Skulls for Stars: This Edmond artist got noticed for her skull art.
EDMOND, Okla. (KFOR) — Take something kind of ugly, definitely dead, and bring life to it.
That was, more or less, the idea artist Ryan Day had growing up in rural Oklahoma and buying her first cow skull at a tourist stop in New Mexico.
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She recalls, “I was so excited. I had my first official cow skull all to myself and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.”
Ryan isn’t the first artist to be inspired by the shape and texture of bone, of painting on it, or decorating it.
“I get a lot of inspiration from Georgia O’Keefe,” she admits.
But Day kept going, using all kinds of jewelry, colorful paints, or beads, each glued on one at a time to re-animate her white bones.
“Sometimes the process is easy,” she explains. “I already know what I want to do. I’m already getting a feel by grabbing different colors, and then I just go to town with what I’ve got.”
Spring in Oklahoma means new life. Inside her cozy studio in Edmond, OK, her work reveals itself in all the colors of the rainbow.
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She continues, “I like that I can turn it into something really pretty and give it new life.”
Day’s work includes ceramics and paintings on canvas but it was skull painting that got her noticed.
The country music duo Brooks and Dunn ordered a pair of skulls and Carrie Underwood did too.
Most recently, a couple of famous rockstars ordered 8 bison skulls to grace two restaurants they own.
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS mounted them in Rock and Brews locations in Milwaukee, WI and Ridgefield, Washington.
Day has a photo of Stanley admiring her work in the newest location.
“It’s interesting how it all unfolded that way,” she smiles.
She might work for weeks on a single headpiece. Some ideas come from commissions, others come from somewhere inside her own skull.
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Skulls for Stars: This Edmond artist got noticed for her skull art.
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“I just go with what I’m seeing at the time,” she says.
Death to life, winter to spring, dark to light; the themes reveal themselves in full color, and they stare right back at you.
For more information on artist Ryan Day or to see more of her work go to her Etsy site here.
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