Over the past few years I have been placing tiny Votive Jars out in the landscape as offerings to places that inspire me and hold significance within my work.
This is an idea that came out of reading through some of my old Archaeological literature from my time at university. One area that particularly caught my interest is the burial or deposit of objects within the landscape by the people of the Neolithic. Human bones, animal bones, tools and even pottery were deliberately placed in locations that had significance to those people at that point in prehistory. Many of the locations appear to be determined by landscape features almost an exploration of their relationship to nature and the land. These structured deposits are partly about the objects but also about a place. Most “votive deposits” are in well used locations, tombs or settlements, some however are in wild places.
The purpose of the votive jars is to convey a sense of what I experience from the landscape and how it influences my work. It is also a homage to those places. It is about places or sites that hold a uniqueness a resource that I can draw on. Either a physical raw material like clay or an idea, a feeling, a tone to be imbued into my Jars.
This work is going to be exhibited for the first time in an exhibition at Oriel Myrddin in Carmarthen. ‘Thin Place‘ exploring the inter-connectivity of art, literature, science and theology and opens on the 10th January 2015.