Playing with Bones:
Artist blends fact and fiction
with his ‘ancient’ creations

One of his creations, a large relief carving, was permanently installed on the concourse at Union Depot in 2014. Dubbed “A Dream of the Great Northern Railway,” it depicts three-toed horses – a real ancient species – with the crest or horns of an ancient mountain goat. A plaque curiously states that the “imagined fossil” was found by Francene Clover in 1896 and was stowed away in a mysterious storage room at the depot until being discovered during a renovation in 2006. In reality, Clover is a fictional character partly inspired by early 19th-century fossil hunter Mary Anning, and the piece was never in storage.

“They [stories] evolve as I work on them, just like the skeletons,” he said. “I do a lot of research into where I want it to come from and how I want it to read. I think all my work is affectionately satirical, but very respectful as well.”

Each skeleton sculpture and its associated stories add another layer to his elaborate world where evolution took a slightly different turn compared to reality. At Landmark Center, his skeleton of a three-toed horse is embedded on a rocker on the second floor. That piece, titled, “Rocking Mesohippus,” was made in 2006, and was recently restored following a significant break.

His griffin statue was on display for several years at the former Black Dog Café in Lowertown and now hangs from the ceiling at Springboard for the Arts in St. Paul. Other works include a cattle-like animal with a second head located on its tail and a tall bird-like mammal with no arms and one central eye on its face.

Bahl, a Chicago-area native and South St. Paul resident of more than 35 years, has had a lifelong fascination with prehistoric life forms and fossil skeletons, sparked by youth field trips to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The first skeleton replica he made was in 1992 and resembled a 10-foot-tall chalicotherium, a real species of horse that had front legs much longer than its back legs. To make it, he used real cattle bones from a farm in Florida. The bones were doused in perfume and aftershave to mask their smell, loaded into boxes labeled “old wooden toys” (to disguise the rattling), and mailed to his home in South St. Paul. Notably, the finished piece won a blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair.

Since visiting the Florida farm’s boneyard, he’s sourced bones from a variety of places across the country, including an ostrich farm in Illinois, and has greatly refined his artistic process. He calls himself a paleo-osteological interpreter – “paleo” from ancient and “osteo” from bone – and worked from an artist studio in Lowertown for 25 years before retiring from his day job and bringing his operation to his home. To view his work or for more information, visit michael
bahl.com.