RFID Tags, Faraday Pouches, Pockets & Shields workshop

Making Clay tiles inspired by the Trees and the Sea and Bees. This workshop took place over two days with the entire School and help from kind parents who mucked in for the intensive two days.

Dr Ian Sanders visited a class in the school. He was a Grandfather two of the children in the school.

I had a brief chat about rocks and minerals with him in my studio and then he did a show and tell in the classroom. It was such a informative and thrilling chat and so great to have all the actual rocks in our hands.

We all found it incredibly interesting and I found new words such as pseudomorph which means a crystal consisting of one mineral but having the form of another.

“Fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solids are contained in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles.”
― Plato, Timaeus

The Platonic Solids

The Platonic Solids belong to the group of geometric figures called polyhedra.

A polyhedron is a solid bounded by plane polygons. The polygons are called faces; they intersect in edges, the points where three or more edges intersect are called vertices.

A regular polyhedron is one whose faces are identical regular polygons. Only five regular solids are possible

cube  tetrahedron  octahedron   icosahedron  dodecahedron

These have come to be known as the Platonic Solids

I was awarded a residency in the beautiful East Fjords of Iceland for the entire month of October to research and make new work.

A link to the residency http://inhere.is/2019/11/kathryn-maguire/?fbclid=IwAR1nuOIk32_iS-1XhqH_fItwe18AMeCHfl_dPQJpxhVsE2G0MkE3L95SAaI

We were invited to showcase the studio in Department of Education in December 2019. Really interesting chats with the ideas of STEAM and not just STEM classes.

Some images from the studio and things I am working on.

The overall project is titled Magnes.

Magnet’ is derived from the legend of Magnes, or from the territory of Magnesia. Pliny states that Magnes, the shepherd, discovered it, and the legend told of him is that while carrying a message over Mount Ida he felt his feet clinging to the earth, to the iron ore which lay thickly upon the hill. Hence the name of the Magnet. But Magnesia was a territory whence this native iron was for hundreds of years exported, and the name “Magnet” is, no doubt, due to this place.

I have always been a Rock Hound, I cannot resist having a rock or pebble in my pocket. Later as a Adult I realize how those simple acts were a way for me to understand the world I inhabited. I guess I am a hobby geologist. This has been informing my practice and research and output since 2016. While I am in AIR I am researching the invisible forces that created the planet and their importance throughout the ages.

Magnetite crystal sculptures are Tetrahedron in shape with eight sides.