1978 - 11" x 14" - India Ink, Bristol Board
While studying the art of the European Bronze and Iron Ages, I noticed how my books praised the workmanship of certain pieces, and I could see that the detail and ornamentation had taken great skill. I wondered at the superstition that must have been a part of life to these peoples as they tried to stay alive and prosper; tried to find control over the capricious temperament of Nature. Images swirling through my head, I began to create drawings with Iron Age imagery connected by large shapes of stark black and pristine white. Other areas move with the effects of repeated lines, stippled or solid.
Also incorporated into this image are potsherd rim shapes. Here’s the story behind that: my art professor Mr. Fred Brian sent me over to Illinois State University to do some drawing for an archeologist there. She told me that looking at the thickness of fired clay from a broken piece of pottery, and the shape of a piece of pottery rim, could identify where the pottery was made. People had their own way of making pottery. My job was to draw the pieces she had of potsherd rims. The size and thickness and shape had to be accurate for each piece. As I drew them, I noticed how those shapes danced across the paper. Later, I used that idea in drawings.
Reference:
See images #72, #78, #79-83
ART OF THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE: A study of the elusive image by J.V.S. Megaw, Harper & Row Publishers, New York and Evanston, copyright 1970 by J.V.S. Megaw, First U.S. Edition