Our Skeleton Can Dance

October 31, 2014

Miniature artist Lloyd McCaffery began building ship models as a twelve-year-old. And he never stopped! Trained as an artist and sculptor, he uses jeweler’s tweezers, and numerous miniature versions of planes, chisels, and custom made knives to craft his fine-scale ship models.

Like many fine-scale miniature artists, McCaffery found inspiration in a museum, though not a history or art museum but the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. While looking at the suspended skeleton of a dinosaur, McCaffery realized the similarities between the spine and ribs of a skeleton and the keel and frames of a ship. Articulation was one of the first skeletons, human or animal, which McCaffery carved. And this skeleton can dance! Each bone, or set of bones, is crafted separately out of boxwood and joined with bamboo tenons or pegs. The 1:12 scale Articulation is joined in the T/m collection by another McCaffery skeleton, a velociraptor.