Welcome to this week’s installation of Five Things I’m Digging! I have some unusual art forms, a fabulous piece of really antique jewelry, and a couple of literary-based items for your perusal. You can take these in at a glance, or dive into an internet rabbit hole and stay there for a while. Let me know if you find anything exciting during your travels!
This artist who carves avocado pits into the cutest little forest sprites
Artist Jan Campbell felt like her discarded avocado pits were going to waste, so she found a way to reuse them by turning them into art. She was able to carve the avocado pits like wood to produce tiny bearded characters, green men, and woodland sprites. You can follow her on Instagram at @avocadostonefaces and check out her online shop. Campbell has been taking a break for maternity leave, but hopefully it will open again soon!
***All of these images are the property of the artist, Jan Campbell. Please visit her site and the article I linked to learn more about her and her work!***
This Bronze Age Pendant, ca. 1000-800 BC
This very boho-chic gold pendant is actually an ancient piece of jewelry. Dating from around 1000-800 BC (that’s almost 3,000 years old, if you’re counting), it features a stylized solar design, which as well as being quite stylish, celebrates the importance of the sun to Bronze Age civilizations. This piece was found in the Shropshire Marshes of central England in May 2018; it was placed there intentionally 3,000 years ago, possibly as part of a religious rite. Though it now lives at the British Museum, it hasn’t been seen by the public until now. As part of the Spotlight Loan exhibition tour, this pendant, along with other objects, will be on display at venues across the UK. Its first stop is at the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, where it will stay until December 12, before moving on to its next destination.
These Creepy Church Decorations
The early Rococo period of the eighteenth century was a great time for plasterwork, but you may have not seen any quite this unusual before. The chapel of the eleventh-century Michaelsberg Abbey in Bamberg got a new look when Johann Georg Leinberger spent 1729-1731 decorating it with intricate plasterwork, or pargeting. Leinberger filled his designs with depictions of Death in many postures, with the aim of reminding observers of their own mortality. The most unusual of these depictions is one showing Death lounging on a plinth, blowing bubbles with a straw, his shovel cast aside. You can see more of the chapel here.
The Hobbit
I wrote a post about Tolkien for Hobbit Day, and while thinking about these old favorite books, I decided to read the first chapter or so of The Hobbit for old times’ sake. Well, I’m still reading it. I’m not going to be able to stop, so I’m not fighting it. The Hobbit is just as wonderful as I remember it being. I just finished the chapter where they stop at Beorn’s house. Beorn feels so much like a character from real folklore who has been inserted into the book. Tolkien was hoping to build a mythology for England with Middle-Earth, and this is one of those moments where I think he really succeeds.
Susan Cooper on Writing Rituals
I’ve been thinking a lot about writing this week. Obviously, that’s nothing new, but if you saw my post about getting ready for NaNoWriMo, you know that I’m thinking about entering into a month-long frenzy of work on a rough draft of a novel. These grandiose plans have me thinking about ways that I might be able to make my normally inefficient, procrastinating self into one of those elusive beings, a writer. I found an excerpt from Susan Cooper’s talk “Worlds Apart” at Oxford University on Terri Windling’s blog, Myth & Moor. Cooper talks about the process of getting down to the business of writing and finding her way into the world of the imagination, where her books live.
