FINDING BEAUTY IN BONES
Transforming animal skulls into art
On her family farm in Tisdale, Ashley Pearse developed a unique hobby. Walking the fields, she’d often stumble upon animal bones. She happily started collecting them, even though her parents weren’t as enthusiastic about the practice.
“If I did find a bone, even if was just a femur, I was like ‘Yes!’ ” she said.
That childhood fascination with bones, especially skulls, informs her artwork today. Under the name Essence of Ash, Pearse uses bones as a canvas for intricate mandalas, a geometric figure symbolic in Hinduism and Buddhism, giving beauty to something discarded and finding therapy in the creation of each piece.
Pearse has completed about 30 skulls since starting the artwork three years ago. The pieces bring together different parts of her life into one beautiful final product. In university, Pearse studied archaeology, completing a bachelor’s degree and working on two archaeological digs, one in Macedonia and one in Cyprus.
She purchased her first skull, a dog’s, at a store in Montana.
“I remember my mom saying ‘Why on Earth are you going to buy a dog skull? That’s not something you need,’ ” she said.
But Pearse had an idea. She had already been drawing elaborate mandalas, inspired by a trip to India, and thought the skull would look beautiful adorned with one of the detailed patterns. On the trip, where she backpacked Rajasthan, she would sit in the Hindu and Jain temples and sketch.
Using ink and gold leaf, she starts at the centre of the forehead and moves outward without a specific plan.
“It would give skulls a different look, almost bring some life to something where there’s a taboo about it being gross or unpleasant,” she said.
Pearse has been off work since April as the result of illness. She’s still working with her doctor to figure out her diagnosis, but the most likely cause of her health problems is Crohn’s Disease. It’s been a difficult road for the young artist, but she finds the creative process healing.
“It helps my mind because I also have anxiety and depression. This has been better than any medication. It seems weird but it reminds me of mortality and the fragility of life and respecting nature,” she said.
When she couldn’t leave the house because she was so sick, working on the skulls became a way to fill the time productively and focus on something else. When she’s working on a pattern, she doesn’t think about anything else. Depending on the size, she might work on a skull for 60 hours before it’s complete.
“You’ve been concentrating on the details but as a result this larger image has come out that you didn’t even plan,” she said.
Pearse works with trappers, taxidermists and farmers to source the bones that often would have been thrown away or left to disintegrate. Each skull is legally and ethically sourced. She consults with Environment Canada to ensure she has all the proper documentation to own and sell the skulls.
Though some of her skulls come in ready to work on, Pearse also processes some of them on her own. It can be a gruesome process to remove all the flesh and smell from the bones, but even that stage of the art has become a kind of meditation for Pearse.
“I hated the process at first,” she said. “But it goes from something people want to have nothing to do with to something so beautiful.”
Pearse enjoys working on a variety of different types of animal skulls, from fox to bear to deer. She recently acquired wolf, lynx and coyote skulls from a local taxidermist.
She has also started working on ostrich eggs. It’s a nod to her Ukrainian culture and the tradition of pysanka. Her next plan is to burn the designs into wood.
Pearse has a couple of skulls for sale at Hen & Chick at the Saskatoon Farmer’s Market. She’s also selling pieces at the PotashCorp Fringe Theatre Festival.