A quest: learning skills using ancient processes and materials

My final skills session funded by Artists Newsletter was learning about glass making. I did this at Salt Glass Studios in Norwich, run by Max Lamb and Fiona Wilkes. I originally hoped that I would do sandcasting with them, because I liked the idea of seeing cast glass in contrast to the cast bronze from my bronze sessions, and making glass impressions of the bronze artefacts I made. Unfortunately there was an equipment problem, and Salt Glass can’t do sand casting until next year now until essential parts from Sweden have been replaced.

When I heard that Salt Glass couldn’t offer sandcasting I researched other glass makers who could: I couldn’t find anyone at the time (ironically, I discovered a course just as I had committed to my day with Salt Glass), so I decided to do a bespoke day teaching me glass different processes with Max and Fiona instead. I thought this would give me an understanding of glass making possibilities and would be something I could build upon in the future. I think the day gave me more understanding of handmade glass than sandcasting would have done, and was a good foundation for future experimentation,

I did the day with another artist, Rob Nicol. Max worked with us and Fiona came at intervals to talk to us about the processes and outcomes that can be made with them. Max is a brilliant tutor: he is very calm and patient, and explains each step of the processes very clearly. Obviously, glass making has the potential to be really dangerous but Max is always calm and organised.

The first thing we were shown was how to gather glass, add colour and form it into a bauble type shape. I was watching intently and photographing different parts of the day, but unfortunately forgot to make note of all the terminology (and I have a terrible memory), so I apologise for any misnaming and poor descriptions. My photos hopefully elaborate parts of the process more than my text.

We were taught how to hold a glass rod and to gather glass from the furnace. This was incredibly hot- even though we only had access to it for a few seconds- and once we had captured some on our rod we took it over to a bench to roll it in crushed glass to give it colour. The glass cools very rapidly, so it has to be given a burst of up to 20 seconds in another furnace regularly. All the time the rod has to be gently rotated so that the glass stays on and has to be kept horizontal at all times.

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Having added colour to the bauble we then had to sit at another bench with the rod and use huge pliers to make incisions into the glass, and to make a loop in the glass at the end of it. I had to reheat mine in between doing it. It was then put into a controlled Lehr to cool (as were all outcomes). This is what I made:-

The next object we made was a paperweight. For this we had to gather glass and choose two colours, rolling our gathered glass into the crushed glass. We let this piece of glass almost drop off the rod like a long drip, then took the end and twisted and folded it into itself.

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I found it quite physically hard to fold it in and created lots of bubbles because I was heavy handed with this, although I didn’t mind that-I quite like the effect! It had to be dipped and the end neatly cut and shaped off the rod. I like the outcome from this-it is quite painterly, and reminds me of the sea and waves.

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I was volunteered to go first when we began, and Max likes the same sequence subsequently, so I always went first, but to be honest I think I needed the extra time to watch Rob at work. I would have preferred to be second! My efforts were very clumsy, and Rob was far more dexterous with the glass than me.

The next process we experimented with was glass blowing. We gathered glass on our rods and literally blew it. This required a lot more puff than I had imagined.

 

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Once we had a blown bulb, and had re-heated it, we gathered colour from the crushed glass and blew it more, before shaping it further with the pliers. Max had demonstrated a beautiful jug. My piece became a wonky vase! I quite like it though, and think I would be interested in developing ideas around this to make vessels in the future. Again, see the photos for more clarification.

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We then had the opportunity to make something developing this process further. I wanted to try dipping, and made a two-coloured blown vase which I dipped back in the glass kiln twice. It was looking ok until I caught it on the edge of the furnace when I was reheating it and got a pile of fluff/kiln residue on it. Max wrapped a bit of glass on this to deal with it but it is very large and I find it very ugly. Equally I can see how studio glass forms developed from experimenting with mistakes like this.

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The final part of the day, and the element which delighted me the most, was adding my Goodwins sand to glass discs. I had taken the sand with me on a whim and didn’t think to dry it out beforehand, which was a shame-maybe I could have done more with it had I done so. But Fiona suggested we lay some out and add glass to it to see what happened- conceptually I found it really exciting. Max made a glass disc and we laid it on top of the sand –which absorbed excitingly into the glass.

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I was warned that it might not stay embedded, but actually a lot of the sand has remained, and I am really delighted to have these discs that capture glass from an eerie location, the gentle scattering of sand looking like it is lying on a puddle of solidified water.

