Handle It

So I have been working with this wonderful man David to create a custom, orthopedic, silver, Egyptian inspired Cane handle! And we have been having soooo much fun!
We have been studying all of the aspects that are important. He wants to be able to screw the handle on and off different canes and he is getting a custom Black painted oak shaft made and I am making the silver handle.

I've posted some of the images I've collected. Everything from Silver octopus handles (from bing images) to traditional plastic orthopedic handles, which we both agree look like a bulls scrotum! Haha.

One of the most interesting things I've looked into is Lybian Desert Glass which David mentioned he would LOVE to have encourporated. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but I thought I'd look in to it anyways, and it's facinating. Here is an exerpt from
Travel Adventure, Mystery of Egypt's Sand Sea - GoNOMAD The exact origin of the glass is still unknown. A plausible theory suggests that the sand, which is
almost pure silica, was fused by the intense heat of a meteor impact, But no crater, let alone a
partially fused or aerated piece, has ever been found. which suggests a less exciting origin: a supers
saturated lake of silica that slowly dried into pure natural glass hard enough to resist a scalpel’s
mark.
http://www.gonomad.com/features/0009/egyptsilica.html
Screen clipping taken: 11/17/2009, 4:59 PM








Apparently you can visit the desert and find thousands of clumps of glass! I've posted an image of one I found on Ebay. David said he's bought a piece, so I will get to see it in person! He also purchases some lapis, what a hunk! haha

Another interesting aspect of this commission is researching Egyptian Art. I've become enamered by the mythology around Dung beetles because David also really likes them. This is my favourite piece of info:





The Scarab artifacts of Ancient Egypt, based upon the Scarabaeidae family dung beetle, was the most popular amulet of ancient Egypt. In the ancient Egyption mythos, the sun (Ra) rolls across the sky each day and transforms bodies and souls. The dung beetle's rolling of dung into a ball for the purposes of laying eggs (which would be later transformed into larva) was seen as an earthly symbol of this heavenly cycle. This came to be iconographic, and ideological symbols were incorporated into Ancient Egyptian society. Pasted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarab_artifact>


So as designing has evolved we've settled on an anubis head, and a tunnel of sand for the scarab to live in. This way David can be rough with his handle, as he's mentioned he enjoys opening doors with his cane), since the stone scarab will be protected by the lips of the vagina like form in the front. You can see my material exploration and some placticine models I've made to get a feel for the forms. :)

I hope you enjoy my research, I will be posting more on this project in the future. To commission your own piece you can email me at RicksonJewellery@yahoo.ca, or visit my website: http://www.ricksonjewellery.etsy.com/ and request a custom item.





Enjoy, Rickson