More Fossil Finds from the Garden - my artistic collaboration with Nature

 

I did some more digging in my garden and unearthed some more of my ceramic pieces from my exhibition a decade ago.  The exhibition featured ceramics made to look like fossils.  I made the shell like forms from a variety of clays and saggar fired. The finished surfaces were interesting but never quite natural looking.  Ten years on, nature has supplied the right effect.

My gardening skills are non-existent and unearthing the ceramics is really like being on a dig.  These are some of what I found today.  I know there are more (there is a Trilobyte form measuring 60cm long somewhere out there that really shouldn't have disappeared).  I just have to be patient as I dig out the weeds. 

 

I also unearthed a bust.  It cracked in the kiln and now has a rather lovely mossy front - possibly the start of a very eco friendly bra.

 
In the front yard and easy to find is the piece that contributes most to a collaboration between mother nature and me - a giant shell shape.  The shape was designed to be a fossil of something that was definitely extinct - the shell gets smaller and narrower as you get closer to the opening.  In this case however, the form has been highjacked by a native tree that has grown up through the hollow bottom and then a hive of Australian native bees has made it home.