I've been collecting rabbit skellies again, filling my pockets with the smallest of bones. It's a well timed waiting game. I spot a dead animal and mark it with a stick, then wait. I have to be alert to the instant that the bones become clean and devoid of any remaining flesh before they miraculously disappear. I don't know where they go. Maybe someone else is collecting too! So every morning on my walk around the farm with Tilly, I check my markers.
In the summer the sun does a great job of bleaching the bones for me. Otherwise they take a few days in a bucket of domestos to thoroughly clean them up.
Then the fun starts. It's a long slow jigsaw puzzle of a process,rather meditative, gently finding bones that fit together easily. Tiny, tiny little rib bones that slot nicely into a lacy jaw bone. A little glue and balancing act while it dries, slowly, slowly something begins to emerge.
This one is beginning to take on the shape of a sitting figure.
The one below morphed into a bird like creature. I do these tiny sculptures, not to sell, but because I love to do it.
I have also been working on some small wabi sabi assemblages.
