not much about work

My colleague is off on paternity leave just now, leaving me holding the fort with our great part-time and temporary staff and my excellent technician, Fiona. A fault in the fire-alarm system in the building means that I can't cast anything, and I've not had time to work at the bench. Additionally, I just spent two weeks on holiday, so haven't much to report other than that I sent all my work off to the gallery at Cwmbran in Wales today, Llantarnam Grange, who are hosting an exhibition of my work next month.

An excellent time for musing on things I've noticed...

First up, I am rather taken by the recent acquisition by the British Library of the "St Cuthbert Gospel", a book written and bound in the late Seventh Century and then variously added to until the mid 1100s before being interred in a coffin with a putative "Saint" Cuthbert. The book itself is quite lovely. For me, the most amazing thing about it is that it is still completely legible, and easily so. It is quite possible to look at this and read the Latin text with the ease of a modern printed book. You can see the book on the British Library Website in fantastically fast-rendering High-Definition images. Unfortunately, it cost the library £9 million to buy...

My good friend, Janos, has been experimenting for some time with seals and stamps, carving the Carara marble from the Italian alps near his home in Campo Ligure and etching steel to make jewellery and pocket-pieces which are pleasing, robust and useful. He made some stamps for me some time ago:

Which I now use on all my packaging. More recently, he's made this brilliant "bangle stamp/seal":

These make for a fine touch when sending out hand-made items.
More later in the week!