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The alchemical magic in the glass making was enticing. The Goodwins discs, and my discussions with Max and Fiona have made me realise that I am actually more interested in conceptual ideas around the glass rather than making it. Fiona told me about her research into making glass with local materials from the North Norfolk coast and this is something I would really like to do, especially as I can get the same materials locally here in Kent. I’d also like to add Goodwins sand to sand-casting and perhaps plan to make my own glass to cast into my own sand. This was a hugely stimulating session, with lots to think about for the future, and a massive thanks to AN for facilitating me in expanding my ideas and scope.

One of the skills I wanted to learn this year was how to make bronze and then cast with it. As with my interest in flint knapping, I wanted to see how prehistoric man made tools from scratch using metal they formed themselves. Part of my interest in this was ignited by the idea of casting into sand- one of the materials I gather at the tidal foreshore, and went to the Goodwins specifically to collect-but also I was fascinated to see that unlike most bronze casting courses, Will Lord offered a course where participants made their own bronze as well as learning how to cast with it. To me this was a compelling reason to work with him.

I absolutely LOVED doing the bronze casting -every element of it was fascinating and exciting to witness, a constant alchemy. It was also extremely physical, which appealed to me. I did the course with two other participants, John and Lesley over two days at Will’s studio near Bury St Edmonds. Day one was focussed on making a furnace and smelting copper (a component of bronze), and looking at lost wax casting techniques. We started by building a smelting furnace in Will’s garden, using natural materials: clay (in the form of bricks made from locally dug clay), grog (gritty clay), horse manure and deer hair. We had to mix the four up- crumbling the manure and hair, crushing the grog and then mixing the component materials together, in the ratio of two parts of grog, to one of clay, one of manure, and one of hair. We then used these mashed up materials to make “bricks”, which we then stacked on a paving slab to make a kiln shape, that was a bit like an igloo, with a hole/vent for  bellows. All this was done outside in the garden. Meanwhile we took it in turns to crush a large lump of malachite placed between a leather hide, which we hammered with a stone to reduce it to small pieces. Historically in Britain this malachite would have come from somewhere like the Great Orme mine in Wales.

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We lit the furnace by using flint and marcasite (iron ore, which had come from the Warren in Folkestone) to strike a light onto a bit of amadou (silver birch canker, I think). Once we had flames we blew these onto a nest of hay with bulrush fur. It soon caught and we placed it in our furnace, feeding turps rich pine (punk wood) and then charcoal on top. Then a pair of Will’s bellows, made from hide, came into their own. We took it in turns to squeeze these to bring the furnace up to temperature, and then to keep the flames and heat going. The furnace was ultimately capable of reaching temperatures of 1300 degrees. It was really physically hard work manning the bellows, to constantly keep the fire going, and made me realise how vital it would be to have help if I tried this at home.

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We put the crushed malachite in a graphite urn and placed it in the furnace. Once the malachite melted we emptied the crucible into the charcoal so it that it could percolate down and transform into a copper ingot.

We spent the rest of the afternoon making models from wax to use to cast the following day – the lost wax casting technique.

Will had different types of wax and showed us how to manipulate them into a shape with a pouring cup. I made a version of a deer bone I had found mud larking on the Thames. Because I wasn’t happy with it, and I was quite fast at modelling-probably because I was in my comfort zone with it- I made two more models. We were supposed to make one, but Will suggested I try them all. We covered our models in a glaze of slip and built a thin wall of more of the clay mix from the furnace build over them. Once Will was happy that our wax models were well invested, we left them for Will to take home to dry out (apparently by leaving them in the oven at 50 degrees all night, with the door open), so that they were ready for burning out and firing on day 2.

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Our day ended with a demonstration of how to pour bronze into a sand mould, using bronze Will had already made which he heated in the smelting furnace. He showed us how to pack a wooden double sectioned mould with modern casting sand and make a blade shape from a pre made wooden form. Seeing this process was really inspiring, and it was amazing to think how our days work translated into the beautiful emergent axe form he created at the end of the day.

Day 2 was about burn out and casting. First of all we had to burn the wax out of the lost wax models we had made the day before, and raise the temperature of the mould. Whilst that was happening we weighed out tin to mix with the copper we had made. This was done in a crucible in a modern gas furnace system. Whilst it could have been done in the smelting furnace, Will needed us to have molten metal at the exact time we needed it with our lost wax pieces, and with three participants this would have been more uncontrollable in the prehistoric method.

