Enamel

Or email, in German. I'm taking a class called 'The printed image in enamel', my first involvement with the medium. It is highly enjoyable. I particularly love the different variations achievable through the manipulation of flux. The accompanying pieces were created using a liquid hard flux, a powdered flux, liquid white, opaque grey and just a touch of a pale translucent blue.

The Proboscine Goat

The Proboscine Goat is close relative of the domestic goat, speculated to have evolved from the very ancestor that humans first captured. The source of its name is obvious, having to do with its unusually long, hollow tongue. The Proboscine Goat is an animal of the plains and low scrub lands. It travels in small family herds, males and females taking equal responsibility for the young.
The purpose of its unique proboscis is manifold. First, and most obviously, it uses its tongue for eating. The Proboscine Goat, unlike its close cousins, is an incredibly fussy eater. Rather than ingesting the low foliage found in either plain or desert, it instead consumes the tiny, colorful flakes of Snowflake Algae that live among loose grains of sand. The tongue’s purpose is to allow the goat to avoid consuming as much soil as it does algae. It suctions matter up through its hollow tongue, much like an elephant with its trunk. Spanning the inside of the tongue is a cartilaginous grid, similar to a whale’s baleen, through which the algae, because of its paper-thin shape, can filter. A second muscular opening in the tongue releases the algae into the back of the goat’s mouth, where fused tooth-plates grind it down. The sand and other particles that cannot filter through the cartilage built up and are eventually ejected from the tongue in plumes.
Near the end of the Proboscine Goat’s tongue is a fleshy bulb, covered in small and equally fleshy ‘spikes’. The purpose of this bulb is mostly for grooming, for which it is quite effective. Like many mammals, group grooming is an act of bonding within the herd. The young, who have developed neither length nor fleshy bulb for their tongue, are groomed in turn by each of the adults. The absence of this fleshy bulb in the young helps suggest one of its other uses, which is sexual. Proboscine goats, like most mammals, bear young roughly once every year. Due to their migratory nature, however, the weather and food supply cannot be relied upon for consistency. Therefore, the herd abstains until it deems the climate proper, then inducing heat in one another by way of a special ‘grooming session’. Proboscine Goats have an unusually short gestation period, so that the young are born helpless, but well within the time of plenty.
It is not surprising that the tongue of the Proboscine Goat should be seen as an amulet of virility. To dry it and drink through it is supposed to be of great advantage to the user, in all matters sexual and romantic. The dried tongue is also used as a kind of divining rod, supposedly curling and writhing when it approaches fresh water and food. The Institute is investigating the verisimilitude of this last claim, as it could prove exceedingly useful on expeditions.

The Ossifris

The Ossifris is named for the helmet-like bone structure of its beak. Despite appearances, it bears no relation to the Hornbill family. It instead shares its genetics with the common North American Blue jay, and the elusive European Prispette.
The Ossifris is a predatory bird, living along wooden shorelines and utilizing the protection of its great helm as it burrows in the sand for mollusks, its favorite repast. Once found, it again makes use of its unusual bill and with it crushes the mollusks, as if wielding a hammer. When shellfish are rare, it will also consume frogs, small fish and voles.
As among many predatory birds, the female Ossifris is notably larger than the male, though somewhat duller in plumage. Pairs mate for life, a healthy span of nearly thirty years in the wild (a specimen has never been successfully raised in captivity, so its maximum possible lifespan is not known). Surprisingly, though perhaps because of its long life, the Ossifris will typically only produce two to three clutches of eggs in that time. They nest among the exposed roots of trees that overhang the water.
A complete mute, vocally, the Ossifris has a unique method of aural communication. Its bone helm is riddled with shallow channels and cavities. The bird will hold its head at a particular angle, beak held high and approximately 5 or 10 degrees from being directly vertical, and wait for the tiniest stirring of the air. At the appearance of the first zephyr, the unique system of channels begins to work, suctioning air through the beak end and out near the base of the skull. Once the process has begun, the bird can vary the sound and pitch by tilting its head or knocking it against nearby objects. The entire spectacle appears much like a dance. The resulting song is eerie, ranging from metallic to flutelike in tone. The birds fly with a strange bobbing motion, which also causes them to ‘sing’ at times—though the song tends to be far less elaborate. Both males and females perform the ‘song’, regardless of whether they have a mate or not (though mated pairs have been seen to ‘sing’ together, on occasion).
It is held that if one manages to obtain the skull of an Ossifris it can be played like an ocarina. If played by human lips, they say, one must be cautious—for it can wake the dead. Not just dead humans and animals, but dead plant matter as well. There exist legends that describe these occasions, where the Ossifris’ flute has been played and the foolish player’s house, dinner and dead relatives have all awoken back into life. The story generally ends with the reanimated beings striving to go about their ordinary tasks once more, despite their altered forms. As is usual in cautionary tales, the end for the protagonist is not a kind one. He either is driven mad by the advances of his skeletal darling, or is trapped within the new growth of his house as it strives again for tree-hood. It is interesting to note the frequent mythic ties between birds and the dead. The Institute has yet to obtain the remains of an Ossifris.