At the beginning of the summer I devoted some time to the Lizard. I had been shortlisted for a comission in a school and my idea was to make a play sculpture that would carry its own story invested with the work of everyon in the school. The school is in a newly built satellite town unimaginitely names Citywest. The little sun loving lizard creeped into my heart and I thought of warm stones, the warmed stones in the walls and rocks of an ancient land. The viviparous is Lizard one of Ireland’s 3 native reptile species. I remembered a Glen walker’s excitement when he spotted one on the sunny slope on the furze hill, back in the pandemic times and the joy this sighting brought.
It was a lovely time of lizardine engagment. I made many tiles and experimented with glaze colours and patterns, I read sories about lizards – I loved especially the Mexican folk Story of the Lizard and the Sun – how, in a moment of crisis, the Sun went missing, and out of all the creatures it was the little Lizard who found the sun hiding amongst the rocks, and she enticed him out again with music and dancing – this story expressed how I was feeling about this time working with the lizard.
The word for Lizard in Irish is Laghairt and it lodged phonetically in my brain as “lag-heart” – though the pronunciation would be more like Lye-urt
I made tiles with suns and sun patterns in the colours of our native lizard
I imagined the children playing on her serpentine back, sharing intimate moments, as well as balancing, and discovering all that is written into her skin
Laghairt might become a basking presence for quiet times in the school yard and the school community will each have contributed a scale for the lizards back, preserving a snap shot of her coming into being and stories to be found by future generations
basking in their clay skin, getting ready for firing
dragon fairy tales begin with lizards
During the research phase I found out so much about Ireland’s Viviparos Lizard
We didnt win the commission but we had some fun along the way. The Lizard tiles have been incorporated into other projects. 🙂
julforrester 