When Will could see that our wax had melted we took it in turns to pour the bronze we had made from its crucible into the moulds, which we stood in a bucket of sand. This was where we understood how key the pouring cup was. Once our mould, now full of bronze, had cooled a little, we cracked open the moulds with a pick axe. Mine had corrupted quite a lot from the original bone shapes I had made, and I abandoned one as having too many irregularities to spend time trying to clean up, but the other two I filed down and sanded (Will has a brilliantly equipped workshop).

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In between doing this I sand cast a wooden form akin to a knife blade and a flint arrow head that Will had knapped. We prepared boxes as Will had demonstrated the day before: packing them tightly with sand and laying in our objects by the pouring vent in the box and making a vent in the sand between this and the object. The box was then clamped shut and we poured molten bronze in as before.

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My two sand cast pieces both came out really well too: personally, I found the knife form too flat and prefer the subtle planes of the flint that have been picked up by the bronze. I am really delighted with the all my outcomes but to be honest it was more about the process for me than the result. Every element of the bronze casting was exhilarating for me. I am really desperate to try and repeat this process. I think I have found somewhere where I can do this safely so my intention is to recruit some helpers and try it myself soon! As an introduction to bronze casting, I really recommend Will’s course-it is very satisfying to think you have made both the metal and the mould that you cast from: and by building the furnace you really get a deeper understanding of the process.

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One of the skills that I wanted to learn this year was flint knapping. I did some research into possible courses and decided that Will Lord (based near Bury St Edmunds) would be a really interesting person to work with. His parents, as archaeologists, were involved with the 1970s excavations of Grimes Graves, the site of Neolithic flint mines near Thetford, and this has undoubtedly influenced his work in teaching prehistoric experiences.

My intention had been to learn how to fabricate flint tools to utilise in carving found wood and other foraged materials sourced in my exploration of tidal sites. For my “Quest” work I made tools which were emblematic rather than functional but as I envisage continuing to use submerged spaces as a source of research, I thought flint tools would allow me to work with the chalk, flint and wood I find there, and give a self-sufficiency to my work. It would also enhance my research and understanding of primitive technologies and rituals, and inspire new possibilities for my work. The tools themselves might lead to sculptural outcomes and also help me look at found materials with a new impetus.

I discovered that Will through his lifetime connection to Grimes Graves has a unique access to the site. I had intended to visit them on the same trip as doing a flint knapping session with him: when I heard that he was offering flint knapping at Grimes Graves itself I decided I had to do that course!

Grimes Graves are managed by English Heritage. They are the largest group of Neolithic flint mines in the world, located in the Breckland area of Norfolk.The 400 plus pits were first named Grim’s Graves by the Anglo-Saxons (Grim is another name for the god Woden, and they were believed to be his handiwork). It was not until one of them was excavated in 1870 that they were identified as flint mines dug over 4,000 years ago.
The landscape is very odd, with lots of grassy mounds, a cross between a lunar landscape and a weird heathland golf course surrounded by Thetford forest. Grime’s Graves is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a habitat for rare plants and fauna. English Heritage have a history of the site with diagram of the chamber here:

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/grimes-graves-prehistoric-flint-mine/history/

When I arrived, I saw that Will had set up next to the small museum at Grimes Graves- there was a massive pile of large flints (shoe to football size) by a tarpaulin and benches. The day started withintroductions- there were 9 of us doing the course, and Will told us about Grimes Graves and his connection with it. He then showed us the main skills needed to produce flint tools, by demonstrating how to knap an axe head. This started with selecting a large flint from the pile and deciding where to cut into it. Will worked his way around the stone, explaining where hitting it impacted most usefully for cutting swathes away. However, even waste pieces of flint were often very functional blades, and could, for example, be used as a scraping blade to successfully clean a hide. The slender shards were also very beautiful, and held up to the light revealed beautiful milky streaks in the glass surface, or layered dark marks marking the impact of their formation millions of years ago.

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The shape of the axe gradually appeared as Will cut away at the flint. Initially he was striking it with a stone (not a flint) he had selected as ideal in weight for the purpose. He made the whole process look easy, although there were still times when the stone didn’t fracture in the way he had hoped. As he worked the axe head he switched to an antler to nibble away at the flint, until he ended up with something he was satisfied with. It looked fantastic, and we were all impressed-and a bit daunted!

