......as you can probably already see, the crucifixion kept coming back into my life.
I started working at the age of 15 in 1978, as used to be the norm in Germany for less well-off families. Apprenticeship as a fitter.
We had a lot of workers from Italy and one of the men left an Italian magazine in the break room with a photo of 4 or 5 naked crucified women. I was thrilled, I had never seen anything like it. "Jesus of Nazareth" from 77 was not bad, but that was a completely different quality.
Now it was part of the training to forge nails. Inspired by the photo I also forged a nail that I thought could be used for two feet in a crucifixion. I gave it a not too large head, the square shaft was about 8 mm thick, the nail perhaps 20 cm long with a slender point. While I was hardening my work in oil, the idea that this or a similar nail could be used to nail stacked feet to the wood without any problems gave me devilish pleasure.
Then I forged shorter ones that could be used for hands (I didn't know at that time that the nails had to be driven through the wrists) or just one foot.
The master came by and asked me what I needed them for.....