Froggy Toes
I continue my experiments and explorations with footed ‘offering bowls’. A while back, I stumbled across this little fella in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art -
It dates from about 3700-3450 BCE, the Predynastic, Late Naqada l–Naqada II period in Egypt. Archeologists speculate that it served as a vessel to present offerings to the deceased or to a deity.
I really took a shine to the idea, but I’ll skip the human feet, thank you. Critters are more my style. To that end, I started with duck-footed bowls, in response to someone suggesting that fair is fair, and I needed to offer up something for the University of Oregon stans to balance my homages to the Oregon State University Beavers.
Duck-footed offering bowl.
Since then, I’ve branched out to some possum feet, tapir feet, goat feet (see last post), platypus feet and, of course, beaver feet.
Beaver-footed offering bowl
Birds and mammals have been what I’ve focused on, but I’m giving tree frog feet a go, and planning on glazing the piece with Amaco’s June Bug, a reportedly tricky glaze to work with. Fingers crossed…
Now a word about what to call these things; a sister-in-law suggested ‘giving bowl’ might evoke a nicer idea, but I’m torn. What do you think?
“Offering bowl” in the collection of the Met.
