Jim Carter 'Scraps From The Crow Cult'

FAYE ELEANOR WOODS
The Grass are Green, The Flowers is Brown and Crimson
Jim Carter Scraps From The Crow Cult

“Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” - Jalaluddin Rumi
Often uneasy or tragic, irrational or other, Jim Carter’s work is linked to a real
world of suffering and transcendence: making sculpture from organic materials
as a means of advocacy, atonement or commemoration; shifting to story and the
written word as a way to enter emotional and numinous spaces of memory and dream.
What appears on the surface to be a wilful disturbance of the remains of organic
life in order to fulfil a creative compulsion is intended to be part of a transforming
and re-sanctifying process. Taken materials are reconfigured into new forms to
express complex feelings of grief and loss, love and devotion, fertility and renewal.
Fundamental in this work is a conviction in an irrepressible spirit for regeneration in
the world, an imperishable flame that rises most clearly in landscape and the magic
and otherness of animals.
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Scraps From The Crow Cult
“These scraps of a crow cult - constellations of animal life that brighten as I age
- speak of a prolonged leave-taking that shines still, in criss-crossing rays, with
invitation for renewal. The old god steals away through cattle droves and the
cuckoo’s flight to the furthest roots, and it feels urgent to ensure that his is a good
death, not wrongful or precipitate.
Granted, though I would that he rebelled by way of these sun spells drummed into
wood to summer’s end, I am less subtle. I wish for a corrective injury: that rock and
bone - the ritual tools that bind each spirit to the work - would extinguish and repel.
For I scratched the boundary lines through heath and pool, the scarlet and green
of a willow country. There, the cumulative rites, which are the cuts and wounds of
a sacrificial animal, met the miscreants with violence, trespassers with occlusion.
I am brittle and would be a churl but my counter rhythm is here softer - one of
weight, measurement, enumeration: to thrum benign weathers, set safe limits for
suns and rivers, the crooked acre. These last I think of as each a magic square with
charms to cloud the whereabouts of rare fires, of vixen and sow. Underneath, the
kings and queens are listening in the earth and water, counting the voices of the
crows and their number, the summer litters, yields of crab apple and sloe.
First among green tongues, I watch blackthorns withdraw each year in flares of pink
and rose, and by the fronds of their December days run the god to dream in holding
pattern. Mine are a kind of intercessory prayer, an oppositive magic, but they are,
too, prospective and fruitful. They travel on winds that are so strong that the crows
give up all thought of straight lines, and are blown from the trees as if from the limits
of a containing fire, yellow as the round of the blackbird’s eye.
In the spring, the blossoms will be sticky on the mother’s tongue, and her shires
will tremble and shake in acts of quiet resistance. With warm breath she will spread
nectar of flame through soft bodies of flowers and birds to reach cloud kingdoms.
Magpies will gather in the highest branches, and their patterns of flight will not
always be of ill omen, but stir instead apostasy in those who hum and haw. I will
be augur and gesture so that foxes at least will pass into the haze of a golden night,
barking the faithful return. Perhaps, after all, they will dress the buds with signs
and wonders. Their god turns over in his sleep, and shadows leak from his body of
comets to beguile all comers.”
Jim Carter, October 2023
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This small singing
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I hum the small, bright, filthy song
fox claw, moor and river water, earth, clay, ashes, bone dust, bone black, sheep and hare bone, wood, horse
hair; fox, sheep and hare scratches and cuts; crow remains, field and river debris, cow and rook marks
H20 x W14 x D10 cm
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7

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I thrum for a good death at summer’s end
tawny owl talon and bone, wood, clay, moor and river water, crow remains, ashes, rust, bluebells, bracken,
horse hair, hare fur and jaw bone; hare, fox and sheep scratches and cuts, cow and rook marks
H29 x W13 x D12 cm
9

