I was looking at items belonging to The Iberian Warrior late 5th early 4th century BC from the Necropolis of Arroyo Judio Cártagena It was late last September and I was in a museum in Malaga. I drew some of the artefacts - one of these was a double spring fibula. The only bit of text I copied into my sketchbook was this:
A warrior’s gear was considered a highly personal possession. Consequently all offensive and defensive weapons were buried with their dead owner after being ritually decommissioned so they could never be used again.
I underlined the words never and used again.
Later I went snorkelling. I wrote in the sketchbook:
I snorkelled out to the end of the breakwater with meters below me, occasionally diving down to swim with the silvery, fluttery, darting wee shoals of harmless iridescence. Suddenly a tight shoal of half meter barracudas swam right under me from behind - fast, close, determined. I nearly fainted. I yelped out loud into my snorkel.
On the stony beach, emerging from the water I picked up a fragment of ceramic tile and kept it. I drew a figure on it every day for six days, erasing the graphite every evening with toothpaste as I cleaned my teeth, leaving it clear, with only some traces of greying, and ready for the next day’s drawing. The photo is of one of those tiny tile drawings.
The figure, a snorkel and a double spring fibula are all visible in the painting The 2 Spring Fibula one of the new works in the September exhibition Paladin on The Ramparts, on show in @Art Pistol my wonderful gallery.
