assemblage one

The first of what I hope will be a great many assemblages...I really enjoyed making this. Just an open-ended project for my Artist's Book class, to get us thinking in three dimensions. The only requirement was that we had to use the little cocktail umbrella we were given.

Materials: stripped cocktail umbrella, cigar box, paper from a 1700s era magazine (it was already partially destroyed, I do not murder intact 200 year old books), a nice twig, a little wooden thingamabob, string, a dead moth, several dead mealworms, tiny rat bones and skull, twine, brown acrylic paint to stain everything.

Best of all, this has absolutely no illustrative purpose other than showing you my own personal aesthetic. I like it. It means nothing. A friend told me it was "incredibly sentimental." Yes.

EDIT: Updated with a nicer photo, almost two years later! It's still holding together, which kind of blows my mind since it's made of dead bugs and a stick.