures of my own design – still fired in the Neolithic Kiln, using animal dung – but in this exhibition I will be looking into the microscopic traces left in the midden by our Neolithic ancestors. I have previously posted images from Shillito’s midden slides, my initial aim was to screen print with them but upon deciding they didn’t need tampering with I used them in collage instead. For this project I will be incorporating the pattens found in the slides of fossilised ash into the ceramics themselves.
Primordial Soup Exhibition
Primordial Soup Opening 4th of April
More Neolithic Ladies for the Kiln
The 2 figures above are adaptations of The Seated Lady, a statuette found of the Çatalhöyük site in Turkey. Believed to be of the Mother Goddess with sagging post-pregnancy stomach and breast.
The piece is based of statuettes found on Orcadian dig sites, the pattern engraved into her is Grooved Ware, it is the pattern found on British neolithic pottery, originating from Orkney.
Trail firing
Spent the weekend building my Neolithic Kin.
Once the kiln was built I set a bonfire, let it burn until it was reduced to embers, placed my imitation Grooved Ware in the pit and filled with horse dung.
As it was a first attempt I didn’t make it very large and it only burnt for a couple of hours, but I am more than pleased with the results!
Neolithic Ash on a Microscopic Level
I was initially planning on making prints of these microscopic images, but the images are just too exquisite to be tampered with so have began playing with collage..
The top left hand side is an image of fossilised animal dung, beautiful!
Neolithic Firing Process Research
An interesting report by archaeologist Stephen Harrison experimenting with prehistoric firing processes up in Orkney. There is very little information available on neolithic firing processes and this report is coming in very handy!
Seated Lady
My own Seated Lady, based on the famous statue found at the Catalhoyuk site in Turkey. She’s going to be fired along with some friends (yet to be made) using Neolithic firing processes.
Primordial Soup
As part of the Edinburgh Science Festival studio holders The Number Shop, in association with ASCUS, are collaborating with scientists.
Today was my first brainstorming session with archaeologist Lisa Shillito who is currently working on two Neolithic sites, one in Çatalhöyük, Turkey and the other in Orkney, Scotland. Looking at the site on a microscopic scale she can deduce how people lived their daily life. Tomorrow I will be visiting her lab and get a chance to take a look at her slides and learn more about her research.
Molly McEwan 