The Bald Coyote -- My Last Skull of 2019

It is rare to find a coyote skull in the desert because they are the main predators themselves. Except for the human predators. Or disease.

I found an old skull just before the snow storm. It has been sunwashed and gotten brittle with time. I decided to give it a new identity as my last work for 2019.

I started with a hare skin and tail, a piece of saddle leather and a squirrel arm. Of course I also wanted this coyote skull to have blue eyes!

Here is the initial set:

The squirrel arm has an attitude toward life – I like such insolence:

In previous skull work (bear, elk, deer, horse and peccary) I used water buffalo horns or hare ears. But this coyote had a small skull and a perfectly preserved bald.  So, no horns this time.

I had the preserved face of a coyote and given the fragility and age of this skull, thought it would be interesting to rest it in a coyote face rather than the hare skin I started with. 

Here is the initial arrangement:

Just to make sure that the bald is to be shown, I covered it, like a Russian hat, with snow fox fur – no, it took away the beauty of the skull.

While glass eyes work fine when there is taxidermied hide and eyelids, placing glass eyes in the bone socket of a skull always looks extravagant. And since I decided not to cover the skull, I needed a creative way to shadow the eyes.

So I tried something new – used toes from hare feet to form a fan-shaped hairy for to cover the bone sockets and part of the eyes. Here is the “fan” shaped like a miniature Spanish abanico (I tried to show the nail of the hare toe that is covered with thick hair):

Ok, here is the final assembly. I sewed the skull to the coyote face and the leather piece to be able to hang it on a wall:

Added a couple of feathers for symmetry, a few turquoise stones, and it is now on the wall leading to my studio:

I think this coyote now has a story to tell.

December 6, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019