Karin and I went for a long hike today in the north of the county, a five mile circuit from Easton on the Hill, through Stamford, and back past the amazing ruins of Wothorpe Towers. In the churchyard at Easton I photographed today’s Spiral Sunday image, a stylised botanical form carved into a slab of the local limestone, a 19th century grave marker for a former inhabitant of the village. As a bonus, here’s the full carving: I really like the twining bindweed.
Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) may possibly be my favourite bird, and I’ve posted a couple of times about encounters with them – see: Waxwing winter and Waxwings in Northants.
So for my birthday last weekend I was stunned and delighted by a gift from my wife Karin: a specially commissioned illustration of waxwings by a very talented artist friend of ours, Stephen Valentine, who is based in Denmark.
I think Stephen has beautifully captured both the alert intelligence of these birds, always on the look-out for food and predators, and their subtle and striking colouration. It’s such an honour to own a piece like this!
If you’re interested, Stephen regularly takes commissions; you can find him on Facebook by searching for “Studio Sejerø”, or I can put you in touch with him.
Thanks Karin, thanks Stephen! 🙂
On 12th February 1809 Mr Charles Robert Darwin was born, so I couldn’t let this week’s Spiral Sunday pass without wishing the great man Happy Birthday! I used Festisite to make the spiral text and then played around with an image of Darwin using PowerPoint; nothing too fancy, but I think it’s effective.
Have a great #DarwinDay everyone!
As he was leaving work on Friday evening my colleague Dr Mu Mu commented on how he was looking forward to today’s Spiral Sunday. That’s the first time anyone has said such a thing, so this week’s image is dedicated to him! It’s the carved end of a mahogany bannister that he passes most days on his way to and from the office in the Newton Building of the University of Northampton.
The Newton Building was constructed in 1915 so the wood was probably harvested from the wild in South or Central America, rather than being from a plantation. These solid, knife-straight bannisters have lasted over 100 years without warping, and will no doubt last for a century or more to come. I love their smooth solidity, but they are a beautiful, daily reminder of the history of tropical deforestation.
Whenever I take a walk on a beach or in the countryside I’m liable to pick up interesting bits of shell, stone, sea glass or wood to take home as a memento of the visit. Doesn’t always work, though, as I forget where I found this fragment of shell! I have a feeling that it was on Tenerife. I love the way the sea has rounded the sharp edges and a piece of stone has forced its way into the opening, a perfect sculpture in miniature as today’s Spiral Sunday contribution.
Spiral Sunday this week is brought to you by Fergus Chadwick, and is (in his words) a “spiral of spirals”: a spiral display of spiral ammonite fossils at the Kelvin Grove Museum in Glasgow. Thanks for the photo Fergus!
This week’s Spiral Sunday features a close-up of hair sculpted in marble, taken during the visit to Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art I mentioned in Spiral Sunday 5. Sadly I forgot to note down the name of the artist, but I do like the way s/he has depicted the hair as deeply carved, close-set spirals.
A double helping of Spiral Sunday for Christmas Day 2016 – two glass baubles on our Christmas tree with very different spiral forms. In the first, the spiral is integral to the design, it is spiral in form. In the second, molten coloured glass has been trailed in a spiral pattern on the surface to create the pattern. Both very different, but both beautiful in their own way.
Merry Christmas everyone!
What better way to create spiral images for Spiral Sunday than with Spirograph in its many online incarnations, e.g. Inspirograph. Have fun playing!
This week’s Spiral Sunday post features a couple of shots I took today in Milton Keynes where we spent a tiring day Christmas shopping. One of the outdoor stalls is selling a traditional baked sweet pastry from Transylvania, the name of which they have Anglicised to “Spiralicious”. It’s made with a very neat spiral-shaped dough cutter, which was just begging to be photographed.
Prof. Jeff Ollerton - ecological scientist and author 