Prototype book, belated image.

I 've realised that I haven't posted any images of the Afterlife-Docks prototype book, the culmination of countless hours of work from the Cyrus Garden project. I'm about to 'crit' the book at the Queen of Hungary Project Space and conside rthe next steps with it. Still, most exciting. 

Reconstructing A Garden for Cyrus

I spent today in the freezing studio bringing a lush garden back to the parched ground surrounding the card image of Cyrus The Great's tomb. Perhaps not the original chahar bagh, but there are trees for shade, a few flowers and even a pool for reflection (albeit reflecting a garden pavilion from elsewhere).  I feel inspired to make Cyrus some more gardens, but the rule is that I must only use postcards and that was my one Cyrus tomb image.

Flowers of fantasy

Pillement designs for fantasy flowers from Persia from a French perspective, from the 18th Century. They look as if they should grow in Cyrus' garden........

Interesting Persian ceramic houses

An interesting lecture at the V& A today by Margaret S. Graves on Persian Medieval ceramic house models.  Connections to my  exploration of houses, ceramic, wax or sugar. If the houses were indeed made as Norouz gifts, then there might have been similar garden models, trees or perhaps even garden pavilions.

I unfortunately failed to find any  of the examples on display in the ceramic department or searching the catalogue, but ran out of time looking.

http://edinburgh.academia.edu/MargaretGraves/Papers/443672/Ceramic_House_Models_from_Medieval_Persia_Domestic_Architecture_and_Concealed_Activities

Persian Garden Collages and Indian Postcards.

Finished two more paradise garden collages, one after 'The Garden of the Octagon'. Thinking about the postcards found in the St Helier (Jersey) fruit and vegetable market and how they connect to my garden collages. I would like to make the architectural elements such as the garden pleasure pavilions in the islamic gardens more explicit - hence "The Great White Gate " amalgam here.

Details from collages

Anniversary of Iranian revolution and detail from "Mother & Child Veiled" collage.

Persepolis: chahar bagh, Garden of Cyrus and Browne's quincunx combined.

Arabesque & Honeycomb

I'm re-reading 'Arabesque & Honeycomb' at the moment by Sacheverell Sitwell, another mid 20th century (1957) travelogue of Iran and thereabouts. Naturally, some comparisons to "the Road to Oxiana". He talks disparagingly of Shirazi gardens visited but is more complementary of past Persian gardens, ," water-filled canals, orchards and cypress were the mainstay, and the favourite flower the rose". There's a lovely image of Seljuq Shahs giving audience next to fountains filled with floating red apples, "under a plane tree encased in silver, an image beautiful in itself as poetry."

Chatted to a friend just back from Damascus and Beirut yesterday, then read Mr Sitwell's account of his Damascene journey - somewhat different.

Keeling's 'Pictures from Persia'

I've been reading "Pictures from Persia" today by Cecil Keeling, an old tome from Much Ado Books. I'm not sure when it was published, judging from the tone perhaps shortly after WW2 ended, but there is an inscription in it from 1949. Also a stamp showing it resided at some point in 'Alfie's Bookstore, Abadan'. There are some gorgeous 1940's illustrations from the somewhat colonial perspective of a British soldier - several pipe-smoking officers, some interesting caricatures and a whole heap of impoverished Persians. A bit of a time capsule.