Cotton Candy

May 2011

Just taken last night.



Sins

“I don’t want to play in your yard

I don’t like you anymore.

You’ll be sorry when you see me

Sliding down my cellar door.

You can’t holler down my rain barrel.

You can’t climb my apple tree.

I don’t want to play in your yard

If you can’t be nice to me.”

-Unknown

What I would like to call Dreams.

Rachel Dashae is a model who resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has gorgeous green eyes full of spirit and a beautiful jawline. Her personal interests include modeling, photography, fashion, geek stuff, fetish, and dreams.

Rachel is 22 years old and only 4 foot 10. Although she may be on the short side, I’d have never guessed looking at her work. She can contort her body into all sorts of amazing poses and always appears to be taller than she is, even when twisted inside an industrial sink.

Rachel is available for photoshoots anywhere in the country and is very experienced, modeling for five years. “I am creative, reasonable, and put my best foot forward with what I would like to call dreams. I have wanted this as long as I can remember and I enjoy it more than anything else in my life.”

http://www.modelmayhem.com/98824

Arranging Anatomy Prt. IV

All artists mentioned and many others never kill any animals for the purpose of their art. All animals are bought from flea markets or vintage stores, supplied by pest exterminators, road kill, or donated by pet owners or vets after natural or unpreventable deaths, with the exception of some insects.

Arranging Anatomy Prt. III

Polly Morgan is a young British taxidermy artist who makes small beautiful still lifes with the animal as the subject.  The animal is placed in an unnatural setting, like that of a breakfast table, under chandeliers or in mirrors but is never anthropomorphized. Seeing the animal out of place causes us to look at it as if for the first time, “a rat sheds its association with horror and disease and can be rightly viewed as a beautiful animal.” “What [taxidermists] are trying to do is recreate a wildlife image in 3D, a classic pose, something you’d see in the countryside. I am more interested in the moment between something dying and decaying – anything between a few hours and a week. There’s something beautiful about that.”(Polly Morgan)

                Last of all, other artists use taxidermy as a fashion statement, and not the ordinary kind. Usually animals are used in fashion in the ordinary sense like conventional fur coats or snakeskin boots.

                Rose Schwarz is from a blog that I follow, she’s created a white rat headband, bird skull hair piece, hot pink fox hat, and fox handbag. She typically uses gems for the eyes, making it more cute and less creepy, glitter and other crystals to adorn it. “I’m into taxidermy, and when I see animals (living ones), it sounds weird but they inspire many of my creations.”(Rose Schwarz)

                Bonnie Wood also creates fashionable works of art. Her creations include a small white mounted mouse head necklace, beetle necklaces, rat skull hairpieces, bird wing brooches and a deer skull head piece. “There is in life a tentative moment where something has reached fruition and hangs in the balance before descending into rot. I want to capture that moment forever so I can better understand it.”(Bonnie Wood)

                Before researching the topic of taxidermy most people, including myself, would think that either it’s a bad thing or are ignorant and don’t care either way. After discovering artists who create with a deeper meaning and motive, I find that there is a fragile middle-ground that I’m okay with and actually fascinated by. A place between death and respect that I think everyone should be able to appreciate.

Arranging Anatomy Prt. II

                Anthropomorphic Taxidermy is another form of taxidermy and one of my favorites. Anthropomorphic Taxidermy is where stuffed animals are dressed as people or seem to be engaged in human activities. Think of a little girl playing tea party or the White Rabbit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This style was more popular in Victorian and Edwardian times but can still be found today.

                A lot of artists use taxidermy in their artwork to expose a hidden meaning, a hard truth, to capture the moment between life and death, or to recreate life out of the no-longer living.

                Pascal Bernier is an artist who uses taxidermy in his artwork to “portray a world disenchanted with its own lost innocence, a world which is marred by the violence of science, agriculture, and human desires. His work highlights the roles in which we place animals and the fantasies that animals – whether hunted or farmed, taxadermied or cloned – allow us to dream about ourselves.” In his series “Hunting Accidents” Bernier has depicted several animals, including deer, a tiger, lions and a penguin with bandaged heads, legs, and necks. “On the one hand, the idea of carefully bandaging a stuffed polar bear or penguin is playfully absurd, on the other, the act acknowledges irreparable loss – what has been wounded will never in fact recover despite all our best efforts. The bandaged animals could be poster children for environmental doomsayers: mere tattered shells of their former health, soundness, and beauty which have all been irrevocably lost. Ultimately Bernier’s works are about the merciless blindness inherent in human nature.”(ravishingbeasts.com/taxidermy-artists) “... This disenchanted world which has lost the innocence of its ‘paradise’ is what Pascal Bernier now depicts for us as a vast laboratory of violence, where he cynically admits he works “without anaesthetic”.

Arranging Anatomy prt. I

Arranging Anatomy

                Artists can create a hidden message and hit a stronger cord towards humankind by using stuffed animals in their artwork. Not just any type of stuffed animal but taxidermy. Taxidermy is derived from Greek, meaning, the arrangement of skin.

                Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, even reptiles and fish. First the animal is skinned; this is usually accomplished without opening the body cavity, so taxidermists don’t see any blood or internal organs. Then, depending on the type of skin, preserving chemicals are applied or the skin is tanned. It is then either mounted on a manikin made of wood wool and wire, or a polyurethane form. Clay is used to install glass eyes, to me the most creepy feature of these animals.

                One interesting form of taxidermy is Rogue Taxidermy. Rogue taxidermy is creating stuffed animals that do not have real living counterparts. Think of the infamous “mermaid”, jackalopes, griffins, and unicorns.

                When the platypus was first discovered by Europeans in 1798, a sketch and pelt were sent to the United Kingdom. Many people thought it at first to be a hoax, that a taxidermist had sewn a ducks beak onto the body of a beaver-like animal. It was even checked for stitches.

                Sarina Brewer is a taxidermy artist who creates beautiful Rogue Taxidermy. At first she began with oil paints and found objects, most being mummified animal remains, then grew to taxidermy and finally Rogue Taxidermy. Some of her pieces include Griffins, a winged squirrel, an adorable two-headed peep, and a winged kitten. “Some people call what I do sick, some call it eccentric. Some people call it repulsive, some call it beautiful. You can call it whatever you want… I call it art.” (Sarina Brewer)             

I tripped & I tumbled.

Just wanted to acknowledge my Tumblr account.
http://cadavercarousel.tumblr.com/

Ephemeral

April 2011

Watching the skies make me realize how quickly time passes us all by without anyone realizing it. It's a wonder, how something so beautiful and breathtaking lasts for only minutes. I often think about life, death, time, and how they interconnect...



Mad World

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for the daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression, no expression

Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take

When people run in circles its a very, very

Mad world, mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good

Happy birthday, happy birthday

And I feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me, no one knew me

Hello teacher tell me, what's my lesson?

Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take

When people run in circles its a very, very

Mad world, mad world, enlarging your world

Mad world

-Gary Jules

Forever twentyone

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."