Antique carved birds as steampunk treasures
Jim Mullan's "reconfigured" antique decoy-birds have been painted and modded to make them into steampunk delights. These are just fabulous. The birds were left to the artist by his father, and this is all there are.
Mullanium (via Neatorama)
The vintage bird collection, designed by Jim Mullan, was inspired by his fascination with birds and antique objects. The crows were used as hunting decoys in the 30’s and 40’s and the smaller birds were carved in the 1950’s. The original decoys were passed on to Jim in 1991 and just recently he has turned each into an eclectic, one of a kind piece of art. You can see Jim’s lively sense of humor in each one of his creations.Jim begins by hand painting each bird and then adds a variety of vintage pieces when creating his sculptures. The unusual relics he uses, such as croquet balls, binoculars and old toys give each inspiring bird his own personality. Objects that were cast aside as useless are used in his designs to demonstrate the fragile balance between nature and industry.
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So he took real antiques, and turned them into gaudy fake antiques.
Sorry, I don't get it.
I think they rock.
Direct complaints about steampunk to /dev/null.
#1 better yet, he took examples of one of the only kinds of folk art essentially unique to the US and Canada (hunting decoys) that's irreplacable and destroyed it's historical value.
As cool as they are, there are plenty of contemporary sources.
Hy, wht ds "stmpnk fckng scks" mn? kp sng t n ths stmpnk rtcls, s t sm knd f stmpnk ctchphrs?
As an artist I appreciate his choice of materials. It takes a lot of balls to mod an antique. One fuck up and you've destroyed not only your work but a little peice of history. I wouldn't be willing to take that kind of risk.
This guy comes to Central Pennsylvania Arts Fest every year in State College. Always a joy to take a close look at his work, how delicate and careful it all is. #1 and #3, art is about reinventing sometimes. You can't keep all those decoys locked up in a museum, because unfortunately the public isn't going to really appreciate it. I'm sure there's many more decoys out there that are well taken care of. He's taking a few and making some real, beautiful artwork out of it.
#5,
Never fear. In this case, destroying a piece of history appears to be the point.
Well, I have to admit that the SP birds are kind of cool.
Steampunk Professor Yaffle
#3: They're still one-of-a-kind pieces of folk art.
i dig it... preservationists are a bit "meh" IMO. tons of future antiques are being created constantly.
Thy r cl. Wht xctly mks thm "stmpnk"? Sms lk flk rt t m. Hs nyn dvlpd fltr cld nstll t wd t th trm "stmpnk" whn rd BngBng? t wld mk th xprnc mch mr njybl.
'm wth #12. Why pply th trm "stmpnk" t vrythng wth dcrtv mtl bts n t? Stmpnk s bt tchnlgy, nt bt dcrtn.
Nw prdn m whl g dcrt my Tffny lmp wth clrd LDs.
gr wth th tw prvs cmmnts. dn't thnk thr's nythng rmtly stmpnk bt ths wndrfl bjcts.
Wht ds dd mn t dd trndy rtrnym lk tht t smthng, spclly whn t my dtrct frm th rtst's ntnt?
gr wth ll th stmpnk cmmnts.
ls, nw ntqs r nt bng md vry dy. Nt lk ths. Nt nly hv w lst rrplcbl wrks, h dstryd smthng hs fthr lft hm whch fnd nfthmbl.
Frankly, I'd rather have the original decoys and not the modded ones.
Dsmvwlld! Ys!
I love the raven.
we could put a high pitched noise generator in it
What no Clash of the Titans owl?
#4, 12, 14, etc. What's up with writing in code? Is your keyboard broken, or am I not cool enough to understand what you're trying to say?
#21, they are not writing in code, their comments have been disemvowelled by the moderator. This is common practice on BoingBoing in reaction to inappropriate comments. You can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disemvoweling