Antique carved birds as steampunk treasures

By at 2:24 pm Wednesday, Jul 30

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.

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.

Mullanium (via Neatorama)

Read more        

Cory Doctorow

Upcoming appearances

* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference

Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)

Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.