Mandala Longhorn, Carved Cow Skull

A carved longhorn skull, minus the longhorn

Real bull skull wall decor comes with conditions. It has to be found, cleaned, freighted, and cleared through quarantine, and when it arrives it is heavy, fragile and faintly agricultural. Half the people who want one will not have one in the house.

This is not bone. It is a faux cow skull, sculpted and made from scratch, so there is nothing to clean, nothing to declare and nothing that used to be an animal. It has never been near a paddock.

And at 620 mm across the horns it is bigger in a room than a real one looks in a photograph.

The carving is the whole point

Every surface of the skull carries a mandala relief, the frontal plate, down the nasal bone, out along the jaw. Not a pattern stamped on a flat panel but cut into the form itself, so it catches differently from the left than from the right, and differently again at night.

Stand close and it is intricate. Stand back and it reads as a clean white silhouette against a dark wall. Carved skull art usually manages one of those. This does both.

Western, boho, or somewhere stranger

It lands in a modern farmhouse the same way it lands on a shelf above a record player. Bone white on a charcoal wall, natural jute at the horns, and nothing else going on. It takes the temperature of whatever room you put it in rather than imposing one.

If you already own one skull, this is the one that makes the others look accidental.

The jute wrap is where the joins are

It is 620 mm across. Nothing makes that in a single piece, so it arrives as one object that was several.

The binding is not decoration over a mistake. The horns meet the skull at the weakest point in the whole thing, so the join is reinforced and then wrapped in natural jute. You could find the seams underneath if you unwound it. We would rather tell you than have you wonder.

How it sits

This one is a free-standing piece, not a wall mount. It leans against a wall on a shelf, a sideboard or a mantel, which is how both photographs show it, and at 620 mm across it needs about that much clear surface.

There is no keyhole hanger moulded into this one and no bracket in the box. A wall-mounted version is coming, and so is a stand. If you want either, say so and you will hear about them first.

Made in Australia

Drawn here, made here, finished here by hand. It is 3D printed in PLA (a bioplastic fermented from plant starch rather than refined from petroleum) then filled, sanded and sealed across every carved surface.

Plant-based does not mean it composts. That needs an industrial composter at around 60 degrees for weeks. It is a plastic made from plants, not a plastic that disappears, and that is the whole claim.

Because the finishing is done by hand, no two come out quite the same.

Looking after it

Dust with a soft dry brush rather than a cloth, which snags in the relief and pulls.

PLA softens at about 60 degrees, so keep it off a wall that bakes in afternoon summer sun and well away from a heater. Indoors only.

It is a display piece, not a toy. The horn tips are pointed. Stand it where nobody walks into it.

The numbers

• 620 mm tip to tip, 500 mm tall, 200 mm deep. Bigger on a wall than it looks on a screen, every time.
• Under 1 kg. Which is the whole argument for it.
• 44 hours on the printer. Nearly two days of machine time for one object, which is why there are never many.
• Printed in sections and bonded. Arrives as one piece. Nothing to assemble.
• PLA, filled, sanded and sealed by hand.
• Free-standing. No hanger and no bracket on this one. A wall-mounted version is in the works.
• Numbered once. SPECIMEN 001. When we retire the number we say so, and it does not come back.

Postage

Calculated at checkout from your postcode. Worth knowing why a one-kilogram parcel is not billed like one: couriers charge on cubic weight for anything large and light, and a box that fits 620 mm of horn is charged as though it weighed about twenty kilos.

Pickup is free, and for something this size we would rather hand it to you.