Hello, World!

Let’s get it out of the way, for the uninitiated. The exchange I have with many in explaining this work.

“Where do you get your bones?”

“I raise rabbits for meat.”

“Oh, so when they die, you —”

“No.”

If this jolts you, know that eating the flesh of an animal whose time and cause of death are unknown is not safe. And no, you don’t have to eat meat for us to be friends. I ate next to no meat for years.

I also have a lot of thoughts on our society’s general obsession with quantity of life over quality. Since this is just an introduction, doubling as a brief gallery of my past work, I’ll save those thoughts for later ramblings.

The first artistic distillation from our meat rabbits was bone jewelry, sometimes plated in copper. I love anatomy and work with human bodies every day. There’s a greater understanding that can come from seeing, holding something like what’s inside us, far beyond what a 2-D medical cartoon can relay.

Then, there’s the classic rabbit’s foot. I’ve tried to put my own unique spin on this talisman, again emphasizing anatomy and also lately emphasizing the unique rabbits from which each of these comes.

Interested in that ligamentary foot in the middle? I love shouting out Lee Post’s techniques on TheBoneman.com.

At first, the heads were hard for me. I gave the skulls of our entire first litter to another local maker — I almost regret this but am glad they will be used lovingly by them, as well.

Once I decided to try working with the skulls, as is the case with many things, it was not as morbid or heart-rending as I feared. If anything, getting to see the beauty of these delicate treasures brought me more amazement for the lives from which they came.

Because of the individuality we tend to impart to skulls, they bring more poignancy, especially coming into conversation with each other.

I’ve been moving away from jewelry and toward these larger pieces. I want people to see some shadow of the little person I knew and loved. And, yes, killed. As much as I love this artistic practice, the center has to be giving them a good life and the life they sustain in us. That is the message I want to live in the heart of every piece I make.

I have some really different stuff coming this way. Maybe Substack will offer the engagement and rambling potential to be Myoflorae’s online home.

But how am I selling stuff online without Instagram / Etsy / SoulSucker Inc.?!

I’m not.

I want to hand every piece I make to their new caretaker. I want that new caretaker to understand this is not a product. Meat is not a product. Bones are not a product.

They are life.