Art From The Edge Of Time

Welcome to my new blog, which I hope will be a site to explore the little known aspect of Iron Age Celtic coin art. I would like this to be an exploration of ideas and images. Although I have studied Art History and some archaeology, I am not an academic. My interest in this subject is as an artist and a poet. I have studied Celtic art at University and in the 1980’s was part of a group producing art resources for schools using Celtic art (ERAE at Birmingham College of Art). The designs and variety of imagery within Celtic coin art was , and still is, largely ignored by the professionals, and completely unknown by the public (who are habitually bombarded by images of Early Medieval Celtic Christian Irish art like the Book of Kells and Ardagh Chalice).

Only when I saw the catalogues of Chris Rudd, about ten years ago, did I see very good photographs of coin designs that stunned me with their strength of design and iconagraphy. Finding good photographic images of Celtic coins is surprisingly difficult. Most sources are numismatic catalogues, which at best, usually only double the magnification of what are very small objects. Here I will be showing my own drawings and paintings of the coin images. The Celtic coin as object has a beautiful physicality, but my own interest is in the imagery, the meaning, the language, the magical statement from a period right at the beginning of history. The Iron Age Celts were the heirs to the millenia old cultures of the Bronze Age and Neolithic. Many of their cultural expressions can be traced back to these times. Their art, therefore, has the potential to speak to us of a time before cities, a time before Christianity, a time when the past was remembered rather than recorded. It is a world that still lurks deep in our bones, in our unconscious minds. Like the skirl of a pibroch, it can call to us, revivify us, resussitate us from our jaded urbanity. I believe that Iron Age Celtic Coin Art should be renowned as one of the greatest of artistic expressions. It should be a source of inspiration for artists and designers, of shamans and poets. It is as close to a narrative, a voice, as we can get from the silent tribes whose worldview and opinions we have forgotten…….