The Ossuary Comes Alive
A “room of bones” felt apt to home a different kind of uniqueness at Second Spring.
If you’ve been following my journey a while you might have seen the emergence of (the now legendary) Wispy Kenneth and his compadres which were an absolute joy to make and bring to life. Clearly I’m not alone in my fascination with the macabre or having a darkly comedic streak because they’ve bought joy to others too.
They’re a bit of a departure from the industrial grit creations that have become synonymous with Second Spring so I wasn’t sure how I’d incorporate them into my product shop. I also wanted to counter balance the humour; paying respect to a subject that’s an absolute certainty for all of us. Characters and stories that keep our beloved dead alive with us inspired me to imagine mundane and eccentric personalities that are bought to life when worn by the living.
“I wonder what jewellery they wore when they were alive…”
I’ve always wanted an Ossuary at home; the boy and I share this interest and we do have quite a collection of real bones knocking about our house, punctuated here and there with remnants of my scientific past (detailed anatomical drawings, evolution and origin textbooks, dissection knives and general medical miscellany) but we’ve never had a dedicated room, only a glass fronted cabinet of curiosities.
Curiosity cabinet
There are lots of stories behind the acquisitions in our collection; a dugong found on a beach in Qatar (yes we have official CITES documents) possibly the most exciting one (buy me a pint and we’ll be happy to share that in full!), the human ones being those we’re asked most about.
Our (very fragile) dugong skull
Richie’s late grandfather (it’s not his bones before you get carried away!) was a GP and during his training at medical school, as was professional procedure at the time, students studying anatomy were supplied with a set of human bones to learn with. These days I believe students learn with 3D printed artificial replicas (possibly simulations now rather than a physical form?) so the set that we inherited from our family is extra special. A character lived with those bones and opted to donate them to medical education; that’s all I know about them but I often contemplate their backstory.
Our box of human bones
Anyway, I hope this has reassured you that the boy and I aren’t murderers, just a bit weird is all!
Here’s to all the characters that have shaped us so far on our way xx