After this we went into the museum and got fitted up with hats and harnesses. We walked across the heath, and past several of the mounds, to the shaft above the Cannon Greenwells Pit. One at a time we were hooked up to a safety rope and had to descend 9 metres down a vertical ladder into the pit.

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As you descend you can see layers of flint in the chalk structure of the pit. It is a large chamber-if you imagine primitive ladders criss-crossing it, there would have been room for several miners to move up and down- we all had plenty of room to gather at the bottom. It is completely dark, and takes a while to acclimatise. It is very atmospheric and also very silent, although when aircraft went overhead they were disturbingly loud-the sound really magnified, and made me wonder how much noise pollution impacts on the subterranean.

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Will pointed out the various galleries which led off the main chamber: we were allowed to investigate these which meant crawling on our stomachs at times to navigate the space. It was an amazing experience. There were chalk columns holding up the different spaces and whilst this in itself was incredible, the element for me that was utterly inspiring was seeing antlers left at various points which had been used by the prehistoric miners. They were huge-they were red deer antlers covered with a chalky patina, and one had what looked like a chalk-putty hand print on it. We also saw various remains of fires which looked ancient and ritual with pairs of ?rabbit skulls in them. We also saw more recent fox and pole cat skeletons, all with amazing veins of jet black flint threading through the chalk as a backdrop in the different chambers we explored.

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My photos are poor because of the dark and don’t do justice to what an incredible experience this was.

I lost track of how long we were in the Greenwells pit for-it must have been an hour or more. When we climbed back out, with the light at the top, it was easier to see the layers of construction where the pit had been dug.

We had an authentically spit roasted venison for lunch-it was fascinating to see Wil’s friend Simon using flint blades to clean the hide for re-use.

Will then demonstrated flint knapping again to allow us to recall the techniques and skills of this ancient craft. We were then given the rest of the afternoon to have a go ourselves.

The group I was with consisted of a mix of genders and ages: the two people I sat with were an archaeologist and a teacher who was a very knowledgeable Thames mud-larker. Of the group, I would say only one person really had an immediate affinity with the process –and it wasn’t me! I found it incredibly hard. I picked a stone and tried to work with it: looking back at my results, my three main attempts, although successful in reducing the flint to a fairly axe type shape, show that I got really confused about how to keep cutting to get the finished shape. I also realised I am an incredibly dangerous flint striker! Whilst everyone else made neat cuts, my shards kept flying at my neighbour. I decided it was unfair to keep sabotaging his work in this way and moved to using the delicate shards to shape into blades. I practised cutting away at them with an antler, and am posting the results below.

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Although I don’t feel I have a natural affinity with flint knapping, I loved the day. I feel privileged to have been down the Grimes Graves and the sight of various antlers lying on chalky beds will stay with me for a long time, and I am sure will influence work as an unintended consequence of this experience. The eerie landscape was also haunting. My timeline with my all my bursary intentions has got pushed to a lot later in the year than I had intended, which has meant that I haven’t been able to put these pieces towards a solo show as I intended. I am currently working at forming the flint blades into ambiguous implied archaeological finds- tools/artefacts/jewellery- and will be showing them in Margate later this month, so keep reading future posts..

 

As a part of my AN funding, and building on my “Quest ” work from last year, one of my objectives has been to visit the Goodwin Sands, which are exposed for short periods only, to gather sand from there: my intention being to use this either as the silica to form into glass or alternately as a medium to cast glass or bronze into.

The Goodwin Sands are notorious sandbanks in the middle of the English Channel, famous for being the “Ship Swallowers” and causing many wrecks. They lie adjacent to the Kent coast with their most northern tip opposite Sandwich Bay. It is possible to visit them and land on them for an hour, depending on tides. I wanted to go to the Goodwins to collect some sand to use in casting and/or to add to silica to make glass. I like the elusive nature of the Goodwins: to go on a quest implies a journey to a possibly mythical space. A journey to a site that is submerged for most of the day seemed a necessary part of my expedition, and the sand that I collected would have, for me, a magical property as a consequence.

Dover Sea Safari are the only organisation who organise this trip currently, although other boats will take you there to see the Grey seals which have colonised the site. Last year I tried five times to visit the Goodwin Sands but each trip was cancelled because of poor weather.

