Shelf Life

Following suit to my blog partner's lead, here is a small sampling of some of my collections.

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I recently purchased this hutch from a thrift store for what must have been 1/10 of the original price.  It has made a perfect showcase for my previously cluttered curiosities.

A  few of my Lenins , a lovingly dried snake that was found by my father and  some random antique bottles, some found, some given.   And a resin fingertip cast.

Last year's yield of cicada molts. I think I could have collected several hundred more had I started earlier.

These are only replicas that I have distressed for Halloween display purposes. I'm still on the fence about acquiring an authentic human skull, if the opportunity arises though....

The next installment will showcase my collection of taxidermy and critter skulls...

collecting dust

Chris and I were talking the other day about ideas for different types of blog posts here on DF. One idea we had was to post a few more little things about us, because we like to think of ourselves as interesting, well-read, aesthetically adept individuals who have some neat things to share with the internet world at large. So we thought it would be fun to post about our personal collections of certain objects, which we, being treasure-hoarding artist-types, seem to acquire a large wealth of. So here are three of mine:

#1
Very old, well-loved stuffed animal toys. Clean museum-quality specimens need not apply. I like them dirty, with the mohair pulled off in spots, filled stiffly with straw or sawdust, and roughly charming. The bunny pictured is so old and faded you can't even tell he used to be blue, and his one glass eye being lower than the other is the result of a home repair. The lamb and his rusted little bell are so endearing, and that bear kinda, sorta does something when you turn the crank. I just realized I forgot to put my straw-stuffed rocking horse in the picture. Sorry horse!

They're sitting on a rusted and tattered old doll stroller...because I also have amassed a nice little collection of toy accoutrements for them.


#2 Antique medical, pharmaceutical, and science bottles. My collection spans the early 1900s to the 1950s, and includes some lovely gilded "under glass" labeled bottles (one is for Spirit of Ether), as well as some lovely hand-written science chemical labels, and a series of crazy old dental medications, such as Arsenic Discs and Silver Nitrate. There are still Arsenic disks in the bottle...supposedly they also contained Asbestos, Opium, and Cocaine, according to the label.




#3 Human Teeth. The molars in the foreground as well as the baby teeth in the vials are real. The antique Nuform tray and mason jar hold a bevy of porcelain teeth for denture-making. The ones in the jar are frequently put into my artwork, but the others will not be removed, save for the molars which have been cast into silicone molds to become an army of resin teeth.

Donations are welcome.

Mysterious Packages

So it seems that being a blogger pays off sometimes. In this instance it paid off in a big way for 50 lucky bloggers. The makers of the newest stop-motion feature film CORALINE, have been kind, wait, no...AWESOME enough to send out 50 handmade mystery boxes to blogs of relevance. Now it's not often that we get INSANELY JEALOUS here at DF, but this is one of those times, this is why...

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These boxes are nothing shy of masterpieces in of themselves, containing actual production props, scrapbooks and items of mystery.

While I have not yet seen the film (10 demerits for me) I still find this act of kindness on the filmmaker's part to be one of the most inspiring things I have seen in a very long time. Kudos, and congratulations to everyone who received these amazing treasures.

seven deadly sips

Hamilton Design has created a conceptual set of seven red wine glasses based on the Seven Cardinal Sins. All nestled in plush burgundy velvet and polished wood, they look like an antique glass medical device.


Each handmade glass, representing a different sin, is almost painfully clever in concept - the Envy glass is full of holes, rendering what is most desired (the wine) all but unattainable, and the Lust glass is suspended from above, the only way to release the liquid inside being to manipulate a frosted glass globe with the tongue.

I don't even want to guess the price, but these absolutely exquisite sets are available for purchase at their website.

the silence moves the hand

If antiquated metaphysical ephemera interests you (and realistically, how could it not?), you will want to visit The Museum of Talking Boards.

It's an online gallery with a fascinating history of spirit-writing, and many of the fascinating designs and gimmicks of talking boards through the first half of last century. The design alone on some of these boards is just marvelous, and they range from the simple and beautiful, to the utterly ridiculous.

You'll also find enough theories, stories, and superstitions here to keep you reading well into the night, though the page designer's choice of text-to-background color combinations isn't always forgiving to the eyeballs.