Lamps

Everyone needs lamps, but not all are equally beautiful or inventive. This is my most recent Etsy treasury, dedicated to lamps that I like so much that I would like to see every night :) I tried to have a bit of all kinds, from ancient oil lamps to contemporary, concrete ones. For an interesting side topic, here is an academic article on ancient lamps with erotic depictions.

 

Campaign

Romanian residents may support the artistic and social NGO apARTe until the end of May 2016

More on the form available for redirecting part of your taxes for 2015 in Romanian here.

Redware and terracotta

The pottery-related Etsy treasuries I've been compiling continues with one dedicated to redware and terracotta. Though online definitions render more restricted definitions in terms of chronology (focusing on American redware), in practice the terms have wider applications. Thus, in my understanding redware is a hard, red stoneware. The term is also used to describe any common clay pottery that is reddish in color. Redware is also known as terra-cotta (different spellings encountered).

Saccharum - sugar as an apothecary ingredient

FOCUS group at the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca: Saccharum

Pharmacists were also the first confectioners. In order to preserve the properties of fruits, plants, and organic medicines they used honey and, from the Middle Ages, also cane sugar. The sugar cane plant (Saccharum officinarum) is native from Asia and the curative use of its juice, as such or crystallized, spread from India to the Middle East and then to Europe and America. The product was called “Indian salt”, “honey not made by bees”, or “cane honey” and was used as a luxury tonic, antiseptic, medicine for the purification of blood, powder against cataract, and as a conservative. It was part of several types of medicines for internal use: syrups, electuaries, aromatic powders, conserves. The latter term, conserva, indicates precisely candied ingredients, i.e. preserved by boiling in sugar. From the 11th until the 16th century, sugar was considered first of all a drug, then a spice, but also had curious uses such as depilatory substance.

Brown sugar-loaves and pincers

 The collection of the History of Pharmacy Museum in Cluj-Napoca includes a number of jars especially made for sugars, dated to the 18th and 19th centuries, besides the numerous jars for conserves or products which included sugar among the ingredients. One 18th-century wooden jar has the signature SACH. THOM. – Saccharum Thomaeum or Thomasinum – red sugar from the isle of São Tomé. Jars inscribed SACHAR SATURN – Saccharum Saturnii contained in fact sweet lead acetate (which is toxic and was probably used only externally), not sugar. SPIRIT SACHAR is distilled sugar, PULV. SACHAR. ALB. is white sugar powder (a rarity, as sugar was foremost sold in cones), while CONS. FUMAR., Conserva Fumaria, is a type of vegetal preserve (to illustrate but one of the candied products). SACHAR. LACTIS is lactose, sugar obtained from milk.

For more images see also the related Pinterest board.

linocut Nurnberg

I found linocut printmaking to be a great technique for rendering the traditional architecture of Nurnberg. I chose a large-size block, that would allow sufficient area for the intricate decorative effect of the timber and daub architectural style of medieval Nurnberg. In order to add to that effect and create a focus point in the print I have cut out one fragment, having it printed in a different color-ink. And for the mixing of the two areas I have added small areas of color applied by hand.
For more of my linocut project see my website.

Leather earrings

Leather is a very friendly medium for artists. Unlike printmaking, ceramics and other "dirty" mediums, leather-working is clean and fun. There is no need for special tools, scissors, awls, and punchers will do - and all you have to think about is design! Here are some of my own attempts at scrap-leather items:

Handmade leather car mirror decoration - draco, the ancient  Dacian wolf standard

Handmade leather "octopus" earrings - intentionally asymmetrical and 3D

Bird-shaped handmade leather earrings

Conceptual leather earrings - "conception"

Handmade leather "helix" earrings - intentionally asymmetrical and 3D

Stoneware

Stoneware is defined as a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay, fired at high temperatures, non-porous. It is in fact one of the most aesthetically promising mediums in contemporary ceramics, so that I created a selection of the best such items in the following Etsy treasury:

 

Enjoy the season!

Vampire-free Transylvania - Etsy treasury

Please forget all the Dracula stories, there is much more than them in Transylvania / Erdely / Siebenburgen. My latest Etsy Treasury sends this message and encourages people to check the land and its artists, by selecting a series of artworks dedicated to or created by Transylvanians.

Exotica - jewelry and precious stones

The past few days I visited Mineralia, the periodical fair for precious stones and jewelry, this time held at the Ethnographic Museum in Cluj-Napoca. It was rich, as usual, more with ready-made pieces of jewelry than with primary materials or independent stones. So rich that one has to diligently go through the myriad way-to-shiny things, in order to fine something special. Once I got the worn-down coral pieces, imperfect amber stones, a couple of prehistoric crocodile teeth and other wonders, I embarked on the "Exotica" project: making amulet necklaces with exotic materials. They can be found on my website Atelierul de Istorie.

 

Miniatures - Etsy Treasury

My latest Etsy treasury, available here, focuses on miniatures, tiny art objects and artifacts. These are, in my opinion, special through their sheer size and difficulty of manufacture/production. Though very small, they are sometime more difficult to make than normal or large objects. I do hope people appreciate this as well, not only liking them due to the "cuteness" criterion, as a kind of mannerism.