Skulls for everyone, printed on everything, way beyond Goth and well into Smileydom

Skulls
Originally uploaded by spacecookypk.

In an amusing NY Times story called Heyday of the Dead by David Colman, we read, "The skull as memento mori is important to Philip Crangi, a fashionable jeweler in Manhattan known for a pared-down modernized take on 19th-century morbidity. “I use it in a Victorian or Latin sense,” he said, “where it meant that life is short and death is the great equalizer, so stop your whining and get on with it.”

But most of the citations in the article are from the Hot Topic to Ralph Lauren commecialization of the cranium pictorium. In one interview Colman heard, “It’s a pity it’s so commercial now,” Mr. Pellat-Finet said. For more than five years, he has splashed oversize skull graphics — sporting, say, Mickey Mouse ears — on his sweaters. “Maybe Wal-Mart will replace their smiley-face with a tête de mort,” he added, using the French term for skull. “It’s lost its meaning.”

Well, it still has one meaning for Mr. Pellat-Finet, whose latest skull sweaters are embellished with Afros and top hats, among other images. Asked if he will stop using the motif, he responded with a chuckle: “No, no, no. It’s my best seller!”

So I'm wondering whether Shreveporters or those reading SptBlog are selling products sporting the skull. Are we on the bandwagon? Making money while the skull shines?

As far as I can tell, artists should incorprate the balded head whenever possible. In the 90's I made a Halloween / Dia de Los Muertos T shirt for a downtown arts association. I appropriated Leonardo's nude Proportions of Man image - aka Vitruvian Man - and did a skeletal version. That T shirt, amazingly, can still be glimpsed at parties. Thanks to Michael G Moore, Chuck Loridans and a few others, it has become my most enduring graphic work.

Hey, send me a photo of your work in which the skull - despite this momentary ubiquity - is bobbing.