Waiter, There’s a Fly in My Blog
Question: What you get the entomology student who has everything?
Answer: A Croshame figure of the creature from the 1958 version of The Fly!
Knowing that this commissioned piece was going to a movie-loving bug enthusiast (a friend of a friend), I wanted to make it somewhat accurate in the insect’s details while simultaneously capturing the weird cheesiness of the film’s main character.
The creature’s head only shows up for about 3 minutes during the entire film (if that), so getting a clear picture of what he really looked like was tough. I kind of made it a cross between the original Fly and the one from its 1959 sequel, Return of the Fly. (Move along, Cronenberg; you’re not needed here.)
His head (which was VERY difficult to photograph accurately, by the way) was made of a crazy, fuzzy-bumpy novelty yarn I bought ages ago on a trip to Portland, OR.
The facial features were made from a pipe cleaner wrapped with eyelash yarn and needle-felted “mouth” details. (Check out those maxillary palps!)
The creature in the film has one normal human hand and one deformed, hairy fly claw — which, again, I needle-felted with love.
Naturally I had to include the blanket that the good doctor drapes over his face whenever dear ol’ wifey comes traipsing through his household laboratory. And the handy pocket on his lab coat is perfect for concealing that hideous fly-claw!
After all that hard scientific work, I’d say the experiment was a rousing success!*
*Unless you count that whole grisly “assisted suicide via crushing with a mechanical press” part of the movie. Then probably not so much.
As Above, “Sew” Below
Baphomet was a symbolic representation of a deity supposedly worshipped by the secretive order of the Knights Templar during the 11th century, and more recently adopted by the Church of Satan in their religious iconography. When I received a commission for a “cutesy-fied” crocheted Baphomet figure, I knew I’d seen other “Baby-Baph” type plushies by various artists before and wanted mine to be different than the others with some added Croshame flair and detail.
So based off of this 1856 illustration from Eliphas Levi…
…I came up with a drawing of this little guy.
It was then I set about conjuring my tiny being into this world. After donning a fetching black robe, playing around with a bit of yarn, and ending with a loud “Shemhamforash!”, there came forth from my hands the new horned God I dubbed
“Baphometsy-Wetsy.”
His arms, pointing both towards the sky and the ground, read “Solve” and “Coagula” (needle-felted into the crochet).
This literally translates into “dissolve” and “create,” but is also interpreted to signify the path of all knowledge:
“As above, so below.”
From his head, between the horns of virility, emerges a flaming torch (crafted from tufted yarn strands) — the magical light of universal equilibrium, natch.
Baphomet’s wings represent the flight of the liberated soul. (Of course you already gathered that from the hand-sewn felt, yes?)
Baphomet, ever the amazing androgyne, bears both crocheted female breasts and a needle-felted phallus, shown as a wingless caduceus representing eternal life.
His hoofed goat legs have wire inside so he can sit, cross-legged, or stand — as ritual dictates.
Baphomet is the light bearer clothed in the disguise of evil.
Evil and unbelievable cuteness!
Croshame 