Valentine's Time of Year!

Phew! January is in the bag and lighter days with spring bulbs are making an appearance.

As a jeweller its impossible to welcome February in without thinking of St Valentine’s Day. Such a problematic festival. All very well if you’re loved up but awful if you’re in the throws of unrequited love!

I did a bit of research to figure out where all this forced romance comes from. I’d been under the impression that its one of the Christian festivals that was tagged on to a much older Pagan rite. I expected to read about boxing spring hares, fertility rites and ‘Wicker Man’ style shenanigans. It turns out there are possible links to the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia which occurred in mid February. But it seems any link to St Valentines Day is tenuous. Lupercalia was rooted with an order of monks called the Luperci, so named because of their connections to Romulus and Remus and their wolf mother. The story itself is wild, involving animal sacrifice, blood and fertility rites. Good old Romans! Its a far cry from the hearts and flowers of our familiar St Valentine’s Day but may provide inspiration for a wolfie automata in the future…

So who was St Valentine? Again, there are different stories and at least 3 different Christian Saints named Valentine - all martyred! The one we’re probably after was put to death by Roman Emperor Claudius II when he was caught illicitly marrying young couples. The problem was that only single men could be drafted into the Roman army so a hasty marriage was often sought to avoid the ravages of a soldier’s life. Charming old Claudius outlawed marriage for young men and good old Saint Valentine took pity and did the honours in secret. His reward was to be put to death, poor chap.

Whatever the roots of this festival of romance its very much part of our culture now which makes it the perfect time to share a pictorial explanation of romantic automata making.

This heart inspired automata was one of my earliest designs. It's cut out of sheet copper and brass, with bits of tube and wire. The whole lot is heat treated, soldered and formed into an open box with a revolving heart (oh yes, be still my beating heart!) The base is an offcut of oak reclaimed from a local woodworking business (more on that another time). The brass box is treated with copper nitrate to give a dark base to a top layer of golden leaf. The mechanism is made of a cam cut from copper and soldered to the central winding tube. The cam sits below a follower, also made from a disc of copper. The movement relies on plain old friction to spin the heart around.

I also made a slightly different version based on an old childhood favourite - the Loveheart. Might be making more of these. Any ideas for text? I seem to remember ‘Oh Boy’ as well as the usual ‘Kiss Me’ and ‘Be Mine’. Did you know that Lovehearts now have emojis on them? Oh how times change!