After several years of considerations I return to my plans to cast badger skulls in porcelain. Having completed the mould started before the summer I have now cast 5 skulls in varying thicknesses of porcelain and have been carving scrimshaw Somerset landscapes into the surfaces. Echoing the craft traditions of the whalers and the carved relics of their hunted prey, ref my sperm whale teeth work from 2012/13, I'm drawing parallels to the badgers current persecution under the pilot TB culling programme while linking landscape to subject. I'm having some trouble however with the fragility of the hollow skulls that are prone to shatter catastrophically at the last possible moment when I have completed the complicated carving and engraving. I am learning to now draw the landscape work prior to removing the jaw and other skull apertures that then weaken the form, before then firing the piece.
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