Post Modern Swamphen

This steel sculpture (backed by a peacock tail here) was created to a 1.5x scale with proportions taken from the measured bones of a roadkilled bird. The head is morphed more towards a seagull, and it stalks through the mud over the detritus of modernism (old bent universal beams are the grass sticking out of the mud) calling plaintively no doubt.

Galinula Victrix (the victorious swamphen)

The bird itself is 47 cm. tall and is created with a wire feed welder, filling in over an armature, the feathers are steel flat bar. Bronze copies pending.
The painting in the background is a section of an acrylic seaweed painting (printed with a piece of seaweed) on hardboard.

Swamp hen breastbone

This is a sterling silver pendant, made from a cast of the breast bone of a swamphen, a flightless Tasmanian rail - almost as it was picked up on the road. It is hardly recognizable as part of a bird - the normal keel that anchors the flight muscles has completely disappeared although they do use their wings while running its only in extremis. The stone is a 7 carat pear- shaped lab ruby, nearly perfect - if it was mined it might have been owned by the Shah of Iran or somesuch. But thanks to Chinese technology and Ebay you can own such a stone for about 5 bucks, and only your crystallographer can know for sure.

Cockatoo skull casting

The upper beak of parrots is hinged while the lower one has a sliding pivot from a short arm joined to the skull. Both are connected by a complex process of the palate and the result gives these birds an incredibly dexterous beak, capable of doing a lot of damage with great co-ordination.

To do a lost wax casting like this is very painstaking - a rubber mold cannot be made of the whole thing because it couldn't be removed. So the skull is trepanned and dissected, very thin sections are built up and molds made of the components. The whole is then easily assembled from the resulting injected wax parts and investment cast.

Sterling silver cuffs

Three different versions of a hollow cast slip-on cuff. The whole thing is a refinement of a lobster's tail with diminishing segments. The one with the stone was a request -another lab ruby. The steam punk version rivets are just droplets of wax size-matched, scraped off a metal plate and welded to the wax model.

Mabe Pearl Fish

This cast silver broach incorporates a cutltured Tahitian Mabe pearl.

Beetle Necklace

At dusk these introduced South African dung beetles leave their dung pats and zoom around looking for a better one. They are lousy pilots and they are regularly seen to have impaled themselves on fence barbs. They are a scarab, black and irridescent blue. This is all in sterling silver, the beetles are hollow cast and blackened. Its very punk, dangerous to wear - for a dangerous woman who has ended at least four relationships.