Andy Goldsworthy in the Museum Basement

Here we are back down in the basement of the Museum of Scotland in Chamber Street, where Dumfriesshire base Sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy, who has featured several time in my blogs, has a number of pieces in amongst the old stuff. Most of Andy's work is made using natural materials or by using traditional building techniques and so they fit in rather nicely with the artifacts from those bygone days before industrialisation.

This piece, Stacked Whalebones, was made in 2001. It is the complete skeleton of a 5m pilot whale which was found beached in Northumberland in 1997.

This piece is called Hearth and dates from 1998. It is made from wood collected at the construction site of the museum building itself.

I should than my sister Edie here for the Andy Goldsworthy book she bought me for Christmas or else I would have unable to definitely identify this as a Goldsworthy - no sign of a label in the museum for it. It is made made of clay which has been carefully controlled in the drying period to produce this pattern.

The two dugout canoes here were found in Dumfriesshire Lochs - one dates from 200BC to 200AD and the other much later, around 1100 AD

In this one Andy has produced a circle in the clay. 

My thanks to Francois Jordaan for allowing me to use this picture from his Flickr pages here

You can see the circle from the clay wall reflected in found substantial walls in the middle of the Gallery. Called Enclosure, they are build from reworked roofing slates from around the Edinburgh area.

February round up

It does feel as if Spring is arriving at the right time this year and after the last two Winters, I can really make no complaint about this one. So I'll start this little blog of odds and ends that didn't make it into a blog all on their own with a quick shot of the crocuses coming up in Kirkcudbright. I must have shown you this before - they do have a rather good display.

I've been to the chambered tombs at Cairnholy on several occasion, so just a couple of pictures of them here. I bumped into an American chap, who spends a lot of time here,  who pointed out a few cup and ring markings on Cairnholy I (below), and we had quite a natter about them. The markings are difficult to see in the pictures so here's just a basic shot of the cairn.

I find Cairnholy I more interesting and in the flesh looks better but for some reason Cairnholy II seems to be more photogenic and makes many more appearances in tourist brochures.

Well here we are back in Edinburgh. The buses on the North Bridge and just outside the station seemed particularly colourful.

Just round the back of the Royal Scottish Academy building on the mound (also by William Playfair who built the Edinburgh city observatory two blogs ago) is this. It's called Kandylaki (Shrine to abandoned christmas trees) by Juliana Capes. As far as I can see a kandylaki is a little roadside shrine quite common in Greece - I saw quite a few in Poland too last year.

This chap has appeared in a little grove in the Botanical Gardens. Though without any labels that we could find, it is Thomas Houseago's Untitled (Lumpy figure) from 2009. Back in November in my Edinburgh Mostly blog, I featured a sculpture I didn't know the origin of. Turns out this is also by Thomas Houseago and is called Rattlesnake figure (aluminium) - the botanic gardens say it is made of bronze on their website and in reality looks a lot like wood - they're trying to confuse me I see. There are a few others by Mr Houseago at the gardens.

Swans on a pond in the gardens

More swans on a pond in the Stockbridge area.

They do rather blow the graceful image when they're out of the water with those big rubbery feet. it's a bit like wearing Doc Martins with a wedding dress.

Just as we were loosing the light for the day we passed this grand entrance. There is no longer a market on the other side, just a street of houses, but the gate remains.

Clarinda was buried just round the corner from the tearoom in the Graveyard of Canongate Kirk, so we popped in to find her.

In 1782 Nancy  had become separated from her husband due to cruelty and was surprisingly well educated for a woman of her time. When Burns became the toast of Edinburgh in 1787 she was determined to meet him. There was quite a spark between the two, leading to a  lengthy correspondence. Unfortunately Nancy and Robert had slightly different ideas about how the relationship should continue. Burns would rather it was a bit earthier and eventually he found what he wanted below stairs - Nancy's servant Jenny Clow had a child to him in 1888.

Nancy never forgot Burns and in 1831, 35 years after his death, wrote "This day I can never forget. Parted with Burns, in the year 1791, never more to meet in this world. Oh, may we meet in Heaven!"

Nancy is remembered in one of Burns' best know songs Aye Fond Kiss. Here sung by Eddi Reader

This poor wee bear was lost round the back of the station - at least he's still got a smile on his face.

