Carving Nature at the Joints

This letter is carved from the medial epicondyle of a lamb's humerus and is approximately 2.5 x 3 x 2 cm. It was carved using a grinding disk and drill. The varied colouring and texture results from the transition between compacted outer bone and the spongy inner bone found inside the epiphysis. The piece was partly inspired by my recent visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Some of the most fascinating and terrifying exhibits was an example of the severely "anaklosed" skeleton of a 30 year old man who suffered from an extremely rare genetic disorder now called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. This disease causes muscles, tendons and ligaments to be gradually replaced with bone, imprisoning the sufferer within their own ossifying body. The bowed skeleton was like nothing I have ever seen, a cage of bone interlaced with baroque excrescences, the back an almost solid mass of arching bone. The body, like so many medical curiosities, was almost certainly taken from its grave and sold without the permission of the former owner or his relatives. What a profession, to search for the country for tales of people with rare conditions. Tracking down the bodies of rare mistakes to sell to interested gentlemen bent on acquiring the rarest specimens, pitting their prized collections against one another in the spirit of friendly scientific rivalry. The pieces, the collectors and their culture, all written in the same flawed shifting alphabet.