Taking a stand on standing stones
Nick Jones meets a couple of modern day stone inscribers leaving their mark on history
I'M WITH IAN and Sue, a couple of time travellers living in deepest Northumberland. Ian, a skilled silversmith and jeweller, had a workshop on The Hirsel estate, outside Coldstream. An interest in how metal was worked in the past led to metal-detecting, and the discovery of the Abbey St Bathans Hoard, remarkable Roman bronzes, in the southern Lammermuirs.
He was also drawn to the old stone structures and standing stones, like nearby Edin's Hall Broch, dating back to around 500BC. Now, trading as Glyphz, Ian and Sue are rediscovering the power of stone and metal as transformative media, inspired by paleolithic rock art and Pictish designs.
Far from retreating from the complications and challenges of the modern world, they've recognised the need to rediscover and recognise their relevance and value today. Their artwork is formed of linear designs incised into a rough textured stone that seems to have chosen them, not vice versa. Designs, inlaid with burnished copper, that embody the clarity and power of simplicity.
Going back a further 20,000 years or so, their carvings of bison are inspired by prehistoric cave paintings such those at Lascaux in the Dordogne depicting the co-dependence of humans and wild creatures that provided food, clothing, shelter and simple tools. These images suggest a deep respect, awe, reverence even, for fellow creatures.
The mysteries of the caves inspired writer Jean Marie Auel's Land of Painted Caves, and film-maker Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Fast forward to Pictland in the post-Roman, pre-Norman period, in what is now Scotland. Little is known about the Picts, one of several groups including Celts, Britons, Gaels, Norse, and Northumbrian Angles, all jockeying for power and land. They left no written records, so we have no idea about their language, or lack of it.
What we do have are a handful of linear relief carvings in stone, like those at Aberlemno, near Brechin in Angus. They feature archetypal symbols, abstract designs, spirals, whorls, knotwork, serpents, enigmatic z-rods and double discs, unique to Pictish designs, along with humans and both domestic and hunted animals including bulls, horses and deer. Highland life in the early medieval period was not so different from neolithic times.
Survival depended on living in harmony with nature and respecting, not exploiting it, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, because all creation was considered sacred, with spirit and soul embodied in all matter. Similar images of geometric symbols, humans and animals are found in the paintings and carvings of many indigenous cultures. Wood and bone could be cut and shaped, but stone and metal were longer-lasting. Human invention and skill could transform all into shelter, clothing and food. Stone carvings express the creative spirit, depicting victories in battle, enigmatic symbols, and strange mythic creatures.
As the influence of the Celtic Church spread from Ireland, with Columba reaching Iona in 563AD, the concept of a supreme, external deity began to be incorporated into Pictish carvings. They retained their geometric symbols, but embraced and accepted the new religion and its iconography with a "Both/And" attitude to change. The natives of west Cumbria demonstrated the same enlightened tolerance in the 10th century Gosforth Cross, which depicts the enchaining of Loki from Norse mythology on one face and the crucifixion of Christ on the other.
Irrelevant to humanity's predicament today? Perhaps not. Our survival as a species is not a given. In the best selling French graphic book World Without End French scientist and writer Jean-Marc Jancovici and illustrator Christophe Blain confront this Faustian moment, implying that we've had the pleasure, enjoying, squandering, and wasting the planet's resources. Now's the time to pay, feel the pain, and change the way we treat not just each other, but the rest of creation.
It's no longer meaningful to think in terms of "Either/Or", you or me, them or us. That way lies the ego-driven exploitation of people and planet by a small, powerful, wealthy minority that has got us into this mess, and continues to produce a hugely disproportionate carbon footprint. Time to learn from our forebears that "Both/And" is a better option. All being interconnected we're not the only ones that matter. As self- styled philosophical entertainer Alan Watts put it "There is no separate "you" to get something out of the universe, as if life were a bank to be robbed. For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view."
I wonder if Ian and Sue are actually in the vanguard of positive change in the way we relate to and see ourselves as part of the "known" world. Known in inverted commas because there is so much knowledge that we have lost from the past, and so much that we have yet to find. Their next project? Carved standing stones, recreated for modern times, recognising their spellbinding power to centre, heal and calm. Lost wisdom, rediscovered.
Email: ian@glyphz.co.uk Phone: 07920464543
