The Box Idea

This is my father's idea of how to make my work more appealing to the consumer. The vaguely human-shaped, unglazed object with two heads and a broken limb was the result of visiting The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. It was part of a series of representations of conjoined twin fetuses.

More USA-shaped Surrealist Objects

Skull and Lions.
The lions come from strange animal-shaped toys with interchangeable heads.




Virgins, Stormtroopers, and skulls.




The alien from the film Invasion of the Saucer Men, although someone said it looked like "Mysterious alien poop from outerspace."




The bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back: Bossk, Zuckuss, Dengar, 4-LOM, and the Virgin Mary.

Daria Morgendorffer

I like this sculpture because it's true to its cartoonish, (2<x<3)-dimensional roots. I started off trying to imagine Daria in three dimensions, but was quickly reminded that I'm completely unable to render the human body in clay (although this one at least has patellas). So I cut off the back, leaving a reasonably faithful image of the disaffected nineties cartoon teenager in the front and a mass of writhing entrails and pulsating organs in the back (see below).




Note lack of writhing entrails and pulsating organs.




Practice Daria faces. The one on the left appears to have a monocle.

Apple of Discord with Anomalocaris

This was constructed as a symbol to identify myself as a Discordian in a public place. It didn't really work and I was thus not identified as a Discordian. The K is for kallisti, which may or may not mean "for the most beautiful one," a reference to the golden apple thrown by the goddess Eris in a mythological version of the cause of the Trojan War. The modern Discordian movement worships Eris less as a hateful jealous warmonger and more as a trickster goddess who represents chaos in its original sense of raw possibility and who transcends the dualities of order and disorder, creation and destruction.





This is a clay version of the same object. The anomalocaris is glazed and the rest of the apple is painted with acrylics.

Yochlol, Handmaiden of Lolth, Version 2

This is an interpretation of a handmaiden of the large-assed demon spider goddess Lolth.





Here is a back view of the object, also showcasing its awkward use as a finger puppet for that one special finger. It's hollow, but while I was making it, I was worried about the inside closing up and creating lethal air pockets, so I adorned the back side with some extra orifices, eyes, and teeth.

Ivyland

The mantelpiece altar in Ivyland, PA. On the far left is a metal sculpture by my father. Slightly left of center is a model of a heart. Exactly in the center is a wizard candle that has been in my possession since I was about 12. Slightly right of center is a small, gold-colored replica of the Ark of the Covenant, courtesy of Archie McPhee. Next to the Ark is a clay object in the shape of my brother's atavistic cat totem (correct me if I'm wrong). Details of my contributions to the mantel are shown below.




The Naked Scary Grandma replica of thrift store kitsch. To the right, a fake phrenology head from my Archie McPhee stage.




A wingèd cat column & the aforementioned atavistic cat totem. I'm not sure if the fact that it now shares a name (if not an orthography) with a character from Jersey Shore makes it taboo.




An unglazed anomalocaris made from dark brown clay (which fires to black).



One of my early menorahs.

Central Park

This is a rough clay object made with a Virgin Mary face, designed to be left somewhere. On the back it says: "So Much For Pathos."




Here I am in the North Woods of Central Park, leaving the object in a hole in a tree.



Here is a close up of the hole, with the clay object visible in the lower left corner.

Mount Airy

Dan's house in Philadelphia.




The IG-88 Menorah and a Cat Column.

Chaggrin Without Spines

The chaggrin, or soil beast from the AD&D Monster Manual II. The original illustration appears below. Eventually the holes in the back will be filled with some kind of wire, but I haven't decided what kind of wire and what kind of adhesive to use.

Stormtrooper Menorah Preview

I wish I had left out the Stormtroopers.

Daria Survives

Daria survives the bisque kiln and is ready to be painted.

Alien Mold Offering

This is a small clay object made using a mold of a plastic alien figure given to me by a student. Here it is seen floating in a cup of imaginary coffee in a public art installation along the Rillito Riverbed Trail in Tucson. The installation also includes two lounge chairs made of slabs of granite. Someone had scratched "Give Peace a Chance" and the name of John Lennon into one of them with a nail. The alien mold offering is at least an easily removable bit of public defacement. On the back of the object, the words "You are being watched RIGHT NOW" are written in black marker.

An All New Aboleth

I'm not sure what exactly those strange protuberances on the front of the aboleth's head are supposed to be, but I think that in this case they make it look like the chubby kid with glasses that Gary Larson frequently drew in The Far Side (although I can't find an image of him using Google Images unfortunately).

Tardigrade

Tardigrades are microscopic multicellular animals commonly known as water bears, or, even more esoterically, moss piglets. Tardigrades are notable for their ability to survive in harsh environments by entering a state similar to hibernation. Tardigrades are the only known animal life able to survive in a vacuum. I just rephrased most of that from Wikipedia and I feel like I'm writing a fourth grade report.

Someone else's fine illustration of tardigrade faces.

Dragonfly Plaque

I made this to use as a mold, but it's too shallow and I'm fairly sure it would have broken if I had tried to press it into clay.

Stoned Mouse

More old crap:

Unfired Daria

I was watching Revenge of the Nerds and it occurred to me to make clay figures of all the major characters. The pictures I could find online were too complicated. Real human figures are too complicated for me in general and I didn't see any caricature versions. Today I was watching an episode of Daria and I decided to try the same idea. At first, I was trying to make a three dimensional version of the image of the brilliant and unpopular teenage girl and I realized I didn't have the proper anatomical training. I opened a book on sculpting the human figure in clay and used it to make slightly-more-realistic-than-cartoonish patellas for Daria, but otherwise, the clay figure is an interpretation of the flat drawing.


The top half of Daria. The figure has no back. It's lighter that way and I'm not imaginative enough to visualize what Daria's back and ass look like anyway. The biggest anatomical question was: If Daria had breasts, where would they be?


Daria's bottom half: Doc Martens, skinny legs, patellas, and a platform for the upper half.


The two halves joined, hopefully well enough to survive the clay's desiccation, and the traumatic firing process after that.

Unfired Elemental Grue

This is an unfired Elemental Grue from the Fiend Folio.



If it survives the firing and glazing processes, I'm intending on gluing metal wires into the holes in its back.

Beholder Finger Puppet

This is Beholder 7, the small beholder that can be used as a finger puppet.

The Bad-Dental-Hygiene Beholder

This is Beholder #6.



I used a new technique of adding multiple rows and clusters of teeth. A lot of them broke off, making this the Bad-Dental-Hygiene Beholder.

Ship Atavism