Owls, Owls Everywhere...

Hola!
I saw this cute little owl last week at life.love.larson blog:

He is gorgeous!  I won't show you the "before" photo here - that would spoil the surprise!

He (or she) reminded me of my own owls, who were sitting on a large cardboard box in the garage waiting their final coats of spray paint.  It took me some time to get this little project done!

Here they are!  It took coats and coats of high gloss spray paint to get them to this point and they STILL aren't white (or evenly coated either, but shhhhh, I won't tell if you won't).  My owls turned out a creamy color -- it's a pretty color, but it isn't bright white!  And wouldn't you know it, when I was at Menard's last Friday I forgot to get another can of spray paint to see if a different brand would help make them more "white."  Sigh.  Overall, I am very pleased with how they turned out.  But it took many many coats of paint, mostly very thin until I got impatient near the end, to get to this point.  I don't understand why this is when accounts I've read about people spray painting their owls talk about only a "couple" coats of paint and voila, you have a gorgeous little bright shiny white owl like the top image! 

You can see my "before" owls in my blog post of February 23, 2012!  Over a month ago, geez Jan!
And here is a progress report with a photo of partially painted owls from March 11, 2012.  Geez, Jan!  Well, I did finish up my owls Saturday night, and brought them into the house Sunday morning after I was sure the paint had "set."  So they've been on the kitchen counter for a few days.  But to get the fading light, I photographed them on the dinette table tonight. 

I am tickled pink that owls are such a craze these days, and are showing up in households I would never expect to see them in ordinarily.  That is because the owl is an ancient symbol of the Mother Goddess, and a specific symbol of the Greek Goddess Athene or Athena, the Goddess of War and Wisdom -- some combination of attributes, heh?  Personally, I think we all could use a LOT more Goddess love together with a healthy dose of Athena's wisdom spread around the globe these days.  And yeah, maybe we need Athena to go around and bop some of our silly male politicians on top their big old heads and knock a little sense into 'em. 

Some prior posts on the owl and Athena (these are from the Chess, Goddess and Everything blog):

The Owl

From Barbara G. Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." See also prior posts on Athena:
http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2008/01/little-owl-of-athens.html
http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2007/10/athena-goddess-of-serpent.html

More painted owls:

 

 

There is no "before" pic for this cutey (above) from Vintage Revivals blog, July 30, 2010. 

 

 

This interesting revamp with white spray paint is from High Heels and Hammer blog, April 29, 2010.  The original owl cost the blogger $2.99 at Goodwill!  There is a "before" picture at this post.  There seems to be something really strange about this owl's eyes, though.  I think the spray paint irritated the hell out of this little guy and his eyes bulged out just to get even with his new owner so he still looks funky-weird!

 

 

This was a brown votive candle holder in its former life before it was rescued from Goodwill by the blogger at J & K, April 14, 2011.  She photographed the "before" picture from the back, where the owl also had eyes - literally on the back of its head.  OHMYGODDESS, now how spooky is that???

Spray Painting Owls!

Whilst snapping photographs about the house this morning and corresponding with my new-found sister-of-the-heart, Debbie-Dabble, I ventured into the garage to throw some stuff into the recycling cart and lo and behold, it was absolute WARM! So about an hour ago I laid down some layers of newspaper and pulled out those brown owls (from some posts ago). The only spray paint I have on hand is some ancient gloss white and some recently-purchased hammered "oiled bronze". I didn't want to paint the owls hammered bronze so the white spray paint won by default. 

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...

Owls!

While digging through my stash of decorating stuff a few days ago, I came across these two miscreants:

Can't you tell by their expressions, they're already planning no good! 

They are designed to hold small votive candles or something larger.  They both have openings in their backs to easily insert a votive candle holder or small candle; they both have holes in their heads (LOL!) as well as the front ventings you can see.  In addition, the shorter owl has venting "slits" cut into its two wings.

These were given to me by one of my sisters some years ago, perhaps 2003 or 2004.  I used them once, and put them away.  Because - THEY'RE UGLY!!!!!!!

Well, maybe that is an overstatement, but trust me, they look better in these photographs than they do in person!  It grieves me to say so.  After all, the owl is a harbinger of the Goddess. Some of the oldest cave drawings in Europe show owl-like birds in close association with female fertility symbols, dated to perhaps 14,000 or 15,000 years ago. Much later, in ancient Greece, the owl was the companion and psychopomp of the Goddess Athena.  One of Athena's attributes was "wisdom," and thus the owl became closely associated with wisdom, similar to the Christian concept of "Sophia" being associated with the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove. 

I don't like the colors this owl is painted, but generally speaking, and proportionally, she is cute.  I think she would look great in my bedroom, but I need to repaint her -- only, what color?  Or colors?

Here is the larger owl.  Notice the cock-eyed eyes!  Oy!  Artistically, not as finely rendered as the smaller owl.

But - if they are meant to be a "couple" (you know what I mean), who am I to break them up?  Or maybe they are mother and daughter.  Or sisters.  Or big brother and small sister, or big sister and small brother.  Or mother and father.  Hooo hoooo hooooooo knows....

So, should I repaint both owls and hope for the best?  Should I even be worried about owls, since after all, they are "fashionable" right now, which generally means I ignore them because they are "trendy" and darlings, I just do not do "trendy."