Lion Demon

Hurray! We finished our second project in Space Research! For this project, I decided to make a Mesopotamian lion-demon mask. Lion-demons are a hybrid creature, having a lion head, donkey ears, and bird feet. It has the torso of a man. I just bought an illustrated dictionary of Ancient Mesopotamian gods, symbols, demons. The second I saw this demon, I knew I was going to make in cardboard somehow. To have that human lion hybrid, I made the lion head into a mask so that my body could be incorporated into the piece. It's a pretty big piece but it's not that heavy.


The mask has a wonderful regal profile and is best viewed from this angle. Here it is displayed on my lovely stand for our critic in class today.



Here is the mask being worn. Like I said before, it's not that heavy because it is made out of cardboard. It does get warm after a while. I feel pretty cool with it on.


In Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, lion-demons are protective creatures against other demons. They are relief sculptures in kings' palaces and clay figurines. In old Babylon, the lion-demon was a bringer of disease and death.

And on another note, Happy St. Patrick's day.

My child named Nano

So far in my Space Research class (sculpture), we have finished one project.  I know that is a long time to spend on one project but the materials we used required 'making' time and 'drying' time.  We made galvanized steel hardware cloth armatures for a papier mache exterior.  This wasn't the flour and water papier mache; it was the shredded paper, saw dust, marble dust, water, and wood glue papier mache.  It looked a lot like tuna or cat vomit.  

Anyways.  For this project we had to recreate a pre-existing object but enlarging it or shrinking it.  Or we had to take an object and actually build off of it as if to customize it or something.  I made my silver nano ipod, but it's not really my ipod.  It plays on my ipod's name.  You see, there once was a time when I hated my ipod because I didn't like it or want it.  I wanted a black 4GB ipod but Cosco didn't have any so I had to get a silver one instead.  I know this sounds very selfish of me but I was buying it myself.  In my anger and frustration, I named my nano ipod the Silver Monster.  So I made a silver monster papier mache sculpture who is coincidentally named Nano.  

I didn't want my silver monster to be too big, preferably 2.5 feet tall.  He ended up being the size of my refrigerator in my dorm room.  He's child size so he's my little child.

Here, mother and child are posing and holding hands, how cute!

Now the mother and child are dancing.  Yeah, the sculpture looks heavy but it really isn't.

That project is finished and now I'm working on a cardboard Mesopotamian Lion Demon mask.  Sounds cool, huh?!