I spent a couple of hours last night cleaning chicken bones. It’s a disgusting job. It’s also fiddly, because chicken bones are incredibly soft and porous to start with, and cooking them doesn’t help matters. It’s a fine line between removing cartilage and scrubbing away actual bone.
I got some wonderful, tiny vertebrae, though, so I’m not complaining. As soon as they’re done drying, I can begin phase two of the encaustic painting I started last weekend.
Electrical Outlet
I found this in a heap of building trash that my old landlord had accumulated. It was an ugly eyesore, but a treasure trove if you were looking for rusty old junk.
Bones
Another dog walking find. I picked these up years ago, along with parts of a pelvis and jawbone. They were all lying in a pile next to a path. I assume they were from the same animal, maybe a ‘possum or cat?
Fishing Lures
These came from the clean-up in Owen County. The top lure is a Jitterbug. It was in a pocket-sized tackle box. The bottom one was in a little plastic box full of junk jewellery.
Vole or Mouse Skull from Owl Pellet
I got a bunch of small bones, including an intact skull, from a friend, who got them at a DNR workshop. The bones are from an owl pellet. The pellet contained a large amount of fur, this skull, and assorted other small bones, including several tiny jaw bones with intact teeth. The skull is about 1 1/4 inches from top to bottom, to give an idea of scale. It’s tiny and very delicate.
I’m running out of old yard sale junk, and will need to buy some real, live stretcher bars soon. But, for now, I have a tacky woodworking project. Not mine, but something I picked up at a flea market. If the writing on the rear panel is to be believed, Pam Wheeling received a B+ for her masterpiece. I feel kind of bad about ruining something someone obviously spent hours creating, but it’s just too dreadful to salvage. It’s screaming out for a new life, I think.
But for now, look at the bones…!
Jar of Cicada Shells, grey Holga SSFS filter
Box Turtle Skeleton, grey Holga SSFS filter
I’m happy that I had the presence of mind to put my drafting table right under a (south facing!) window. Aside from providing the cat with a place to bask, the light there is great for taking photos. Flash ruins most pictures, so I really appreciate not having to use it. On cloudy days, all I have to do is open the blinds. On sunny days, like today, there’s plenty of light even with the blinds closed.
Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams…, Amsterdam, 1690. Copperplate engraving with etching. National Library of Medicine.
Govard Bidloo (1649-1713) [anatomist]
GĂ©rard de Lairesse (1640-1711) [artist]
In a discussion elsewhere, the subject of collecting and drawing bones came up. One person thought it was “really weird” to stop and draw/photograph roadkill, but sometimes that’s the best (or only!) way to get a good look at some animals. This sort of thing is nothing new. Artists and scientists have, for hundreds of years, been observing and rendering the anatomy of humans and animals. As I was Googling for examples, I came across this exquisite on-line exhibition from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health: Dream Anatomy.
The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, Birmingham, 1774. Copperplate engraving. National Library of Medicine.
William Hunter (1718-1783) [anatomist]
Jan van Riemsdyk (fl. 1750-1788) [artist]
I’ve been playing around with a few small pieces, trying to decide if I can salvage them or if I should just give up. I thought I’d add some bones, because a few bones can cure all manner of artistic ugliness. Right? Okay, maybe not. But! I stumbled on a couple of fun ideas.
First, bones are really easy to color with Walnut Hollow oil pencils. It took a couple of layers, and I used a Prismacolor blender to mush everything together, which worked well. I also went over them with an uneven layer of metallic gold wax paste. It was kind of a pain in the arse, because I was using itty bitty chicken rib bones, but the end result is pretty cool. I was going for a tarnished, worn, flame-y look, and I think I achieved it.
collage (bones and paper), acrylic, and oil pencil on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches
Second, I’m in the process of coating some pig vertebrae with crackle glaze. I don’t know how they’ll turn out, or what I’ll use them for, but if the result is as cool as I think it’ll be, I’ll post pictures of those, too.
While doing all this, and because an idle mind is the Debbil’s playground, I’ve been “watching” the NCAA women’s gymnastic championships. It’s pretty cool to see gymnasts that don’t look like anorexic 8 year old girls. And, you’d never hear Guns n’ Roses as floor exercise music in elite gymnastics! I do have a complaint, though, about the commercials. Well, aside from objecting to their very existence. Specifically, I wish they’d lay off the T. Rex. It started with JC Penny and, I think, some car company, and now Coke (and The Slider, no less!). It’s bad enough that the good music from the ’80s is being abused, but there’s no excuse for messing with T. Rex. Bastards!
Vessels: The Raising of an Old Hope
oil pastel on 90lb Stonehenge paper with bones, hair, brass brads, and copper wire
11 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches
I meant to play around with making a pinhole lens for my 35mm camera, but I didn’t end up getting to it. The weather turned kind of gross–cold and grey and snowy–so I stayed inside and made art. Not that it was terrible out or anything, not like what the east coast is experiencing (25 inches of snow?!), but I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Instead, I spent the day drawing while watching some awful movie about a 16th century Venetian courtesan on WB (ah, apparently it was called Dangerous Beauty) and a biography of Anne Boleyn on PBS. That was an odd juxtaposition!
And, now, the weekend is over. Hrmph. They always speed by too quickly, and there is never enough to show for the time spent.
