Brother Justin Lovorn has a passion for skulls. Not just a Halloweeny, fair-weather, furtive nod, either. Justin has been posting a memento mori memento almost every single day since 2007 at the appropriately titled "Skull-A-Day" blog. His fan base contributes a wild range of images, and has found vanitas imagery in everything from snow drifts to canned beets.
Justin doesn't just post other people's images. He is an artist himself, and has started to venture into Masonic art. His site at www.tatmanglass.tripod.com features the item above, as well as (what else?) skull-themed etched glassware.
Cheers from my Lord Byron goblet.
"Start not - nor deem my spirit fled
In me behold the only skull,
From which unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
"I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee
I died ; let earth my bones resign
Fill up - thou canst not injure me ;
The worm has fouler lips than thine.
"Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth - worm's slimy brood
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.
"Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others let me shine ;
And when, alas ! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine ? " - (Byron, 1808.)
