June Projects: Charles W. Morgan, Eleggua, Peyote Rattle and More!!!

Although I have been working at the museums quite regularly of late, I am still finding time to work on some little projects here and there. Lest my patient readers begin to fear I've dropped off the face of the earth, I'll take a moment to share...

1. An old model of the whaler Charles W. Morgan that I had been meaning to assemble for at least the last year. I finally started on it, and am about 3/4 of the way through. I'll confess that I never had the patience for model building growing up, and still find the process supremely tedious. I made one other model of the US Navy hospital ship Haven a few years ago to display in my hospitalmuseum; I think the Charles Morgan may be my final foray into model building! This model won't be painted... I have another idea in mind that I will share as the project nears completion! Before getting started on the model, I drove down to Mystic Seaport, where the actual Charles Morgan is hauled out of the water for a major restoration, to get some inspiration:













The brick "tryworks" on deck, where blubber was boiled and rendered into oil.

The area below deck at the front of the ship called the "forecastle" where the majority of the crew members slept. Most of the props and bedding in the forecastle and throughout the rest of the ship have been stripped out for the duration of the restoration.

2. I have had a handful of bone choker tube beads laying around for a while; I combined them with some India glass trade beads and made a nice, simple Plains Indian-style choker. This may end up in the FinderMaker online shop when I start stocking it up, as I'm not generally one to leave the house done up in Native American-style regalia (if you were to infer that I am apt to parade around inside the house in Native American regalia, though, you might just be on to something!)

3. This is a replica of a wonderful coconut and cowrie shell Eleggua effigy I saw online . It was for sale, but was way out of my price range, and anyway it looked like a fun project to replicate at home! I'm not done with it yet; just need to find some colorful little feathers and a few other magical sundries to adorn it with!

4. I made one of these peyote ceremony rattles about a year ago, and, after running across an extra gourd I had purchased at a farmer's market last year, decided it was time to assemble another. I think this one has turned out beautifully so far; the feather and horsehair tip on this one is extra fancy! The next step will be to add the peyote-stitch beadwork over the white leather portions; I think the beadwork on this one will have several shades of green in it. I can't wait to share photos when it is done!

5. You are probably getting awfully tired of seeing this thing! I took the strip of lazy-stitch beadwork off of the front once again and re-did it in the pattern you see presently. I also replaced the earlier cobalt beads on the red sheepskin portion with old turquoise-colored glass trade beads, and affixed the abalone and tin-cone hair drops around the sides and back (I will do a complete post with photos of all of this when it is completed!) I chose some of the finest wild turkey feathers from the batch I found at Mount Hope Farm, and have wrapped and stitched red sheepskin around the base of each in preparation for affixing them to the top of the cap. I'm finally happy with the way that front beadwork strip looks, and will definitely be keeping it!

6. In fact, I liked the beadwork pattern I came up with for the cap above so much that I just kept going with it on my little bead loom... I guess I have a hatband now!

7. One of my earliest FinderMaker posts showed me crafting a replica of an old whaling harpoon. I had made examples of two of the predominant styles of hand-darted harpoons: the double-flue and toggle irons, and figured I should add the third common style, the single-flue iron, to complete the set. The baked fimo head has been epoxied onto the shaft, and the seam sanded smooth; now the shaft and head will be painted to resemble old metal, then affixed to the cedar pole that is all shaped, sanded and ready to receive it. This is a fun project to work on using readily available materials; if your collection of nautical artifacts could benefit from the addition of a real showpiece, I encourage you to go back and follow my how-to!

Thank you so much for sticking around... I regret that I've allowed so much time to lapse since my last post! I'll be sure to do updates as I complete these (and other!) projects. Thanks for joining me!!!

Mashantucket Pequot Museum Visit and the Hunt for Purple Wampum!

On Easter sunday, Anne and I took a vigorous ramble along the rocky coastline of Beavertail State Park in picturesque Jamestown, RI, hoping to find some interesting ocean curiosities washed up by the recent storms (below):



I was excited to find a lobster buoy and a "mermaids purse" (an empty skate egg sac), though there wasn't much else to speak of. Driving back to Providence, we pulled over to examine Mackerel Cove beach and Sheffield Cove, where we became enamored of the rich, purple-hued pieces of quahog clam shell that dotted the shoreline at low tide. We eagerly picked up as many specimens as we could hold before hunger and fatigue forced us back along our journey home.



