Terms of venery illustrated by Kate O'Leary
The fill in the blank gallery’s latest exhibition, A Crash of Critters features original illustrations and screen-printed plushes inspired by terms of venery. Kate O’leary, the artist, draws her inspiration from the vocabulary of old English hunting traditions. Terms of venery are more commonly referred to as collective nouns - a subject that will be familiar to any regular readers of All-Sorts.org. O’Leary’s background in children’s illustration lends a playful edge to her linguistic excavations, as you can see in this illustration of a Parliament of owls playing scrabble:
Terms of venery, according to wikipedia, were used by gentlemen to distinguish themselves from yeomen and others and formed part of their education. The word “venery” derives from the Latin venari, to hunt. Although there is another definition for venery, coming from Venus - the Roman goddess of love (look it up!).