Skully, a.k.a. Death laughs at us all.

This Skullpture is an homage to the helmet – both the helmet used in this artwork, as well as helmets in general – not to mention motorcycles, adventure, life, art, my personal history, and more. It’s a celebration, lament and a personal time-capsule all in one fantastically entertaining art installation.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

In early 1982 at the age of 25, I was living in the Westport area of Kansas City (I grew up in Overland Park), and I had just acquired a brand new Kawasaki GPz 550 (a now legendary predecessor to the modern sportbike). Unfortunately, a few months later I had a rather bad accident. While riding in the rain, I went down while in a turn, and slid under the back of a car – breaking 14 ribs, and puncturing my right lung in three places. I spent a week in the hospital and another two weeks recuperating at home.

This skullpture is focused on, and uses, the helmet I was wearing in that accident. On the back of the helmet is a dent where it struck the underside of the car (the differential, I believe). Obviously, the helmet saved my life, and I’ve carried it with me ever since (41 years as of the creation of this artwork).

After recovering from the accident, I repaired the motorcycle, and rode it to Los Angeles the following Labor Day weekend – a trip of 2,250 miles over four-plus days (explanatory maps are on the included memory stick). I left Kansas City in the evening, planning on getting across Kansas and into Colorado by sunrise. From there, my plan was to continue through Colorado, then Utah, Nevada and California, where I would go to Monterey, then take Highway 1 south to L.A.

That was the plan – but things didn’t go exactly as planned. It was one of the greatest adventures of my life, and I was very lucky to have survived it. (Note; the bottom-left photo shows the bike somewhere in Nevada, the other is in the driveway of where I first lived after getting to L.A. (Lennox, CA).

Lastly, as you can see, the skullpture also contains numerous personal relics that are as symbolically-important to this skullpture as they were to me personally. Some of these items are hidden between the two layers of the plastic base, including; a memory stick with an itemized list of contents and what they symbolize, a digital copy of my portfolio, a detailed résumé, and more.