Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Ice Worlds

It's cold. The old house bumps and snaps all night, contracting and settling like a restless sleeper. Outside the moon casts the night in a kind of black shadowed parody of day. It's quiet, along the brook trees crack like gunshots. The sap expands as it freezes and splits the bark, letting out a sharp crack in the crushing stillness.

It's easy to stay inside when it's this cold, but I work alone and it's no good-- I have to get out, breath frosty air, interact with the world. Today around noon I took my camera out into the still world and walked up the brook. It's cold enough to freeze running water. What I find in the ice suggests ancient alien worlds, three dimensional photographs of turmoil, or far galaxies. I see what look like half formed arcane letters or gaping faces. The secrets a frozen brook keeps.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Barbarian Dagger - Kullervo

This dagger, named after the Finnish tragic hero Kullervo, is loosely inspired by antenna hilted knives from the Hallstatt period. It's forged of four strands of pattern-welded steel-- the two center strands are nine layers each and the spine and edge are seven hundred layers. I found it in a dark drawer down a side corridor of my subconscious.



At its widest point Kullervo is 4.8cm and it is 38.5cm long. The stand is birds-eye rock maple.