Teacup, spoon and saucer made from cicada body-parts

Carrianne Bullard made this teaset out of the wings and legs of cicadas. It's got a lovely Silence-of-the-Lambs meets Tinkerbell vibe.

Carrianne Bullard (Object Cicada wings, legs) (via Bruce Sterling's Tumblr)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: art • bugs • happy mutants • sculpture

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oasisob1

Sure it’s beautiful yet creepy, but do the wings impart any unwanted taste to the tea?
- Boundegar
  
  I guess that’s a matter of opinion, because yum!
  - Felton / Moderator
    
    Cicada – an acquired taste.
http://twitter.com/HubrisSonic HubrisSonic

Y’all are some creepy mofo’s.
5onthe5

The moral world of BoingBoing: some animals can be dissected without guilt for “Maker” purposes. I imagine if someone made a teaset out of cat bones and whiskers, it wouldn’t be described as having a “lovely Silence-of-the-Lambs-meets-Tinkerbell vibe”.
- Felton / Moderator
  
  You mean something like this?
- winkybb
  
  I’d be fine with it. But then, I don’t really like cats.
- danimagoo
  
  You apparently missed the post of the dead cat made into a remote control helicopter.
  - bluest_one
    
    And all those cute dead squirrels & kittens from bygone times wearing costumes.
    
    I don’t think anyone killed any cicadas & dissected them purely to make teacups.
- Bender
  
  Everything is material for art including dead cicadas, dead cats, and human cadavers. As long as the materials weren’t killed for art’s sake, I say why not.
  - Felton / Moderator
    
    You just reminded me of Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood.
    
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a … full-length, life-size figure.”
    “Crazy! What is it called?”
    “Um … ‘Murdered Man.’”
    - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
      
      Thank you. Bucket Of Blood is one of my favorite movies. My parents, long before they were my parents or even married, also went to see it on one of their first dates. I’ve often said that explains a lot about me. Crazy!
- Ipo
  
  A tea set out of cat bones and whiskers would be outrageous. Cats are for RC drones.
  - Bender
    
    No bones or whisker and not even cat hair, but still-
    http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A4416&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1
    - Felton / Moderator
      
      Waiter, I’d like a fuzzy navel, in the fuzziest cup you have.
- bcsizemo
  
  Kitty skulls are used to make demitasse cups. You have to move up in animal size if you want a regular sized cup.
- Snig
  
  It’s not like we’re not eating the yummy bits first. It’s the moral equivalent of dyeing Easter eggs.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  Or indeed out of bah-lamb bones and pretty lamb eyelashes
- http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson
  
  It seems that you might not be fully aware of the life cycle and moulting affinities of the cicada.
- Charles Richter
  
  If, every summer, millions of cats dug themselves out of the ground after metamorphosing from their subterranean larval kitten form, and meowed at high volume for weeks while clinging to the bark of trees before dropping dead, I think you’d see a lot more cat-part-based arts and crafts.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The moral world of BoingBoing: some animals can be dissected without guilt for “Maker” purposes.
  
  I find that many dead cicadas on my deck in a week.
  - peregrinus
    
    Can you harvest them for some use?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      If they’re perfect, I just scatter them around the house as seasonal decorations.
Jewels Vern

Carrianne does not own a cat. Cats eat cicadas.
Snig

This would be a lovely way to offer tea for folks who come round proselytizing.
http://www.karljones.com karl_jones

“Silence of the Lambs” mashed up with “Peter Pan”.

Now there’s a movie I would pay to see! Show me the sick, sick love.
Mister Cronenberg? Mister Lynch? How about it, guys?
- GawainLavers
  
  I’m thinking it’s more of a short story…
Greg Van Antwerp

Do you know how bad I want to wet my fingertip and glide it gently around and around the rim of the cup? Pretty sure what sound it would make…
http://www.iandicomputing.com Clifton

It’s got a lovely Silence-of-the-Lambs meets Tinkerbell vibe.

I’m sure the fanfic is already on its way.

P.S. Does anybody else think that Red Dragon is a much superior book to Silence of the Lambs? I always found Graham to be by far the most interesting focal character.
- Boundegar
  
  Even the author thinks so, but Hannibal Lecter sells merch.
Jean Baptiste

“Tibicen in a Teacup”: typical art-school cop-out ;)
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

PeTA will hear about this.
- bcsizemo
  
  Over tea I hope…
chenille

So that’s why cicadas are so loud: so much screaming it goes both ways along the timeline. Good to know, I guess?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Q5QFAV6HFKKZ4M3BBVXYCVXMAY Alec

You still wake up sometimes, don’t you 5onthe5? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the cicadas.
http://twitter.com/Noddy93 Noddy Ninetythree

you people suck with the movie references… this is full on ‘The Beast Within’.
silence of the lambs? pahleeze.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

This story keeps appearing and disappearing!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Every seventeen years?
http://jayarava.blogspot.com Jayarava

pulling wings off flies
- peregrinus
  
  makes walks
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

During one of the 13-year cicada invasions a friend of mine planned to turn them into paperweights. He asked me to collect a hundred, which took about ten minutes, so he said, “Fine, collect two hundred.”

Of course it was easy since I was picking up dead ones, but, unfortunately, we found that the dead cicadas didn’t have the lovely red eyes the live ones had.
- peregrinus
  
  Lovely red eyes?! Lovely red eyes?!! Jesus f*g wept, lovely red eyes? They’re frightening, horrific, abominable! Eyes that aren’t freaking blue are terrifying!
  
  The Terminator. Rats. White rabbits. Strange hamsters. Hal. Eyes! Red eyes! Aaaaaah the eyes!
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to take a stress pill, sit down calmly, and think things over. Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting! I’ll be back.
Cicada Mania

Moths were used in Silence of the Lambs. Not cicadas. Anywho…
Cicada Mania

Keep Calm.