Match Burro

Probably on an afternoon in the February of '99, while sitting in a dark lecture room staring at bright slides carrying crosses, I pulled the matches from my pocket. With inspiration that I can't now recall, I began to conjure a burro from that cardboard book and one long hair plucked from the plush seat I sat behind. It took maybe 20 minutes, only burning away a portion of the class I loathed, before I knew my donkey was done.

I brought him home and showed Heather, who was by then used to my impromptu constructions. After her brief inspection, I sat him atop the door jam next to a smaller ceramic mule of Mexican origin. From there he surveyed that Baltimore apartment for a couple more years before he was lost in our relocation to New York.

Below, a magnification of the one image in which he was caught:



Three weeks ago, I made my second match burro.

I cheated a little this time around, employing an X-Acto and two drops of Elmer's glue. Also, the hair has no structural function in this incarnation, crowning the saddle blankets only as an homage to the original.

Other than that, I made it to the specs I had committed to memory.



The new one turned out well, probably too well. A little of that MacGyver aesthetic disappeared in the absence of haste and stealth. That's OK though, I'd expect a big city burro to be fancier than his Mobtown cousin.

Below, the scraps of process.