Cat Head 4

I considered making salt and pepper shakers shaped like cats for Janell for Christmas, but I couldn't get them to come out anything near cute and I knew she wouldn't like them if they were scary or deranged.  This was one of the cat prototypes.

 This is meant to be wearable art.  It has a hole through the back.  I took several pictures of myself wearing Cat Head 4 as a necklace, but I'm very uncomfortable putting images of myself on this blog, although I have done it a few times in the past and as far as I know, I didn't end up on any Bad Art Pornography sites.  So, here is one bad photo with the eyes blacked out and two (IMO) decent photos with low resolution.  My point is that it can be worn.

Black Ghost Objects

These shapes are made from distorting the outline made from cutting out a chamsa outline.  I had a similar object that entered the glaze kiln and never came out and another one that disappeared after it entered the bisque kiln.  It made me think that it was worth making more.

There are only two of them; I couldn't decide which glare I liked best.

Chamsa 84

This is another experimental chamsa, using one of the eyes left over from the Warthog Column Pot.  To quote Groundskeeper Willie, "Och, back to the loch wi' you, Nessie."

Robotron Tank 4

This is another attempt at the Robotron Tank with a cassette replacing the weird geometric design on the original sprite.

Here's the sprite from the game.  Or maybe it's an illustration from the promotional material.

New Series of Cthulhu Idol Figures WIP

This is a new series of Cthulhu Idol Figures.  They're less cartoonish than their 2004 counterparts.  They're still moderately crude, but even with effort I couldn't replicate the crudeness of the originals.

Finished Cthulhu Idols

Cthulhu Idol Figures from 2004

I started working with clay in 2004 and these are three crude Cthulhu Idol Figures I made around that time.  The stone gray Cthulhu Idol is one of the very few pieces that I made at home.


I just sold two of them on Etsy.  I feel slightly uncomfortable separating the red and gray Cthulhus from the green one.  This is the accompanying text:

These is a small stoneware clay sculpture of a Cthulhu idol, not so much meant to represent Great Cthulhu Itself, but rather a religious object your average Cthulhu cultist might keep on the mantel in his or her home, or on a child's night table so that it might be illuminated just so when the little angel turns on the night light. Cthulhu fhtagn, little one.

Rotifer WIP

Finished version of Rotifer sculpture

At some point, I made a disparaging remark about rotifers, the tiny, multicellular animal lifeforms which were named for whirling, wheel-like cilia inside their transparent bodies, while attempting to promote my tardigrade sculptures.  Now, I attempt to make amends with a rotifer sculpture.  As I did this, I realized that I didn't have enough information to accurately portray the anatomy of these minute animals.  The organs are partly interpreted from a diagram and partly improvised.

Chamsa 83

Chamsa 82

I'm working on making chamsas that have glaze along the sides.

Chamsa 82:

Illinois State Fossil WIP

This is a clay sculpture of the odd invertebrate with a long snout that serves as the official state fossil of Illinois, the Tully Monster.

Finished Tully Monster Sculpture

Dollar Store Pelican Interpretation WIP

Janell and I made Christmas stockings for each other stuffed with the results of a $10 dollar store shopping spree.  One of her gifts to me was a plastic figure with two pelicans.  This is my clay interpretation of the pelican.

Finished version of Pelican Sculpture

Here is the sculpture with the source figure.

Green Pikaia, Off-White Pikaia

These are two more replicas/interpretations of the Burgess Shale fossil chordate Pikaia.

Rooster Pot

This is a 12 inch coil/slab pot with a rooster's head and tail.  Most of the pot, lid, and tail are glazed with a red-brown glaze over a white glaze and the head is painted with acrylic paint.

If you've spent any time around chickens, you may know that their heads are functionally two dimensional when viewed from the front.

 The Rooster Pot beheaded and ready to be stuffed:

Aberrant Hallucigenia

The upside-down version of Hallucigenia is one of my favorite Burgess Shale monstrosities.  Here it is made a little more monstrous with the use of a rubber doll mold.

(Not) The Giraffe I'm Seeing in My Head

Today I obtained a model of a giraffe at a dollar store.  I was hoping it would help me better sculpt the complex contours of the animal's face, but it still isn't matching the giraffe I'm seeing in my head.

Finished version of Goat-Giraffe Sculpture

Why Vertebrate Animals Are Smarter

I found a Russian news site that uses my Pikaia sculpture as an illustration.

Aberrant Warthog Pot WIP

I set out to make a new Warthog Column and instead ended up with this Warthog Pot.  It comes apart into five separate pieces.

Finished version of Aberrant Warthog Pot

December Scraps

Two more impressions from the Yoda watch:

Some miscellaneous crap with skulls and a woman's face (the Virgin Mary from a Nativity scene, for Christmas):

December Gallery Sales

Today I was happy to see that two of my pieces had sold at the studio gallery.

Beholder 7, the finger puppet beholder

The Vicious Animal Mug

Aberrant Giraffe WIP

I made a Giraffe Column in 2010, but it was badly damaged when a shelf collapsed.  This was an attempt to recreate it, but the column turned into a pot and I couldn't get the shape of the giraffe's head right.

Finished version of Aberrant Giraffe Pot