This Is My Garden

I live in an apartment with a small patio with a garden of potted plants.  Each pot is attended by a clay guardian.  I wrote a garden post a few years ago:  Garden Sculptures and this is an update.

The Entire Garden

This sculpture was meant to be the head of an interpretation of the Bat-rat-spider monster from the classic sci-fi film Angry Red Planet.  I couldn't figure out how to get the long spider legs to support the head so I never got around to making the rest of it.  I don't know what plant this is.  They started growing in an empty pot and they don't look like anything I ever planted.

This is the smallest and least cat-like of my cat columns.  It lives in a thicket of thyme.

This is one of the Wise Man Objects made from a Nativity Scene I found by the dumpster last year.  It lives among the sunflowers.

This is the Bill the Cat/Tongue Cat Column.  It lives in the rosemary bush.

This is the first Warthog Column I made, which was damaged when a shelf collapsed.  It has lived among the immortal pineapple mint plant since I moved here.  Strangely, when I lived out in the desert, anything I left outside had a good chance of being stolen.  Since I've moved into the city, I haven't had anything stolen.  

This is a skull-spider object (and a few white clay skeleton molds) in the pot with the jalapeño plant.

This was a prototype for a cake topper for my sister's wedding.  It was meant to portray her and her husband on bicycles.  The prototype broke in half and never got glazed.  The final version also broke in half and turned out to be too heavy to function as a cake topper.

This is an atavistic sculpture of a creature resembling a bat or spider with many eyes.  The plant grew from seeds in my compost pile.  I think it's a cantaloupe plant.

I've encouraged some wild plants to grow in this pot and something has sprouted, but I'm not sure if it's one of the wild plants (desert broom or desert lavender) or just more sunflowers.  The clay guardian is a wiwaxia, a strange fossil organism from the Burgess Shale.

I think these are more sunflowers growing in this pot.  Also in this pot is a scene in which Mary and Joseph defend themselves against a menacing Flail Snail 

.

This was a rescue plant found by the side of the road.  I think it's a kind of fern.  It's managed to spread into some other pots as well.  The clay guardian is the Stone-Colored Maggot Atavism.

This lovely creature is called the Apple Pussy Monstrosity.  It's guarding an extra crop of basil, racing against time to see if it survives the horrifying two week period in which there's a danger of frost in Tucson.

This pot contains dill, cilantro, and few plants I don't recognize.  Its clay resident is the Tree Trunk Devotion 

.

This is a a small shrine consisting of a plaster nun, the Weeping Giraluna, a purple pot received as a gift, and the Joint of Mutton.

This is a larger shrine consisting of the damaged Ophanim Pot, a practice Chwidencha, a Germinant, the Giraffe Column, an Easter Bunny given to me as a gift, and my tribute to my deceased dog Chiqui.

Bird Demon WIth Its Organs on the Outside

Number Three of the Emanations/Offspring of Ul' Rh'yl'ng:

Space Coyotes 8, 9, and 10

These are clay interpretations of the Johnny Cash-voiced spirit coyote that Homer Simpson meets in "El viaje misterioso de nuestro Jomer."  Space Coyote #10 has an extra pair of eyes.

Tardigrade on a Couch WIP

Finished Seated Tardigrade on a Monster Couch

Once again, I attempted to make the seated tardigrade smoking a bong.  I made a monstrous sofa for the tardigrade to sit on, but when I started trying to sculpt the tardigrade, I realized that water bear anatomy is not conducive to the seated posture.  I couldn't get it to come out how I was imagining it.

I was going to keep the sofa and save the seated tardigrade stoner for another day.

I cut the tardigrade into segments (head, three body segments, caudal segment) and rearranged them to produce this awkward creature.

I realized that a tardigrade seated on a couch probably should look awkward.  And so Monstrous Chair joined Seated Tardigrade.  It felt absurd enough without the bong and the tardigrade's arms are too short anyway.

A New Era of Aberrant Work

I've had the idea of making sculptures of tardigrades in various amusing poses for a while and I was planning on  making one tonight.  It was going to be a tardigrade sitting on a sofa smoking a bong.  Then I started thinking that I would make the sofa a monstrous sofa like Chairy or Dog Chair from Pee-Wee's Playhouse.  I was worried that the lounging, toking tardigrade would get in the way of the monstrous sofa, so I ended up making two separate pieces.

I reviewed some basic tardigrade anatomy before making this and I'm happy with how it came out.

Here is the Monstrous Chair.  I heard Jim Henson singing "Mahna Mahna" on the way home from the pottery studio and I like to think it ushers in a new era of aberrant work.

Cluster of 14 Eyes

H.P. Lovecraft, Bad Nose WIP

Finished  H.P. Lovecraft Head

I've been meaning to make some object - wall hanging, sculpture, pot with the face of H.P. Lovecraft.  I can never get noses to come out right.  They must have covered noses the week I was absent from art school due to the chicken pox.  This is unfortunate since, other than the bad nose, it's otherwise a perfect likeness of the writer of weird fiction from Rhode Island.

Monster Baby 1 WIP

Last weekend was the All Souls Procession in Tucson.  I went to the procession, but it was very crowded and I couldn't find a comfortable place to stand.  I found one area where I could stand a little bit back from the crowd but then people kept filling in the space in front of me and I kept having to move further back.  Finally I gave up and went home.

I've been thinking of participating in the procession.  My idea is to make a clay monster baby and push it in a stroller or carriage.  I'm planning on wearing a black shroud that completely covers my face.  I want to use some kind of light inside the baby's head and body.

This is my first attempt at the monster baby.

Last of the Normal Menorahs WIP

Finished Burro Brush Menorah

I had planned five more theoretically salable menorahs with geometrical patterns or imprints of plants.  This is the last of the five and, although I did sell one normal menorah on Etsy, I'm ready to go back to aberrant art for a while.  This menorah uses the imprint of a shrub that grows in and near the Rillito river bed in Tucson. 

I haven't identified the plant yet.  It looks and smells a little like dill.

Pikaias 6 and 7

Pikaia 6

Pikaia 7
I've already written about this elsewhere, but I'm not over it yet, so I'll write it again.  This was the first time in about a year that I've put my work out in the kiln shed to be loaded and unloaded by the regular kiln volunteers instead of reserving a kiln and doing it all myself.  The result was a broken tentacle.  I used the pikaia with the broken tentacle as a glaze test.  I don't think the reddish brown glaze looks good on pikaias.

Eye Cup and Pikaia WIPs and Complaining

Finished Eye Cup #10

This is my tenth eye cup.  I'm not planning on making any more unless I can sell any of the ones I have.

Finished Pikaias

These are two more pikaias (interpretations of fossil chordate).  I recently made two other pikaia.  This was the first time I've trusted anyone else to handle my work in the bisque kiln and one of them lost a tentacle.

Ogrémoch Illuminated

This is a slab-constructed representation of Ogrémoch, the (or at least a) Prince of Evil Earth Creatures.  It was intended to be a functional jack-o-lantern.  The small, flat candles I used didn't illuminate the object as I was hoping, but I think it deserves the title of Jack-o-lantern.  The image from the AD&D Fiend Folio can be seen here.