A is for Ash

Of all the prunings gathered during March it is the knobbly twigs from the upper branches of an old ash tree that came down in Miller Wood that I've most wanted to use. . . .

Mole parchment?

The moles, and molecatchers, have been busy in Brindle.  I understand parchment can be made out of all kinds of animal skin.  So I skinned nine moles and soaked their skins in lime water.  After removing their fur I stretched them on hoops made of willow.

March - and the MA Interim Show

The Cuerden Psalter's roundel for March shows a figure pruning vines, and another carrying small pieces of wood.  At this time of year I am always out and about with my secateurs cutting the pliable one year's growth from the hedge tops before the hedge cutter arrives.  I tie each bundle with a cable tie so as to be able to tighten them when they shrink.  I label each with the plant species, date and location where it was harvested.  In Hampshire I have a long established list of my favourite foraging spots; service stations, industrial estates, neighbours' gardens and lanes, but here in Lancashire I have had to create a totally new map, and research local place names.

Falling into the Psalter

The February page of the Cuerden Psalter shows a rather leisured 'labour of the month'; a man warming himself inside by a fire, one boot off and in his hand.  Near the bottom of the page where the Pisces roundel should be there is a circular hole instead.  

This space is the place I feel I have been inhabiting recently.  I was admitted to hospital with a raging fever and infection invading my face and I stayed there for the next twelve days.  Prior to my sojourn I was immersed in medieval images, particularly of death, as I had been reading Michael Camille's 'Master of Death: the Lifeless Art of Pierre Remiet Illuminator'.  

In November I wrote 'The first full illuminated page of the Cuerden Psalter, following the twelve calendar pages, shows the couple (for whom the Psalter was made) at the feet of the Madonna who is suckling the Christ child.  Identifying with the small kneeling figures, vulnerable in this intensely intimate moment; I enter each day acutely aware of being at the mercy of this fleeting world beyond my control, having done my best to prepare but sure only of the here and now flooding my senses.'  I now have an infinitely better understanding of what it was I was saying.

The marginalia of animal skins

The two calfskins, and one sheepskin, have been soaking in the lime solution for well over the one to two weeks recommended, so I have been fearing they might be spoiled.  Today we rinsed them and set about removing the hair.  The wool pulled away from the sheepskin easily.  The smaller black and white calfskin was very unevenly loosened; we returned it to soak with tufts still attached randomly across it.  The hair on the larger brown and white calfskin came away when briskly plucked.

While pulling away handfuls of stinking hair from the very edges of the skin I got to thinking about the strange goings on in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, including the Cuerden Psalter.  Cynthia Johnston's wonderful talk about the Hart Collection manuscripts for the Friends of Blackburn Museum on Thursday had raised the question of 'why are these images there?'.  There are various theories on the subject, including those of Michael Camille, but as I scraped and plucked I started having my own. . . . . . 

At the very edges of the animal skin one confronts nipples, 'pockets' (that held the testicles?) and orifices such as the anus, and tubes of skin where the legs once were.  The sanitized folio of vellum has these trimmed from its borders but the parchment makers were acutely aware of the life, death, and sexuality just beyond its margins.

St Valentine's Day

We seem to be losing the 'saint' reducing today to just 'Valentine's Day'.  St.Valentine is noted on the 14th February in the Cuerden Psalter and I wonder how the day was observed. . . . in the 13th century when it was written, but also since. . . how observances might have changed throughout its long life?

On 14th February 2013 I carved simple hearts into red 'Desiree' potatoes and placed a basket of them in the UCLan library so that anyone could take one.

Mistletoe and Bones

Sadly I have still have not heard back from the Pierpoint Morgan library with permission to use images of the Cuerden Psalter in this blog so I cannot display the roundel for January that shows a three-faced Janus, looking back to the past year, looking forward into the coming year and full square facing (and feasting!) the present.  However this miserecord in Whalley Church looks a lot like him but the description, in the church pamphlet, describes it as 'the Trinity'.

He also has me thinking about the threefold Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of Hindu mythology.
The high winds brought down a poplar, laden with clods of mistletoe.  An unusual opportunity to spend time with a hemiparasite, observing how seamlessly it is fused with the host plant.  I am busy combining these pieces, along with gifts from family and friends, of bones from the new year family feasts, to commemorate the start of 2014.