I am fairly interested in collecting bones, teeth, and other things like that! I can't tell exactly when I started getting interested in this hobby, but it probably happened when I was walking to class one day and found a whole bird head (?!) just laying on the ground. I had no idea where it came from. There was no body, and it looked like some kind of stork, or fairly big bird. I picked it up on instinct and threw it in a box with my paints until I could figure out what to do with it. Since then, I found several other (?!) birds and assorted animals, and even got some as gifts. Here's a page to talk about them a little bit!
January 2018: Weird
stork head I found on campus
- my art supply box with a bird head in it
- linocut prints I made of it
- digital design with a better quality
image of the head
I don't have this bird head anymore - I can't remember exactly what
happened, but I think I ended up throwing it away because I didn't know
where to keep it. I did hold onto it for long enough to do two art
projects based on it, though. I still have no idea what kind of bird it
was, or what happened to its body. Very weird.
March 2018: Dead mouse from a baseball field
- painting study of the mouse
- bone box (pic incoming)
I was visiting my aunt (who is the coolest person ever) and telling her
about my new hobby. Coincidentally, her nephews or something had just
told her about finding a dead mouse when they were at baseball practice.
I convinced her to drive me out there, and we called them on the phone
until we hunted down the mouse. It was all dried up already, and stuck
inside a little electrical cage or something.
I pulled all of its fur and skin off with tweezers, and there was very
little mess and no blood, because it had been dead for a while. I
brought home all of the teeny tiny bones and organized them in a little
plastic case. I think I gave away some of them to a classmate who wanted
to turn them into jewelry, but I still have most of them.
June 2018: Baby teeth
- two baby teeth
My little brother let me keep two of his teeth. I turned one of them
into a copper ring. I have it somewhere and I'll take a picture when I
find it. I think I have another tooth of his somewhere, too.
October 2018: Extracted tooth
- tooth in a cool medical envelope
My dad had to get one of his molars extracted so he asked the dentist if
he could take it with him and give to me. It's in this very cool little
dental envelope thing.
??? 2018: Baby bunny head
I don't know if I have any pictures of this, actually. This was a gift
from my uncle. He found a severed bunny head in a big package of mulch,
so he freeze-dried it and mailed it to me. I don't think I have it any
more.
??? 2018: Nasty dead rabbit
This story is very gross, fair warning. Hover to read.
[My mom saw a story on Facebook about a giant dead rabbit in a park. She
told me not to get excited, but I WAS really excited. I forced my dad to
drive me to the park so I could pick it up. It was big as fuck, it
weighed like ten pounds or something. It was really heavy and it had
probably died pretty recently. I wanted to get over there ASAP before
somebody cleaned it up, also, there were vultures flying over it, so I
knew if I left it there that it would be gone before too long. It barely
fit into the plastic bags I brought and we drove it home in my dad's
trunk.
The problem, however, is that we got home when the sun was going down,
so I didn't have the light or time to start working on it. I sealed it
in an airtight container and left it outside overnight so I could start
cutting into it the next day. You probably see where this is going...
I opened the container, and oh, my God, it did NOT smell good. It wasn't
the worst smell ever but it was very unpleasant. I was like, that's
fair, it's a dead animal, I'm not surprised. However, when I touched its
stomach to start preparing to cut it open, it like, hissed as a whole
bunch of gasses expelled out of it... and when I did finally cut into it
a little bit, the meat inside was GREEN... I guess sitting outside in
the 100 degree sun does not do very good things to a dead rabbit. He was
too nasty for me to try to do anything else so I threw the whole thing
into the garbage.]
May 2019: Partially feathered bird head
- photo of the display
My great uncle got this for me and sent it to me. It's on a shelf in my
room with some of my other bone-related items and stuff I've picked up
at thrift stores.
December 2019: Bobcat head
- photo of me holding it with gloves on.
it is skinless and kind of gross looking
This was a gift from my little brother's friend's dad, of all people.
They go hunting, and I guess they eat the meat, usually, but they didn't
have anything to use the head for, so they gave it to me. I was really
really excited, and I tried to macerate it to clean it off, but I really
wasn't prepared and ended up having to get rid of it. It sat in a coffee
can full of water in our outside fridge for several months before I
finally had to force myself to throw it away.
I thought about burying it so bugs could clean the rest of the meat and
its eyes away, but my dog ate a spine that I was cleaning outside once,
so I knew I couldn't do that because he would most DEFINITELY eat it. I
am pretty upset with myself for not finding a way to clean it off, but
the flesh was still really attatched to the bone and I couldn't scrub or
cut it away, and I had to avoid keeping it outside for too long so it
wouldn't rot. Overall I just wasn't equipped to finish this project.