I didn't have any particular project in mind for those lovely purple quahog shells, though I was aware that some of the coastal Native American tribes fashioned the shells into tubular purple beads that became valued as a form of currency often referred to as "wampum". Well, as luck would have it, I was treated to all sorts of great information on wampum, and every other aspect of the lives and culture of the local Mashantucket Pequot Indians at the amazing Mashantucket Pequot Museum yesterday!

I had heard great things about the museum, and was excited to finally make the one hour drive down to the Pequot reservation in Connecticut to visit; boy, were we surprised and delighted with what we found! Opened in 1998, the museum is huge, with beautifully designed exhibits, dioramas, films, interactive elements and immersive environments that cover seemingly every aspect of life as a Pequot from the ice age to modern times. By the time we had taken in the ice-age caribou hunt, the life-sized mastadon, woodland foraging displays and a peek at life under the Mashantucket rock shelter, we were starting to feel some serious museum fatigue. A stroll through the gift shop and subsequent cookie break rejuvenated us nicely, though, and it's a good thing, because the most astonishing experience was still to come!

(image courtesy of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum)

The Pequot Village is a stunning, immersive environment that recreates, down to the minutest detail, life in a Pequot village. A hand-held audio phone allows the participant to punch in numbers to access spoken descriptions of some 35 different scenes or activities while wandering through the village. I always love those miniature dioramas of life in Native American villages you see at some museums; this is kind of like one of those, except it is all life-sized and totally realistic: there is steam billowing out of the top of the sweat lodge, you can walk right inside and explore the sachem's (chief's) wigwam, or peer into the medicine man's wigwam, where a healing ceremony is taking place! Oh, and I know what to do with my purple quahog shells now... make wampum!

(image courtesy of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum)

In one part of the village, a family sat around a fire enjoying a meal of succotash and mussels, while dad cut up quahog shells to make purple wampum beads!!!

above: strings of wampum beads from the collection of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Anthropology.

There was only an hour and a half left until closing time; we could easily have spent twice that exploring the village! Beyond the village are films depicting various aspects of the Pequot experience, and exhibits detailing the changes that Pequots faced after the arrival of the europeans. Although we made one last stop at the gift shop to pick up some well crafted beaded items, the best souvenir of all was the newly learned appreciation for the local Pequot history and culture that we took away from our visit to this fine museum!

I will do a follow-up post if I manage to produce some wampum beads from my quahog shells (I say "if" because it doesn't look easy to do)! I'm really glad to have learned more about quahog wampum... I hope you will click here to learn more about the role that wampum played in Pequot life! Below is an image of some wampum beads in a partially finished state, courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian:


Time to go make some wampum! Thanks for joining me!

The Natural History Museum Inspired This! Part Four: Shells!

Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History had, as I recall, an excellent display of seashells from around the world. I wish I could find an image of the display online, but haven't had any luck... I hope that it is still there (they were renovating several older exhibits last time I was there), and I also hope I'm not mixing up my Natural History Museums at this point! At any rate, I will cite that extensive display of shells at the Field Museum as inspiration for my pursuing the hobby of collecting, and decorating with, seashells.

The images immediately above and below depict a small cabinet I picked up for a few dollars at a thrift store in Chicago. The glass front and side panels were originally wood; I simply popped out the wood panels and replaced them with glass, then cut and installed two glass shelves and a nice nickel knob, and gave it a few coats of paint: white outside, sea blue inside. I've picked up shells and bits of coral and sea life to put inside mostly at various beaches, though a few special ones were purchased from some of the many excellent seashell shops during visits to Sanibel Island, Florida. The beaches on Sanibel are veritable shell shops in their own right; the island is situated such that tons of shells from the Carribbean and beyond are carried there by the currents and dropped off right at your feet... all one has to do is assume the famous "Sanibel stoop" and make your way slowly up and down the shore picking up your treasures!

I made little stands for some of the shells by cutting a 1" diameter dowel into 3/8" thick disks. I then drilled a hole in the center of each disk and inserted a short length of brass rod, bent as needed to fit into the opening of the shell so that the shell could be displayed upright.