Musically a good month as I've been coming to expect of  late. At the folk club in Dumfries there was a fine evening of fiddle music and the occasional song from Carol Anderson and Rosie Lindsay followed by a session for an hour or two and of course the Old Wrinkly session in the Coach and Horses the day before (it's the official name of the session - mainly because being a weekday afternoon it mainly attracts retired people (and me)).

Musical highlight of the month though goes to Fairport Convention at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh (with Kieran Goss again - he supported Eddi Reader there last year). The Queens Hall have their own Youtube channel so there's a bit of Fairport from the very concert we were at here.

 

Back in the Botanics, here's another unlabelled sculpture.

I've no trouble identifying this one though - it's an Andy Goldsworthy. Which seems a good place to finish as he is going to be the subject of my next blog in a couple of days time.

In the Museum Basement

Down in the basement of the National Museum of Scotland is a whole load of old stuff. So much so that we took two visits there to see it all properly. The exhibits down there are for the best part from the first millennium or before. 

The first picture here shows some cup and ring markings, those mysterious carvings from deep in Scotland's prehistory (and other parts of Europe too). Those of you who have been with me for a while might recognise these as things I've posted about before, for others you can see some I visited "in the wild" about a year ago here

These arrowheads, wrist guard and buckle ring were all found in a grave at Culduthel in Inverness along with a decorated ceramic pot and a few other odds and ends. The date from somewhere between 2300 BC and 1800 BC. The wrist guard is made of stone but has metal rivets.

 These two bronze blades date from 2200 BC to 1900 BC. By making a reproduction of what the knife would have looked like new, the museum have given us a far better idea of its original appearance.

Three axeheads from 3600 BC to 3000 BC

The period covered most extensively in the basement gallery is the Roman period - they were in Britain from 43 AD (although Julius Caesar popped over for a wee look in 55 BC) till about 410 AD.  They did of course spend considerably less time in Scotland, finding us just a little...well...savage. I should point out, for the sake of international tourism, that it was a very long time ago and we're much nicer now. There are still plenty of signs of the Romans in Scotland and many artifacts have been found. I great number of those in the museum have come from the Newstead Roman fort near Melrose including this ornate bronze helmet.

Too fancy for your average legionary who would have had to make do with something along these lines, made out of iron.

They seemed to like their decorated jug handles.

Also in the collection are everyday objects from the period - here are some oil lamps, a couple of which still show some signs of having been used.

Some very mighty nails.

This isn't the greatest picture as the camera decided it  wanted focus on something else. But if you look at the tile underneath you can see a dog has run over the tile while it was wet. Probably produced a bit  of Latin bad language from a Roman Potter.

A rather fancy spoon.

This one really caught my fancy. Who'd have thought that somebody made a folding spoon nearly 2000 years ago.

Some colourful bits of Roman bangles

A set of coins from the reign of the Emperor Trajan 98 - 117 AD. They are from left to right in descending value,an aureus, denarius, sestertius, dupondius, as, semis, and a quadrans.

This is the remains of a  carnyx found in Deskford in Moray. The carnyx is a type of iron age war trumpet that the Romans would have had to face on many of their campaigns - not just in Scotland. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote of them, "Their trumpets again are of a peculiar barbarian kind; they blow into them and produce a harsh sound which suits the tumult of war"

Based on pictures from the time and other carnyxs from elsewhere this reproduction has been made.

A little later in history, this set of scales and weights dates from around 875 to 925 AD and was found in a viking grave at Kiloran Bay on the Island of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.

The next three pictures are all of part of the St Ninian's Isle Treasure found in 1958. They are all thought to be Pictish in origin, dating from about 800 AD and probably belonged to the church on the island who at some point have buried them for safe keeping (though perhaps not meaning to keep them safe until quite 1954). All the pieces shown here are silver gilt.

A brooch

Three objects described on the museums page as conical, in other places as mounts, and generally I don't think they really know.

The chape (the bit at the bottom) of a sword scabbard.

And almost up to date, on the way into the museum basement are these sculptures by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (Edinburgh sculptor who lived from 1924 to 2005). They have little cabinets within them - not great for displaying things but good to look at on the whole.