40” H X 30” W

Raccoon baculum bones (procyon lotor), deer and cow bones, wire, paint, chicken wishbones, and chewed beaver sticks

Story by Butch Anthony

“In college, my favorite class was systematic botany. I spent months crisscrossing Alabama collecting, drying, and classifying over 100 plant species, learning to key them out and name them by their Latin identities. I always wanted to discover a new species no one had seen before. I never did. So now, I create my own. This piece is part of an ongoing practice of invented taxonomy, giving form and name to imagined life. Osseoalbus phalli takes its title from Latin roots: "bone," "white," and "phallus," nodding to the material’s origin and form. The work subtly references the Adam and Eve story, where some scholars suggest the “rib” taken from Adam may have been the baculum, a bone found in most mammals but absent in humans. A reminder that myths, like species, evolve.”