One of my favorite shells to hunt for on Sanibel is the tiny "coquina" (Donax variabilis) shell; what they lack in size is made up for in the fun assortment of rainbow colors that nature has imbued them with! They are sometimes called "butterfly shells" and it is easy to see why; at first glance you might think the image below is a butterfly display! In fact, I just picked out some nice colorful coquinas from my collection, drew a pencil grid onto a piece of black mat board (I left the pencil grid lines; I like the somewhat scientific "compartmentalized" appearance they lend) and glued a matched pair of coquina shells into the center of each square of the grid! They are framed in an inexpensive white Ribba frame from Ikea.





In an earlier "The Natural History Museum Inspired This" post on minerals, I pictured a pack of vintage educational mineral "flash cards" made by Ed-U-Cards of Nature. That company also issued a beautiful set of seashell cards; I liked looking at them so much that I decided to make a permanent display for them so I could enjoy seeing them all at once!



I started by assembling a simple 3 foot by 4 foot background support using 1"x 2" pine strips from the lumber store for the four sides (and 2 extra cross-strips in the center for support) onto which I glued a 3 x 4 foot sheet of Masonite. I painted the surface of the Masonite with primer, and then a light yellow/putty shade, then used PVA glue to glue the cards on. Over all that I affixed a sheet of protective Plexiglas by drilling small holes in each corner and the center of each side of the Plexiglas. I screwed tiny screws through each of the 8 holes and into the wooden background support to hold it on.



I haven't yet tired of looking at those cards, and I'm pretty good at recognizing shells by sight now, as well!

Also in that earlier post on minerals, I wrote about a contemporary reprint I found of one of my favorite little Golden Guide field guides entitled "Rocks, Gems and Minerals". Well, it turns out, the whole line of Golden Guide field guides has been re-issued, with updated covers, but featuring all of the same terrific information and illustrations as the originals! I recently picked up the beautiful edition on seashells and have enjoyed it immensely! Does anyone else remember having one (or more) of these books as a youngster?





Early one morning I walked out onto the beach in Sanibel and found that hundreds of sea urchins with brilliant purple shells had washed ashore overnight. I eagerly carried an armload back to the bungalow and set about cleaning them. They were very delicate, though, and only three or four made it home intact (two of them are barely visible on the bottom row of the second photo). One afternoon I was at Jamali Hardware and Garden in Manhattan searching for some supplies I needed to finish a window decorating project I was working on, and saw (of all things!) a bin of beautiful salmon pink sea urchin shells. They felt quite durable and I sure liked the color, so I purchased a few dozen. Back home, I packed them into an antique apothecary jar, and have enjoyed displaying them along with my collection of "sea curios" ever since!



To learn more about seashells than you ever wanted to know, hop over to the fun Seashell Collector website! Thank You ever so much for joining me, and I do hope we meet again soon!

Deer Skull Embellished in the Style of the Huichol Indians of Mexico.

While living in Los Angeles, I initiated a ramble through the scrubby hills of Laguna Beach in search of treasure. I found it in the form of the remains of a deer which had clearly slipped on a gravelly slope leading into a densely vegetated ravine. Entangled in the scrub and injured by the fall, the deer's fate was sealed, the bones scattered in the vicinity evidence that coyotes had ensured that the creatures death was not in vain. Alas, the effects of time and searing sun left my treasure clean and brightly bleached, and I hiked back to the car in possession of a fine dear skull with attached antlers!

Upon arrival back at the shop, I sat down and contemplated how I might best display the skull. I arrived upon the idea of cutting the "skull cap" with the attached antlers away from the rest of the skull, and mounting that skull cap on a plaque of some sort in the fashion of what is known as a "European Style Trophy Mount" in taxidermy circles. The cutting was performed on a bandsaw, great care having been taken to protect the eyes and lungs from the great cloud of truly awful smelling bone dust that was generated in the process. The operation was successful, and I managed to retain all of the fingers with which I was originally provided!

While finishing up the antlers, I received as a gift a curious craft which is commonly referred to as a "Huichol Yarn Painting", so named both for the tribal peoples who make the things, and the material from which they are fashioned.



