Drawings from the images
The work has been submitted to a publisher; now to do my own sculpting.
But where to begin. In the workshop are two pieces of huon pine: one is roughly cut, about 400 x 300 and 2 metres long; the other is 400 x 300 x 1 metre.
The latter is less unwieldy, a gift from my scientist friend who has been an exacting reader for me during the writing of the book. Its oblong cross section made me think of protuberances beyond the square or round, hence the bold phalli, if indeed that is what they are on the mouse and bull-tomcat hybrid above.
The tantalising thing about the dancing cat is the mask in its right paw.
The two eagle-headed creatures descending to lift from the ground the thin-waisted creature must have been an evocative sculpture before it was weathered almost beyond recognition. And yet, I think it can seen as Zeus in the form of an eagle abducting Ganymede. The fact that there are so many references to homosexuality (known as sodomy then), raises the chance that the interpretation is close to correct.
The hare is a clue to the sexual allusions among the carvings. It is the symbol of lasciviousness, promiscuity, bi-sexuality, homo-sexuality and gender-slipping. In As You Like It, Shakespeare disguises Rosalind as a young man known as Ganymede who says to the the bearer of Phoebe’s letter that she is not the hare that I do hunt. He, as the character and the boy actor, does hunt a male lover. The whole play is a subversion of romantic love.
This supine hare-like creature is at ease, associated with a scrotal-penile form rising from his torso. He is related to a stylised butterfly, which is the symbol of the catamite. Ganymede was a catamite, beloved boy of the Gods and Eros’s playmate.
There are hundreds of little animals of peculiar shape. Using the oldest photographs taken by Norman Laird in 1968, before the wearing away had so obliterated the originals, I can discern some detail, like the little dog walking with the leafy elfin man.
Enough to keep me going … As I carefully chip away, I shall be wondering still how were the 186 carvings finished between June 1835 and May 1836? I think James Colbeck and Fred Edwards began the sculpting before Dan Herbert arrived and before the arches were turned. The stones would have been stored under cover in the quarry by the bridge site. Probably these were the caricatures and keystones and Dan’s work was the weird and wonderful sculpting in between.