Imagine this:
You’re driving around Oregon one night in your bio-diesel minivan thinking about faeries and tribal art and the upcoming Earth Day and next year’s Burning Man and you get so wrapped up in your fantasies that you fail to notice the family of skunks that is now moving to cross the road. At the last possible second you snap back to reality and see their shiny black eyes, terror-stricken by your oncoming headlights. You slam on the brakes and try to swerve, risking your life to avoid harming the beautiful creatures, but they scatter and there’s no way to avoid them all. The baby skunks get safely to the side and you manage to narrowly avoid their father, frozen in panic on a bright white lane line, but alas! your swerving takes you past him and right SMACK into mommy skunk!
The minivan finally screeches to a halt, the night air taking on a newly sinister bent, and in the austere silence you glance in the rear-view to survey the damage. Mommy skunk is splayed on the asphalt, a flat tire line down the center of her back. The rest of the skunks are huddling at the edge of the road, shivering in horror at the tragedy that has just befallen them. As if he senses your intention to return, the father comes to his senses and quickly moves toward his children, ushering them from the scene. They amble into the bushes, presumably back to their home, and just before he passes through the leaves he takes one sad, solemn look back at his lost wife.
You are grief stricken. You have taken a life and destroyed a family. How can you ever atone for this awful crime against nature?
Oh wait–I know! Make some Steampunk jewelry!
You bag up Momma Skunk and shlep her back to your “secret lair” (which is really just the converted garage of your single-story 2 bedroom in Eugene) then do whatever you have to do to remove a skull from a crushed animal and proceed to bedazzle said skull with all your best tribal flair.
“This necklace features a genuine skunk skull adorned with spirals, apatite, agate, quartz and Swarovski crystals. Hand painted by me, the skull has also been sealed with a clear enamel coating. Included in the necklace are yellow tiger’s eye, apatite focal beads, pietersite and vintage glass beads.”
When it’s finished you list it in your Etsy shop for $140, and after it sells you will donate the profits to your local animal control office so they can try to prevent this type of tragedy from ever happening again.
Truly, you are a visionary and a karmic genius.
{source}
Renee has never been to Burning Man.
May 4th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
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May 4th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Seriously, what is with people making stuff out of animal skulls? I don’t want to touch animal bones, much less craft with them!
Alasdair (7 comments.) Reply:
May 5th, 2010 at 2:12 am
There’s some really fantastic art out there made out of animal bones, carved skulls in particular can be absolutely fantastic. Bone is much the same as any other material that can be used and it definitely has it’s place.
I rather like this piece, although I find the “eyes” a little too buggy. Beyond that the execution (no pun intended lol) is fairly good but I’d prefer it if the swirls had been done with something other than, what looks to be, sculpy or similar … worked metals, perhaps copper would have worked well.
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Katherine Reply:
May 5th, 2010 at 2:19 am
I suppose it’s a personal preference, but I, personally, don’t really want anything to do with craft materials that come from dead animals, particularly bone. Really, anything that comes out of the inside of an animal I find to be sort of… creepy. But, as you said, I suppose it has its place. That place just doesn’t happen to be in my home.
Alasdair (7 comments.) Reply:
May 5th, 2010 at 5:25 am
Fairplay
I was trying to find this link earlier, but my laptop was acting up. Don Simpson carves and decorates, amongst a variety of other things, animal skulls. Many of them are really rather fantastic, it might not be to your tastes but why not check it out here: http://donsimpson.deviantart.com/
.-= Alasdair´s last post ..Denim Fabric Finches =-.
May 5th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
This is the definitive proof that people think that slapping some Swarovski crystals on anything make it lovely and classy.
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May 6th, 2010 at 1:22 am
See also: vajazzling.
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