I'll refrain from boring the reader with too much information on the Huichols, as there are entire websites devoted to them accessible via a quick Google search. Suffice it to say, then, that these remarkable people utilize such common materials as yarn and beads to fashion otherworldly artifacts which are truly otherworldly in the sense that much of the imagery and symbolism apparent derives from visions encountered during the ceremonial use of the hallucinogenic Peyote cactus (Lophophora Williamsii).

A quiet sort of revelation ensued when I happened upon images of ceremonial gourd bowls that the Huichols had embellished with colored glass seed beads in complex and colorful geometric patterns. The deer being of great importance in the scheme of Huichol religion, it became apparent that I should try my hand at Huichol style beadwork on the deer skull I had just prepared for display!

Some easy sleuthing revealed that the craft is affected by pushing the colored beads into a sticky coating which is applied to the substrate (wooden mask, gourd bowl, deer skull). The most commonly used "sticky substance" is a mixture of melted copal resin and beeswax blended together and applied while liquid. Upon cooling, the mixture firms up but maintains a tenacious tackiness which holds the beads firm to the substrate indefinitely. The same process is used in the yarn paintings, except colored strands of yarn are pressed into the wax blend instead of beads.




I had, from previous craft projects, a nice assortment of colored seed beads in the size "12" which is just a little smaller than the usual craft-store bought bead. There are many fine retailers of Native American crafts supplies that sell vast arrays of sizes and colors of seed beads (although I recommend avoiding Crazy Crow Trading Company as their stock is unpredictable and customer service is poor) and if you live near a Michael's or Crafts, Etc. you might peruse their selection of seed beads. It is worth noting that the Huichols make excellent use of the most vivid colors imaginable; It is mind boggling to imagine the stores of beads and yarns these folks must have on hand when one really looks closely at the stunning array of colors utilized in the average yarn painting or bead bowl. Pure beeswax is also available from your local craft supply merchant.

Now, as far as the copal is concerned, the substance is a resin which is exuded from a tree (Bursera fagaroides) in much the same way that a pine tree exudes sticky "pitch". Copal is commonly sold in Mexico and South America as an aromatic incense; it releases a heavenly aroma reminiscent of oranges when burned, and finds much use in religious ceremonies. I had some on hand which I had purchased in Tulum, Mexico, but for the purposes of the sticky base, one might very plausibly substitute pitch or sap collected from any of a number of species of conifers. If you are inclined to do things as the Huichols do, however, copal may be acquired rather inexpensively from Mazatec Garden. To make the sticky base, I simply heated equal parts broken up copal resin and beeswax in a can on a double boiler until the copal had melted completely and was thoroughly blended with the beeswax. The resulting liquid was then brushed over the whole skull such that the resulting sticky base measured about 1/8" in thickness.

Next it was time to think about an overall pattern that might look pleasing on the skull. I consulted countless photographs before arriving at the design I finally executed. The design is not a direct copy of any one Huichol piece, but rather a collection of ideas and symbolic imagery rendered in the colors available to me, and scaled to suit the shape of the skull. The application of beads began in the middle of the skull and was worked out towards the edges. An awl was used to pick up each bead individually and push it lightly into the sticky wax mixture.



The imagery used in this case was not complex; The dominant green form represents the peyote cactus, between the antlers is a representation of a deer head with antlers. Smaller peyotes are also represented, as are various colorful radiating auras of "life energy". The whole application process took maybe three days, working 5 or so hours a day.

Finally, I prepared the skull for mounting by embedding a bolt in plaster poured into the cranial cavity (back part) of the skull:



I created a plaque for the skull out of a curious type of plastic known to fans of the contemporary artist Matthew Barney as "Self-Lubricating Plastic", some scraps of which I had salvaged from the trash during the installation of his retrospective at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art I think it makes a fine, contemporary looking background for the beaded skull, which is attached by drilling a hole in the plaque and threading the bolt through, then securing that with a nut.



The resulting artifact looks, to my eye, every bit as authentic as a true Huichol made piece, and makes a fine accompaniment to my authentic Huichol yarn painting. It is worth mentioning that, as is sadly the case with many indigenous people of the Americas, the Huichols are, monetarily, quite poor. I support purchasing true, Huichol made crafts when possible, as such support helps to ensure the survival of the people and their culture. I hope that this post will propagate a better understanding of and respect for Native craft techniques and inspire anyone who is so inclined, to roll up their shirtsleeves and try their own hand at Huichol style beadwork!