{"id":5345,"date":"2022-09-11T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T19:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/?p=5345"},"modified":"2022-08-31T15:07:25","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T20:07:25","slug":"from-the-sorcerers-workbench-horned-god-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/11\/from-the-sorcerers-workbench-horned-god-no-1\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Sorcerer’s Workbench: Horned God no.1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I think it was in April that I started playing around with Horned God imagery. It’s such an iconic part of modern neo-Pagan witchcraft, and yet … I’ve always avoided it. (This, of course, has everything to do with my deeply fucked relationship with masculinity.) In all honesty, I don’t really know what kicked off the research and fascination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It did not take me long to learn that the iconic Wiccan and Pagan image of the Horned God is not widely attested. In fact, the best known image – the horned man with a snake in one hand and a torc in the other – comes from just one place: the famous Gundestrup Cauldron<\/a>. That figure – one of dozens of images on the cauldron – is utterly unique in the historical record, and yet it has gone on to inspire so very very much modern theology.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Detail of the original Gundestrup Cauldron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Looking at the original figure, three things really stood out at me. The first, obviously, was the mask-like face. The second was that the figure is clearly clothed. And the third is that, while the animals that surround him all have clearly articulated joints – knees and elbows and wrists and ankles – the human figure is much less naturalistically stylized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mask-like face fits so perfectly with my own praxis and theology that I just fucking ran with it and carved a literal mask that sits on top of the face of my figure. When I do the mixed-media version for round three (and maybe four), the mask will be in the alternate metal and be bound (possibly cast, possibly soldered) to the face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clothing – a tunic and perhaps leggings – is almost antithetical to is modern counterparts. I have never been initiated as a Wiccan, but my experiences with those who have, and with their iconography, leads me to understand that the Horned God’s nudity is as theologically significant as his tumescence. I left him modestly undetailed for my stock pendant design, but for the more elaborate devotional image I made him ithyphallic, and gave him tattoos based on the texture seen on the garment of the original cauldron image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final point – his limbs – gave me real pause. Looking at the surrounding animals, clearly the artist had the skill to give him more naturalistic joints if they so desired. The legs might have been a stylistic concession – as an illustrator, I know well how hard it is to draw a cross-legged figure, and doing it in repousse can only have been a nightmare. But the arms? That shit looks like 1920s “rubber hose” style animation<\/a> and is very clearly a decision that the artist made. Which begs the question: was it significant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that, while there almost certainly was symbolic significance to the noodly arms, I had no idea what it was. Further, it played against my strengths as an artist. So I ultimately decided to carve more naturalistic limbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the piece went beautifully from a technical level. The carving was much easier than I anticipated. The cast turned out very very well. The original torc didn’t cast, so I drilled through his hand and made one from sterling silver wire (next time I’ll do a double-wire twist). And – as those of you who follow me on other social media may recall – there was a giant hole where his left ass cheek was supposed to be, so I filled that with bronze casting grain and sterling silver wire. (That repair is much more visible in the above photo than it is in person.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took me a couple tries to get the polish and patina right. Photographing it was an even greater challenge, and I may make further attempts at that. (Actually, I absolutely will: this piece will feature prominently in my next jewelry and witchcraft photoshoot.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, though, I am extremely pleased with this figure, and am looking forward to starting the second in the next month or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is available for sale in my Etsy <\/a>store shortly after my next photoshoot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it was in April that I started playing around with Horned God imagery. It’s such an iconic part of modern neo-Pagan witchcraft, and yet … I’ve always avoided it. (This, of course, has everything to do with my deeply fucked relationship with masculinity.) In all honesty, I don’t really know what kicked off … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1od","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5368,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions\/5368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}