On the same visit to Alice's I became very interested in her job of cataloguing the shards/sherds in collections. written very meticulously in permanent ink on the object itself. This tied together for me the physicality of the object in hand and the distance between objects in a display case, whatever they may be, stored and numbered.
I have mentioned here before about my discussions and sharing of information with Alice Lyons ( Specialist in the analysis and publication of Romano British Ceramics) I was lucky enough to have a handling session of her collection of ceramic finds from the iron age up to 1800's.
So many things came from this meeting.
Firstly how erroneous material could could be found in the body ( as a ceramics reference) of the clay such as shell or grit.
What was also intriguing was to see the mortaria again and think about the grit thrown into the pot to allow grinding.
What I found most humbling in a sense was to be able to put my fingers in ridges or marks made by the fingers of potters from centuries ago and that these marks felt so immediate and fluid and alive.
