Sheela-na-Gig is finished !!!!

   She has been a long time coming! After a false start and then a total aversion to finishing her my anamorphic  Sheela-na-Gig is finally complete.
  She poses here on a lovely old gilt edged bible which is tied with horse hair. I found that when I removed her from her backing cordonnet she curled up as if already in a reflection (some anamorphic objects have to be viewed in a curved reflective surface) and I liked how she felt like a curled up leaf in my hand so here she sits.

She will also be the first of a series of charms that I am making.... she represents protection from crazy people.

The rest of her story is on this post.

Sheela-na -gig

  Who is she ? No-one is quite sure but she appears on stone carvings in churches which pre-date the actual buildings they are in. The name was given by the Victorians but the general consensus is that she is pagan. 

  I was looking to do a piece of anamorphic lace, an image distorted so as to be revealed only in a curved reflective surface. After much thought of what subject matter to choose I decided that as I could not think of anything profound I would do something not profound instead !!! Sheela-na-gig is usually depicted bald but I wanted to rectify that and so here she is.

  The anamorphic drawing was created by first doing my sketch and them slashing it to fine ribbons. These I then splayed out , taped down and traced out again carefully joining up the gaps. You can make her out on the right of the photo in the silver tube. 

  I had been inspired years ago by the 'Eyes,Lies and Illusions' exhibition here in London and so,like many ideas,this one waited patiently to come into being. She had then been an demonstration piece for another two years and so could never be finished !

Finally.