Prehistoric Creature Leg Cup

I recently discovered that my old friend Jodi Creager has a blog. I have known Jodi and her husband Richard for over 25 years, and I watched them go from selling soft sculpture witches (and other characters) to being among the world's best doll artists.

Creager Studios

As I browsed Jodi's blog I came across this photo of a miniature troll's foot umbrella stand, shown above (sculpted by Richard). I was enchanted by it, and thought of how cool it would be to build something like that on a full-size scale. Very Victorian, very steampunk!

It reminded me of a pair of dragon feet that I had sculpted in 2002 as a base for a fused glass bowl that I had made (shown above). I decided that making an umbrella stand was a bit ambitious, and so scaled my plans down to building a modest pencil cup.

We know that the Victorian's had a time machine (after all, H.G. Wells wrote about it), and assuming that they must have traveled back in time, and would have encountered dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, it is not unreasonable to surmise that the big game hunter mentality would have kicked in, and they would have brought back some souvenirs. A T. Rex head might not fit within the time machine compartment, but smaller body parts would have. And so, it is perfectly plausible to expect to find a steampunk dinosuar leg cup amongst a gentleman's collection of knick-knacks.