10
I heard a hundred magpies gather in the haw

15

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wood, fox and badger claws, hare skull, sycamore seeds, leaves, clay, sheep remains; moor, sea and river
water; earth, hare fur, dolmen soil, crow and hare bone, hare atlas; fox, sheep and hare scratches and cuts;
magpie feathers, cow and rook marks
H29 x W13 x D12 cm
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River choked on the shire’s haunches

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gorse flowers, soil, wood, river water and debris, well and moor water, dolmen earth, clay, ashes, bone dust,
bone black; hare, sheep, owl and deer bone; owl and sparrowhawk pellets, mulch, cinders, sand; sheep, fox
and hare scratches and cuts; sycamore seeds, cow and rook marks
H34 x W40 x D16 cm
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Autumn is coming, hares are leaping bonfires on the heath

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wood, clay, ashes, bone black, hare bone, river water, dolmen soil, fox and sheep cuts, cow and rook marks
H122 x W6 x D5 cm
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We burnt our hands in summer fires to change the future

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wood, clay, ashes, bone black, sheep ribs, moor and river water, earth, wax, bracken, dolmen soil, fox and
sheep cuts, cow and rook marks
H176 x W9 x D6 cm
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In willow country you must not know me and not try

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badger claws, clay, ashes, bone black, crow bone, moor and river water, earth, wood, sand, dolmen soil, fox
and sheep cuts; rook, hare, cow and crow marks; crow and rook remains
H137 x W15 x D6 cm
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Shuck is my great mother lung

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river water and debris, moor water, earth, clay, ashes, bone dust, bone black; hare, badger, sheep, bird and
deer bone; wood, lichen, catkins, leaves, fox scat; tawny owl, pigeon and finch feathers; crow remains,
owl and kestrel pellets, mulch, hare paws, swallow droppings, slow worm, bird nest, straw, puffball, wax,
dolmen soil, cinders, sheep and fox cuts, cow and rook marks
H38 x W82 x D25 cm
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CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK

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hare, fox, rabbit and badger fur; wool, river water and debris, earth, clay, ashes, elderberries, bone dust,
bone black, sheep and owl bone, wood, bracken, owl and sparrowhawk pellets, mulch, moor water, lichen,
fox and sheep cuts, cow and rook marks, crow and rook remains, rook skull
H56 x W25 x D25 cm
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CUKU-CUKU

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agricultural waste, river water and debris, iron, earth, clay, ashes, bone dust, bone black, sea and moor
water, wax, fir tree root and bark, gull and raven feathers, fox and sheep cuts, cow marks, crow remains,
rook skull
H54 x W37 x D31 cm
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Rook-hexed

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KAAH-KAAH-KAAH-KAAH
fox, crow and jackdaw marks; crow feathers, clay, charcoal, inks, brook wood and water, deer and sheep
bone, bracken, willowherb, earth, debris
H12 x W66 x D42 cm
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TCHACK-TCHACK-TCHACK
fox, crow and jackdaw marks; jackdaw feathers, clay, brook wood and water, deer bone, fox tooth, bracken,
willowherb, earth, detritus, wood
H17 x W35 x D33 cm
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My head was full of harrier eggs, split flesh of plum, rook chatter

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wood, sheep teeth; cow, deer and sheep bone; river water, bone dust, earth, roots, seeds, milk, papier
mâché, rook remains
H19 x W24 x D17 cm
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HITHER, HITHER, HITHER

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root and branch, deer and fox bone, alder catkins, soot, remains from birds nest, papier-mâché, rook
remains, river water and debris
H30 x W22 x D25 cm
50

Jim Carter was born in Worcestershire in 1967. He received an MA with
distinction in Art and Environment from Falmouth University and an MSc
Award in Ecopsychology from the Centre For Human Ecology, Edinburgh. His
work has appeared in Dark Mountain, Unpsychology and Earthlines magazine.

Published by Anima Mundi to coincide with Jim Carter ‘Scraps From The Crow Cult’
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or
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Thank you to Claira Matheson for photographing many of the pieces
Anima Mundi . Street-an-Pol . St. Ives . Cornwall . +44 (0)1736 793121 . mail@animamundigallery.com . www.animamundigallery.com

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