DR. BONES – THE „BONEMAKER“, Part 1
One of my first childhood memories is, that I took a hedgehog, which somebody had overrun in front of my family home, with me and buried it in the sand pit I shared with my siblings, because I was so curious how its‘ bones would look like. My dad had already told me about bones and their fascination. He was a teacher at an academic high school, taught biology and chemical science and during his studies he dissected various bone compounds like birds, amphibia and other little mammals (which I still cherish nowadays, by the way). He also told me, that bones outlive way more than the rest of a dead body during the natural putrefaction, which stirred up my childish curiosity. […] He gave me a little book about preparation methods, which opened up a whole new world to me.
For the very first time I read something about „maceration of enzymes“ and other crafty techniques about how to prepare compounds out of a carcass and so I started experimenting again. I went to the farmer’s market and asked the butcher there, if I could have the heads of the rabbits whose bodies he was selling. As the heads normally go straight to the trash can anyway, he was fine with that. While other kids always got their piece of pork sausage I got rabbit – or chicken heads from home slaughtering. My dad provided the right enzymes and chemicals, which he got from his school and therefore I was able to produce relatively impressive looking skull compounds, when I was not more than seven years old...
DR. BONES – THE BONEMAKER, Part 2
I tapped all my sources for more skulls and bones. My relatives, and very often also my teachers brought me whatever they got incidentially in their hands. And occasionally I was lucky enough to find various skulls of local animals under the Christmas tree. Once, while being in hospital, I happened to be lying in a room together with an old hunter, and of course it didn’t take long until I started begging him for some deer skulls. As a matter of fact, a few weeks later I received a parcel, containing frozen skulls. I collected skulls of small rodents etc. from owl pellets (that’s the hairballs the birds expectorate after digestion), and at every family vacation at the North Sea I pounded the beaches for perished sea-birds. At the same time I had a number of living animals, mainly small rodents like various sorts of mice, rats, gophers and guinea pigs. I cared for my fosterlings lovingly and species-appropriate – until their natural passing. Then they became my study subjects. I also tried hide-preparation and set up some of them as skin-preparations.
A few of them are still well preserved (the others didn’t survive the occasional attacks of the museum beetles). But my main focus was and still is on bone preparation. Soon, I tried setting-up and erecting articulated skeletons, sometimes more and sometimes less successful. I can still remember the very first article about me and my hobby, in a magazine called „Jugendzeitschrift Treff“ (if I remember the name correctly), with a photo of me in front of my bookshelf in my children’s room, showing my then collected works behind me on the shelf. This must have been around 1973. Even back then I was already dreaming of making a living from my hobby. Years later, in the early 80s, when I had already made my first steps as a musician, all of a sudden a big opportunity occured on the scene. I started an internship at the preparation workshop Ledebur in Bochum, lead by its charismatic owner Ute Ledebur, to whom I have been connected ever since. Ute is an expert in the preparation of birds. But I also learned all other skills that are important for the job.
Firstly I got experienced in the skinning and dismanteling of bodies (I still have pictures of myself, kneeling in the chest of a huge bison bull, cutting out the heart/lung section). Later I was taught more delicate techniques and I developed more or less into the representative for all bonework, something that was neglected by the rest of the team. Everything smelly and disgusting made its way on my desk. For me this was the perfect source to keep my personal collection growing and get a hand on the desired objects. Later, Ute made it possible for me to start an education at „Bochum College for Preparation Technical Assistants“, which is a part of Walter Gropius Berufskolleg. Unfortunately I had to quit this soon after, due to my first tour with Rage…
To be continued...