#notsodark

[99daysofsketching]

to_chan1997I hope tomorrow I will go buy stuff. :3 #day05 #confession #wacom #sketch #99daysofsketching #notsodark :psketch,wacom,day05,confession,notsodark,99daysofsketching

[sassysweetminx]

#notsodark #alittleweird #heartpackedup #carryitwithme #skeletonisalwayswet #shitgetsweird #nolie #bet

[maraleftlung]

Later morning so a bit brighter. #thursday #notsodark #view #landscape #commute #weekday #january #winter #365 #staffordshire #england #uk #gb #ig #igers #instapic #instacool #instagram #instagramers #picoftheday #photooftheday #explore #artistsoninstagram #wanderlust #photography #leftlung #maraleftlung (at Wall, Staffordshire)

[doubleames]

Finally got the chance to get this old private darkroom working again! I was so happy to get to print this morning and very lucky. #photographer #bwphotography #bwprint #blackandwhitephoto #darkroom #fixing #notsodark #prints

[snailfrog]

Sutton Hoo and Europe AD 300 - 1100

Hwæt! The world of Beowulf is being brought back to life. As the British Museum reopens a newly refurbished gallery of early medieval art, it sets out to conjure a fresh vision of that fierce, fantastical yet perhaps surprisingly sophisticated era so familiar from the pages of England’s oldest vernacular epic. So get ready to meet the great Geat warrior hero face to face. It could be Beowulf himself who grips our gaze from across a millennium and a half of history in the form of the Sutton Hoo helmet. The corroded fragments of this piece of protective headgear was carefully reconstructed after it was unearthed in 1939. It’s just one of a stupendous collection of objects found buried in the chamber of a ship hauled up on to dry land in the 7th century to serve as the tomb of a man who was believed to have been a king. The savage metallic visage that now meets the viewer resolves itself into a flying dragon or fierce bird, its spreading wings, their fringes studded with inlaid red garnets, forming the eyebrow arches, its fanning tail doubling up as a bristling moustache. The frown’s central furrow is a viciously toothed head. It rises to meet a dragon that curves over in an elaborate helmet crest. Twin boar heads glitter upon the temples. This spectacular piece of craftsmanship surely conjures the famous “shining helmet” donned by the great literary warrior before he entered the mere to do battle with Grendel’s mother: a treasure, according to Beowulf, “encircled by splendid bands, just as in days gone by the weaponsmith had made it, formed it wonderfully, adorned it with the likenesses of boars, so that neither sword nor battle swords might bite it”. As the British Museum’s new display now makes clear, however, its craftsmanship, as well as that of other Sutton Hoo objects unearthed alongside it, find their influences in the late Roman world, in Scandinavian images and designs, in Frankish techniques and in Byzantine models. This helmet, as well as the magnificent great gold buckle cast from close to a pound of precious metal or the masterful cloisonné shoulder clasps prove the interconnectedness of the arts and crafts, and so also the cultures, of the early medieval world. This newly designed gallery spans 800 years of history. Here are treasures ranging from late antiquity and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West to the end of the early medieval period. It helps to tell a continuous cultural story, but it stands alone as a new star display. The gallery showcases the Lycurgus Cup, one of the most wonderful glass vessels to have survived from Roman Britain, the textiles and jewellery and trade weights of Byzantine culture and Anglo-Saxon buckles, brooches and shield mounts. Also on show are crystals and coins and carved ivories made during the period of great migrations when, between the 5th and 12th centuries, the Franks, Goths, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Huns and Vandals began migrating across countries and continents, carrying with them their homegrown cultures and learning new techniques. It has amazing Viking metalwork and rich and varied marvels made by the Celts. The new gallery stresses the connection between all these myriad objects. Making the most of its cruciform shape, the space links cultures across time and space — from AD300 to AD1100, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and the Arctic Circle to North Africa — in displays that radiate outwards from the central unifying Sutton Hoo cabinet. Silver pieces made in the Eastern Mediterranean, for instance, are discovered to be similar to those created in the late Roman and Byzantine world. Coins found by the Slavs were cast by Anglo-Saxons. Travelling Vikings are found to have shaped fashions. A Germanic glass claw beaker looks like a Roman vessel, but was probably made in Britain. Christian imagery finds its roots in the symbols that pagan cultures would have recognised. What once felt like a clutter of crowded display cabinets stuffed with the booty of an unfamiliar era has been transformed. There are fewer objects than before on display, but those that visitors pause to stare at are more lucidly explained. There are clear labels and graphics that put them in context and a handsome new catalogue. Vivid details are picked out. Peacocks, for instance, adorn a pair of Byzantine earrings. According to legend, a label explains, the flesh of these birds did not decay after death and so, in a world in the midst of transition, these creatures became also a Christian symbol of eternal life. This is a magnificent new display. It casts a dancing light that reflects and refracts across the culture of the Dark Ages. Visitors who once hurried through this gallery on the way to gawp at the mummies will now find fresh wonders to detain them. They can discover a whole new world. Sutton Hoo and Europe AD300–1100 is at the British Museum, London WC1 (020-7323 8299; britishmuseum.org) from Thurs to May 31 5 gems in the new gallery 1. The Lothair Crystal top pic Made for Lothair, King of the Franks, this carved rock crystal disc tells the biblical story of Susanna, who was accused of adultery but proven innocent. It makes an apposite object for a king who, dissatisfied with his own wife, had fabricated charges of unfaithfulness against her but in the end was forced to acknowledge that he had lied. 2. The Lycurgus Cup pic 6 A wondrous glass vessel  that has survived from Roman antiquity looks opaque green until it catches the light, at which point it shines with an all but miraculous red-purple glow. 3. Diptych Leaf of an Archangel pic 7 A 6th-century ivory diptych showing St Michael on its one surviving half combines classical tradition with new Christian symbolism and is a piece of the most exquisitely delicate carving to boot. 4. The Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps pic 8 The lead curator of this new gallery was first inspired to pursue her studies of the early medieval period by this piece of jewellery so consummately masterful that when a modern-day goldsmith tried to replicate it he found the technical know-how had been lost. 5. The Steeple Bumpstead boss Among the finest pieces in the BM’s collection of Celtic metalwork, this richly ornamented doorplate is as evocative as it is finely made.

From this morning Times article. And tomorrow more from me!

[boogerseason]

😳 #notsodark&stormy

[thepinkguardian]

((I hate my weird not-quite-24-hour flus...))

((It's the flu virus, but it never lasts longer than half a day...usually only 7 or 8 hours. But it has a habit of hitting me when I try to sleep.

Also

@Myhumpsmyhumpsmylovelymephilumps (mephilesthenotsodark)

My mom confirmed that you can't move your jaw if it's dislocated. She says that the most likely causes are an Impacted tooth, if you don't have your wisdom teeth yet.

Or, worst case scenario, lockjaw.

It might be something else, but that's what she says~))