[Re]Making the Book of Kells - Lessons from the Edge

December 1, 2022 11:30 PM

Thomas Keyes sets out to reproduce the circa 800 CE Book of Kells from parchment making, to pigment finding/ foraging/ growing/ producing pigments (from scratch), forming and writing the text, to a complete folio. [Dark Mountain in case anyone's averse], Thomas also has a kickstarter [I have no affiliation, I simply love re-creation and experiential historical research for itself, and what we can learn from doing, I also value much of the though, work and ethos that is Dark Mountain]
posted by unearthed (7 comments total)

Turn the darkness into... light.
posted by BiggerJ at 11:33 PM on December 1, 2022

'Insular Ink'
posted by clavdivs at 11:56 PM on December 1, 2022

Here's a Book of Kells link without the fb tag. This is an interesting retro-meets-modern project. Intentional labour as an antidote to the lazy-arsed hot take of today's discourse.
Leabhar Mór na hÉireann / The Great Book of Ireland was a project 30 years ago to create a modern Vellum book: a permanent record celebrating contemporary Irish artists and writers and their creative ideas.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

To fully reproduce the Book of Kells experience, Keyes will have to display it one page at a time, with only a tiny fragment of said one page visible over the heads of a horde of teenagers from continental Europe over on a school trip.
posted by terretu at 1:18 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Very interesting response to the climate crisis.
posted by doctornemo at 7:58 AM on December 2, 2022

I have linked to this before, but the monks at a small college in rural Minnesota commissioned an illuminated manuscript in 1998, and it is gorgeous: https://saintjohnsbible.org

In 1998, Saint John's Abbey and University commissioned renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. We invite you to explore this work of art that unites an ancient Benedictine tradition with the technology and vision of today, illuminating the Word of God for a new millennium.

The artist used quills to write in lampblack ink on calfskin: HARD CORE.

This college also believes in preserving sacred arts, so they have gotten an experienced pipe organ technician named Martin Pasi to move his entire workshop to the campus, after doubling the size of their (ugly, to me) main church's pipe organ.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

having tried to free-hand draw even a tiny section of the Chi Rho page I am:

1) 10000000% here for this, he is my kind of obsessive nut!
2) good luck there...
posted by supermedusa at 8:35 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]