Copper Shrunken Skull Tsantsa Metal Sculpture by Hale

Details

Handcrafted from 120+ year old reclaimed copper sheet metal roofing, this shrunken head took on a new life before becoming forever memorialized. The flat sheet was hammered, torched, and hammered some more. Sutures closed up all of the openings and then it was hammered and torched so more. The end result being this sinister metal Tsantsa sculpture.

What was used to make this:
The bones are real bones, not sure from what. All of the materials and consumables used were reclaimed except for the little brass skull beads on the tied hair. The hair is all copper, including the silver hair. That was all cabling unwound from a trashed TIG welding torch lead. The stitches are aluminum and started off as grounding cable from a pole transformer. That pole transformer was destroyed in a tornado and that salvage ended up at the Colonial Metalworks shop. The copper wire was grounding wire from another electrical component. This was also used as the filler wire for welding everything together.

Sits securely on a steel stand. The bone under the head is affixed to the stand with the copper hair.

No paints were used to obtain the coloring. The dark colors are the result of heat and hammering. Very similar to the actual process used to shrink a head (boiling water and hammer with hot stones). There is a clear enamel coating the entire sculpture to prevent tarnishing and color changes

An original creation by artisan Chris Hale at Colonial Metalworks. Check out @colonial_metalworks on IG to see more.

FAST & FREE SHIPPING