Eugene's Axe

eugenes axe
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Playing with paradoxes. Anvils are normally solid, not fabricated sheet metal constructions. Axes can be made on an anvil but are rarely used to cut one. The reference here is one that goes to the heart of blacksmithing. Cold wedges of steel are hammered to cut billets heated in forges. Steel becomes malleable when heated. The image of an anvil struck so hard that a felling axe cleaves right into it might either allude to super-human strength, a dream or some kind of magic.
It is an image that refers to thunder claps and nuclear fission, also a reminder of Excalibur, king Arthur’s sword in the stone. Of jerking awake from a dream. The shape of the ‘base’, refers to paraphernalia found inside alchemists laboratories depicted in medieval woodcuts as well as to stone plinths for mythical beasts in classical parkland and country houses.
So this icon is for the tree cutters and gardeners, the karate experts who can break rock with their heads and the guitar players who whisper Careful with that Axe Eugene!

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