Pencil Skull (VERTICAL ORIENTATION)

Hundreds of colored pencils, glued and carved into a skull, with their sharpened tips still bristling on top.

This pencil skull, in vertical orientation, is contemporary. It is hand colored and carved. Artists have long used unexpected everyday materials for sculpture, and colored pencils, bundled and cut, reveal bright cores in every cross section. Here a life-size skull has been carved from a block of bundled pencils, so every curve shows ovals and stripes of red, blue, green, yellow and purple set in pale wood. The sharpened points crown the top in a ragged ring. It stands on a black metal mount, 7 inches wide and 7 high.

Memento mori, with a full set of crayons.