I was inspired by garden gnomes to do a line of fantasy figures for the giftware industry in the early nineties.
That led to similar projects such as this one:
This Santa is made of a polyform clay. The figure would stand about 5 inches tall standing. This was part of a project done with Figi Graphics sometime in the early 1990s.
In the finished model Santa is sculpting a model train on a mountainous terrain.
What a revelation to learn about my own two garden gnomes' (here on the opposite side of the Atlantic) not so humble beginnings. I'll have to tell them that they trace their ancestry back to the illustrious "Lampy" of the Lamport Hall Gardens (but perhaps they already know!)
Kathleen, I ran across this article, as I get emails from The Smithsonian Magazine. It seemed like something you would be interested in. I have always been into the King Arthur lore, since I was a kid.
Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend
The 13th-century pages, found by chance at a British library, show a different side of Merlin, the magician who advised Camelot’s king
Livia Gershon | September 17, 2021 2:29 p.m.
Thirteenth-century manuscript fragments discovered by chance at a library in Bristol, England, have revealed an alternative version of the story of Merlin, the famed wizard of Arthurian legend. A team of scholars translated the writings, known as the Bristol Merlin, from Old French to English and traced the pages’ medieval origins, reports Alison Flood for the Guardian.
The manuscript is part of a group of texts called the Vulgate Cycle, or the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Using handwriting analysis, the researchers determined that someone in northern or northeastern France wrote the text between 1250 and 1275. That means it was committed to parchment shortly after the Vulgate Cycle was first composed, between 1220 and 1225
The medieval Arthurian legends were a bit like the Marvel Universe, in that they constituted a coherent fictional world that had certain rules and a set of well-known characters who appeared and interacted with each other in multiple different stories,” Laura Chuhan Campbell, a medieval language scholar at Durham University, tells Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. “This fragment comes from the second volume, which documents the rise of Merlin as Arthur’s advisor, and Arthur’s turbulent early years as king.”
King Arthur first appeared in a history of Britain written in 829 or 830, notes the British Library. That text describes him as a warlord or Christian soldier. Later accounts from the 12th century added new elements to the legend, such as Merlin’s mentorship of Arthur. English writer Thomas Malory compiled one of the best-known collections of the stories, Le Morte d’Arthur, in the 15th century.
I have it on good authority that Lampy was inspired by a visit by me to the UK in the fourteenth century (I'm older than dirt) and he was supposed to be a flattering rendition of me. Well, pigs and lipstick, you know.
I was inspired by garden gnomes to do a line of fantasy figures for the giftware industry in the early nineties.
That led to similar projects such as this one:
This Santa is made of a polyform clay. The figure would stand about 5 inches tall standing. This was part of a project done with Figi Graphics sometime in the early 1990s.
In the finished model Santa is sculpting a model train on a mountainous terrain.
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/santa-sculpt/
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/dogs/
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What a revelation to learn about my own two garden gnomes' (here on the opposite side of the Atlantic) not so humble beginnings. I'll have to tell them that they trace their ancestry back to the illustrious "Lampy" of the Lamport Hall Gardens (but perhaps they already know!)
Kathleen, I ran across this article, as I get emails from The Smithsonian Magazine. It seemed like something you would be interested in. I have always been into the King Arthur lore, since I was a kid.
Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend
The 13th-century pages, found by chance at a British library, show a different side of Merlin, the magician who advised Camelot’s king
Livia Gershon | September 17, 2021 2:29 p.m.
Thirteenth-century manuscript fragments discovered by chance at a library in Bristol, England, have revealed an alternative version of the story of Merlin, the famed wizard of Arthurian legend. A team of scholars translated the writings, known as the Bristol Merlin, from Old French to English and traced the pages’ medieval origins, reports Alison Flood for the Guardian.
The manuscript is part of a group of texts called the Vulgate Cycle, or the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Using handwriting analysis, the researchers determined that someone in northern or northeastern France wrote the text between 1250 and 1275. That means it was committed to parchment shortly after the Vulgate Cycle was first composed, between 1220 and 1225
The medieval Arthurian legends were a bit like the Marvel Universe, in that they constituted a coherent fictional world that had certain rules and a set of well-known characters who appeared and interacted with each other in multiple different stories,” Laura Chuhan Campbell, a medieval language scholar at Durham University, tells Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. “This fragment comes from the second volume, which documents the rise of Merlin as Arthur’s advisor, and Arthur’s turbulent early years as king.”
King Arthur first appeared in a history of Britain written in 829 or 830, notes the British Library. That text describes him as a warlord or Christian soldier. Later accounts from the 12th century added new elements to the legend, such as Merlin’s mentorship of Arthur. English writer Thomas Malory compiled one of the best-known collections of the stories, Le Morte d’Arthur, in the 15th century.
Read entire article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rediscovered-medieval-manuscript-offers-new-twist-on-arthurian-legend-180978705/
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I have it on good authority that Lampy was inspired by a visit by me to the UK in the fourteenth century (I'm older than dirt) and he was supposed to be a flattering rendition of me. Well, pigs and lipstick, you know.