Scarabs

My bulletin board.  Susan started the drawing for me. After working with clay I need to mop up my floor so my Swiffer mop and I have become close friends.

The scarab came from a souvenir shop at some museum somewhere. The colored picture was pulled off the internet - a calendar page from Christopher Marley.  Several years in a row I gave Susan his calendar and she always saved them... until we had to downsize.  She'll get a new one this Christmas and we'll keep it!  The drawings are my first ideas about making ceramic scarabs.  Or beetle-bugs.

Where did the idea to veer off into making scarab beetles come from?    

There is an odd area near a creek bed where I walk in my neighborhood. These snail shells were gathered up there over the the past few months. I make sure they are empty when gathering them (obviously!) and soak them in bleach water and clean them out with a q-tip.  The skull is ??? A large rat? A squirrel? A raccoon? So my brain jumped from shells to scarabs and that brings me back to my bulletin board where the quote at the top is this:

All that restraint he showed on other pieces

came out in a big creative fart that

he couldn't hold in any longer.