a taxidermy assemblage art doll with bird feet sits in a circus cage on a cart music box with hand painted signs sideshow freak show bleeding heart

close-up of artdoll with exposed bleeding heart sitting in a throned cage on a circus cart handpainted sign reads Bleeding Bird

Side view of taxidermy artdoll with bird feet sitting in a caged circus cart sideshow hand-painted freakshow signs

The Bleeding Bird

Mixed Media Music Box

17″H x 15″W x 11″D

 “Found impaled among the thorns, 
she tells a tale of loss...
Her bleeding heart forever mourns the love and what it cost.”

In making this piece I was inspired to revisit one of my favorite tales, The Nightingale and the Rose, by Oscar Wilde.

First published in 1888 in his collection, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, The Nightingale and the Rose is a brutally tragic tale of self-sacrifice.

The nightingale so loved the poet in the story that she impaled herself on a white rose to produce a red rose that he wanted. No matter how many times I’ve read the story, it continues to break my heart anew.

The doll in this music box reimagines the end of the story. A Thornbird’s fate is a destined doom, but “the Bleeding Bird” survived and lives to tell the tale of love & loss. She shares her story with a crowd of sideshow fans from behind the thorned bars of her circus cart.

This wind-up Music Box plays “The Funeral March of a Marionette”

I’ve been so inspired by the tale of The Bleeding Bird in The Nightingale and the Rose, that I have made two additional pieces exploring her story. See the gallery pages of The Nightingale and the Rose artdoll and The Bleeding Bird Storybox.