Since September 2016
About We Dig Skulls
We Dig Skulls is a home for people who love skulls and skeletons: stories about where the imagery comes from and what it means, and a shop of skull-art designs to wear. It started in September 2016 as a Facebook page and a small online store selling skull merchandise, and it is back now with a lot more to read and see.
How We Dig Skulls started
The first version was simple: a Facebook page for lovers of all things skulls and skeletons, with a store beside it. For a while the designs found plenty of fans. Then interest cooled, the way it does with most things, and the store closed for a time.
Why it came back
Skulls never really go away. Lately the people behind We Dig Skulls have seen a fresh wave of love for skulls and skeletons, and they decided to bring the store back as more than a store. The idea now is a go-to place for everything a skull lover might want to read about and see, with the shop as one part of it rather than the whole thing.
What do the stories cover?
The stories start from images people already love and follow them back to the people who made and used them. The first four are about Día de Muertos, the Mexican tradition of remembering loved ones who have died: the days of Día de Muertos, sugar skulls, La Catrina, and how to make an ofrenda, the altar a family sets up for those they remember. Many readers know these traditions from their own homes.
Later stories follow the same threads further: the history of the skull in art and culture, skull and skeleton symbolism around the world, memorial traditions beyond Mexico, and memento mori and vanitas, the old art of setting a skull where it reminds you that time is short. A skull rarely means one thing everywhere, and that variety is half the fun. Everything published so far is in the stories section.
What does the artwork look like?
The designs are engraved skulls in the style of an old natural-history plate, each set in a badge with a ribbon slogan: a skull in a nurse's cap under a crescent moon, one with a black cat curled on top, one resting inside a barbell plate. The flagship is a memento mori engraving with an hourglass and an olive branch. The slogans bring the humor; the skull art underneath is meant to look good whether or not you laugh.
Where to start, and how to get in touch
The shop carries skull-art shirts, mugs and stickers in the same designs, and any of them makes an easy gift for someone who loves the same imagery you do. If you would rather read first, the Día de Muertos story opens the series. Questions, story ideas and hellos all go through the contact form.