My time line for my bursary was that I would be doing most of my skills activity over the summer. With the glorious summer we have had this year, I thought I would get out to the Goodwins at least once, maybe more than once. But yet again, I found myself being thwarted. Despite the sun, EVERY trip I booked was cancelled due to high winds. The cancellation text would come the day before the intended trip and I began waiting for cancellations with a sense of the inevitable. After the fifth cancellation, I thought that perhaps I was destined never to get to the Goodwins.

But, ironically with the summer over, I finally got to the Sands. There were points on the trip when to be honest, I wished it had been cancelled. But overall it was a unique and dream-like experience.

We had to meet at Dover Sea Safari offices, on Dover sea front, at 6. There were 12 of us on the trip. We were given a briefing and life jackets, and then made our way through the harbour to the boat we were to go on, which is an RHIB speed boat (rigid-hulled inflatable boat). At this point, there was a light drizzle of rain.

Leaving the harbour was exhilarating, and we sped away from Dover parallel to the White Cliffs northwards up the coast towards Deal. I could see St Margaret’s Bay and the coast towards Kingsdown. However, it got increasingly wet and hard to look at the sea and coast line, with the drizzle getting more intense, and the spray flying up making us very wet. I had had a wish list of things I had hoped to see from the boat- porpoises-gannets-wrecks as we approached the Goodwins. But nothing! The visibility became appalling-which admittedly added to the sense of mystery-and despite wearing layers and waterproofs I felt drenched and cold, and the journey time to the sands started to feel interminable. My face felt pebble dashed with cold water, my body rigid, soaked to the skin. Probably the trip was about 45 minutes long but it felt longer after being comprehensively doused with cold sea water and driving rain.

However, as we approached the sands the rain subsided. It was so odd arriving at an expanse of sand in the middle of the channel, a sort of calm oasis after our journey. We were transferred by means of a tender (small rowing boat) to the sands: we jumped into this from the RHIB and one of the crew pulled it to the sands, by walking through the shallows-which was quite surreal in itself.

We had all taken our footwear off and left it in the RHIB, and had to jump into the shallows from the tender. The sea was surprisingly warm and the sand was incredibly soft and smooth, unlike any other sand I have walked on- I imagine this is because it is constantly churned over by the sea.

The landscape stretching out before us was an eerie vista of sandy ditches and rivulets with watery trails to the sea. It was very atmospheric. In appearance it was almost like a huge sandy wasteland, with the sand bank formations like trenches, and a sense of desolation compounded by the dreary weather, all made more mysterious by little visibility in any direction. The tide was going out when we arrived so new areas were being exposed, and bits that had been under water then became drier formations. The shifting sands…

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We were allowed one hour to wander where we wanted, so we headed off towards the furthest point from the boat where the seals were. Given that there were no other markers-none of the wrecks I had anticipated-it seemed a point to focus on.

I imagine in sunshine the atmospherics of the sands would completely change, and they would be glittering and sparkling with the freshly washed sand and small channels of water. The sand was so clean and pure: absolutely devoid of any of the usual marine life or litter that you would normally expect to see on a beach. All I saw were a couple of sea bird feathers, and evidence of seals- marks of trails where they had hauled themselves (who do you describe seals moving on land?) into the sea, and droppings. I felt guilty sullying the sand with my footsteps. As we walked further we could see a whole colony of grey seals beside the sea- probably at least sixty. They were amazingly unfazed by us and only slowly disappeared into the sea as we approached.

The rain, which had stopped for half an hour, started again. We walked back towards where the boat was anchored. I stopped on the way to scoop up some of the sand. There are very contentious plans to dredge some of the Goodwins currently, which has divided local opinion, and I felt perhaps I shouldn’t be taking sand, although it was a tiny amount. I thought perhaps I could cast into it (something very small) or see if it could be incorporated into glass making.

The journey back to Dover was one of the most miserable outdoor experiences of my life. By the time we got back on the boat there was driving rain, and that, coupled with sea spray, meant that we were all utterly drenched by the time we arrived back in Dover. A group waiting to go out at the Sea Safari office looked dismayed when they saw the state of us!

However, looking back, making a very challenging journey to an elusive, shifting site in the middle of the English Channel seems highly apt. I came back with some sand from the Ship Swallowers and even without using this in a subsequent process, such as glass making or casting, feel as though it is a prize or Holy Grail to trigger more of my work exploring the foreshore and submerged spaces. More to follow soon….