LYRE

The one-day old infant Hermes saw a tortoise outside of his birth cave.

He asked the tortoise to come join him in the cave and serve him because outside is dangerous.

“If you happen to die,  you will sing very beautifully after.” So immediately he grabbed the tortoise, killed it, scraped the flesh out and with bull’s horn, bull skin and sheep gut, he made it into an instrument, a lyre, to trade as a gift of peace to his brother, Apollo, and thus became one of the 12 main Olympian gods. 

Here, I carved and painted plaster as the tortoise shell, wood as the horns and bridge, and artificial leather to wrap around the surface.