Fragility

Birds and skeletons seem to go well together, and that's all I can say to explain this one.

The bird is supposed to be a grey fantail, native to parts of Australasia, and has interesting connections with death. Superstition claims that if one flies into the house, someone will die (although some contend that it is merely a dead spirit returning). In Maori myth, it was responsible for the death of Maui (and, less directly, everyone else to die since).

As for the skeleton, in the right light, I think it can be really beautiful, and doesn't need to always be a scary or scientific thing. To further demonstrate my contempt for science, I gave it the wrong number of vertebrae. (In other words, oops.)

I do wish I had gotten a better photograph of this before I sold it, but I've cleaned it up as well as I can.

Pencil, 2006