Owl votive holders, photo taken in February, 2012. They were a gift from one of my sisters in 2001 or 2002. There are openings in the back where a votive or a candle can be inserted. I have used them on the deck at night during the summer.
I guess they aren't all that ugly for outside but I would prefer them to be in a much lighter color for use as decorative objects inside. I really like the shape and style of the smaller owl, and would like to put her into my bedroom as a votive holder.
Owls are "in" right now - right on trend, so to speak. Well, whatever. I've long appreciated owls not because they are "cool" but because of what they actually represent. Owls are associated with the ancient Greek Goddess Athena, but they have appeared in cave drawings done by early humans as early as 20,000 or so years ago!
From the earliest times those old cave drawings of owls have been associated with the Mother Goddess who knows no particular nationality, creed or race. She is not only the Goddess of bounty and plenty, and birth, but also a Goddess of death. Owls are carrion birds - that is - they eat dead things, including the flesh of dead people back in the old old days. As much as that may gross us out today, that was a natural way to dispose of the dead back then. Many cultures gave up their dead people to "exposure" in this way, including North American Indians eons later.
Actually, this ancient practice makes much biological and ecological sense. Today, in the average American burial, we pump a deceased body full of chemicals, and "lay them to rest" inside a ridiculously expensive padded metal tube ("coffin") inside a concrete in-ground vault where the corpus is then left to moulder away. Why not go back to the Earth as we were intended to, in the way the Bible speaks of: Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust? It's quick and painless. What the hell would we care anyway, we're dead! At that point we feel nothing, know nothing. Why should I become the equivalent of a mummy to satisfy the guilty feelings of my family? Yechy!
Well, I gave myself an excellent work-out shaking that old can of gloss white spray paint here, there, and everywhere, darlings, including just about where the sun don't shine, and gave that can (and my bod) a good, hard steady shaky-shaky-shaky for 10 minutes or so; and then constantly shake-shake-shake once I actually started spraying the objects! Poor owls are down on the cold concrete (that is covered in newspapers) and I'm way the hell up in the air. I figured I should have elevated them in some way (need to check out what is the best way to do that...) but was too lazy to do that beforehand and now, ach -- since the painting has already begun! So, after some light layers they're drying out right now. Will see what they look like. I don't want to glomb the paint on and have bumps and drippy runs, eek! May have some of the underlying brown showing through, which may actually work out okay.
About those owls, these owls are meant to act as votive candle holders, so I haven't tried to spray paint their insides through the nooks and crannies except incidentally depending upon how much paint "leaks" into the innards through the various openings as I spray away. So, all in all, I expect to end up with a very interesting pair of owls. We'll see...
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