It occurred to me that Mr. Jawbone might have once belonged to a pig, so I went a-Googling, and sure enough, it did.
Credit: javelina jawbone, by Drew Mackie
I think the sacral vertebrae are bovine in origin, but I’m not having much luck Googling up any images that are helpful. The closest I’ve come are anatomical drawings.
Credit: Internet Archive, Image from page 47 of “A text-book of veterinary obstetrics : including the diseases and accidents incidental to pregnancy, parturition and early age in the domesticated animals” (1901)
I’m calling it Good Enough.
As I was driving in to work this morning, I did some more thinking on good car music vs. not-so-good car music. There are some things I love to listen to, but that I don’t like to drive to. For example, I like both Cat Stevens and Marilyn Manson, but only one of those things belongs in my car. So this is why, as I was listening to Antichrist Superstar this ayem, I was actually thinking of hippy-dippy music. Which reminded me of New Year’s Eve and the Magical Chair of Giving.
My neighbor and I attended a New Year party at a friend’s house, which was all sorts of good fun. At one point, we were both hanging out upstairs, when she realized she’d lost one of her hair sticks. So, she started rooting around in cushions of the big, squishy easy chair she’d been enveloped in. And, she started pulling out a vast and varied array of objects. The chair kept giving, and giving, and giving. The penultimate gift was a mixed CD with both Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman on it. She, a little drunk at this point, handed it to me, thinking it was mine. Why, yes, I do happen to have that those two albums on one CD, but that particular copy–despite the fact that the handwriting it bears looks eerily like mine–does not, in fact, belong to me. Very odd. Who knew I wasn’t the only person on Urth who listens to Cat Stevens and who decided to put those two albums on one CD?
Lower Jawbone from a Pig
I had been planning on sleeping in late, then spending the day in my PJs in front of the teevee, watching the Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back. But, I was wakened at the ass-crack of dawn by my across-the-lane neighbor, who was loading his horses into their trailer. He’s a man of very few words, though he seems friendly enough. He smiles and nods at me when our paths cross, and has occasionally mowed my outside-the-fence grass when it’s gotten extra unkempt[1]. He loves his horses, though[2], and spends a lot of time hanging out in the barn with them or taking them on weekend riding trips. I assume that’s where he was off to bright and early this morning. Which is all a round about way of saying that my plans for an extended day of ass-sitting in front of the television were shot to hell. I ended up getting up early, cleaning the kitchen (I never got around to finishing it yesterday), vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, and, after months of procrastination, sorting out the laundry room. The laundry room is where I throw all the junk I don’t know what to do with it. There are old couch pillows, bags of plastics for recycling, jumbled tools, a mortally wounded dryer, stacks of games, three old aquariums and their associated paraphernalia, window screens that I never put away properly, and lord only knows what else, hidden under, between, and behind the aforementioned.
One of the things I found was a jaw bone and some vertebrae I was given by a friend. (It pays to have friends who understand one’s fondness for weird stuff, and who will cater to it.) I don’t know what I’ll eventually use them for, but in the meantime, I had planned on using them for sketching. I love drawing bones, and these are nice and big. For now, I’ve photographed them, which provided all sorts of entertainment for Harriet and Pandora. They both thought the bones might, just possibly, be for them. Ha! Harriet was crestfallen when I told her to back off, and she realized that she wasn’t going to get to investigate more closely.
Speaking of motivation and procrastination: I missed my blogoversary yesterday, which is about par for the course. I tend to do the same thing with my birthday. I’ll remember it a few days ahead of time, forget it on the day, then remember it again a few days later. I’m kind of surprised I stuck with it for this long, because I’m not always good at following through with things. My intentions are good, but I’m often sorely lacking in the motivation department. I haven’t managed to make daily updates, though I was delusional enough in the beginning to think I might do so. But, I have been fairly consistent, which is good enough.
So, here’s to another year of blogging!
Sacrum from a Cow
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[1] He spends an inordinate amount of time on his riding mower. I suspect he’s one of those folks who finds mowing therapeutic. They’ve got, I think, three acres of land, about half of which is beautifully manicured grass. If you’ve looked at photos of my, um, “yard,” you’ll probably have noticed that mine is not anything approaching manicured. I hate mowing and really couldn’t care less how my yard looks. It used to be pasture, and wasn’t maintained at all, aside from the occasional bush hogging, until I moved in, so I figure anything I do, no matter how pitiful, is an improvement. Still, I’m sure it irks my neighbor no end that he has to look at my sad and sorry excuse for a lawn.
[2] When it’s really quiet out, I can sometimes hear him whistling songs or talking to the horses.
I Shall Not Go to Heaven
30 x 22 inches
oil pastel, collage, and found objects on paper
I still have finishing touches to put on this (the bones and collage need to be attached–I’m leaning toward copper wire, but we’ll see). This is one panel of a two-panel diptych. The other panel has the same basic subject matter and layout, but the slip is orangey and the collage/assemblage bits are different. I’m still working on the background for that one, so I haven’t photographed it yet. That’s a whole lot of acreage to cover with umpty layers of oil pastel and my fingers are hamburger.
I’ve been having a gawd-awful time working on this project, mostly, I think, because it’s been difficult for me to change gears. Web design and research/writing–which I’ve been doing a lot of lately–is very different from arting. It’s nearly done, though.
red paper boat 