Shinin' Times Powder Horns

One of my favorite horns. It is feather light, has nice lines and I felt like I was pretty successful in melding together a number of different themes and motifs into a unified work.

This is a look at the top of the eagles wings as it is impossible to take a photo of the whole image at one time.

I had this image in a book of animals and I thought it would look great on a horn. The eagle has the hare by the back with his left foot and is about to strike a death blow with his poised right foot. I think the hare looks like he knows what’s coming.

Around the base of the horn I engraved a ½ inch wide band with scrollwork of climbing rose vines.

This is a 1 inch cameo in the base band. Inside of the cameo is an image of three hares who share three ears. : I found this image while looking for images of hares I might use on the horn. This image was found in some medieval churches on timber bosses in the ceiling. On other timber bosses in the same churches were found images of The Green Man. I thought the two belonged together so I kept them together on this piece.

Around the neck of the horn I continued the fluting motif with the engrailing. Below that there is a band of oak leaves and acorns encircling the horn which emerge from the face of the Green Man. This image faces the opposite way from the cameo in the band around the base.

I felt there needed to be something between the bottom band and the owner’s name so I made this one sided “cartouche” in keeping with the vine motif below to set off the lettering from the drawing.

I like to let the horn tell me what to do with it. This one told me she wanted to be faceted from the engrailing to the tip. She also suggested that I hang a garland of fluted petals around her neck so she’d still look pretty even if she had a strap around her neck. Topping off the horn is a spout plug carved from the same birds eye maple as the base plug and fluted to complete the work.

The butt plug is done in birds eye maple which used to be the flat gutters in an old bowling alley. It begins a theme of fluting which I tried to carry through the whole horn. I like the look of sterling silver wire so I use it as a staple in many of my horns.