Continuation of fur spheres

I've been working on putting together the fur spheres I wrote about in the previous entry. Originally I was going to create the spheres from wire and newspaper. The first newspaper and then wire spheres I created proved not to be sturdy enough. I decided to use foam balls instead but due to prices I had to change the size I had originally wanted to have (the largest one foot wide foam ball was $20 each and I would have needed 5 of them which just wasn't do-able).

John let me borrow two books of his, the first one being The Postmodern Animal (c. 2000) by Steve Baker. It explores how animal imagery has been used in recent and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to shape ideas about identity and creativity. I have not had a chance to actually read it, but I spent some time looking at the photos in the book. One of them (shown below) caught my attention. It is Tar and Feathers (1996) by Mark Dion, tree, wooden base, tar, feathers, various taxidermic animals. This photo has me thinking of different purposes for my fur spheres. Originally I was creating this just to hang from the ceiling and each sphere represents a different number of animals euthanized in Merced County, CA. I think when it is complete I will hang it outside, from a tree, and take a photo once a week of the condition of the spheres. The idea behind this would be the fact that some people leave their pets/animals out on the street to fend for themselves. I would in turn be leaving these spheres to "fend" for themselves with the elements. 

The second book is People, Property, or Pets? by Hauser, Cushman and Kamem from the Harvard Law School library. It's made up of articles discussing pets as property, animal ethics and legal status, animal's rights, moral and practical problems, and animal testing. I have read one of the articles so far and I am very intrigued by everything in this book because it's focusing on laws and rules. 


Lindsey made the suggestion of looking into familiars. That thought had never crossed my mind and I was really excited when it was brought up. I have read through wikipedia pages connected to the "familiars" one and have read through most of them. I find it really interesting so I looked up some discussion boards pertaining to this. I didn't find anything interesting on any of them. Mostly people just talking about (in my opinion) close bonds with pets that they take as spiritual. But I am going to keep on reading and searching this topic.