Bonnie Griffin
@bonnieandthebeasts.bsky.social
Curator and Visual Storyteller. Thayer Award nominee 2024. Scottish in Los Angeles. Research on Eph Thompson & animal intelligence. @eph_thompson_project on IG. BonnieGriffin.com
Quilted my quilt 🥵 it was like feeding a tree into a wood chipper (my poor 🪡⚙️) & the iron died but here it is in all its wonky glory! It represents the LA mountains & the earth after a forest fire (there’s a Cali poppy seed sewn into the fabric for themes of regrowth and potential 🌱 ) #quilting
November 14, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Quilted my quilt 🥵 it was like feeding a tree into a wood chipper (my poor 🪡⚙️) & the iron died but here it is in all its wonky glory! It represents the LA mountains & the earth after a forest fire (there’s a Cali poppy seed sewn into the fabric for themes of regrowth and potential 🌱 ) #quilting
100 days till Christmas… #marilwydLA
September 18, 2025 at 6:12 PM
100 days till Christmas… #marilwydLA
Today years old when I learned about these cute horned gophers!! Like mini upside down walrus! #rodents #tertiary #diversity #gophers
August 25, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Today years old when I learned about these cute horned gophers!! Like mini upside down walrus! #rodents #tertiary #diversity #gophers
This shuddersome Miocene whale from…wait for it…Bakersfield! My only previous references were the wonderful TV series ‘Baskets’ and Vally Fever…now I’m down a rabbit hole with Desmostylus and more Miocene monsters! Specimen at Santa Barbara NHM. #whale #bakersfield #miocene #skullfriday
August 25, 2025 at 6:26 PM
This shuddersome Miocene whale from…wait for it…Bakersfield! My only previous references were the wonderful TV series ‘Baskets’ and Vally Fever…now I’m down a rabbit hole with Desmostylus and more Miocene monsters! Specimen at Santa Barbara NHM. #whale #bakersfield #miocene #skullfriday
This gobsmackingly gorgeous Chumash basket at Santa Barbara NHM #beautiful #chumash #basketweaving #skillstothehills
August 25, 2025 at 6:18 PM
This gobsmackingly gorgeous Chumash basket at Santa Barbara NHM #beautiful #chumash #basketweaving #skillstothehills
Enjoying these opossum interpretations at Santa Barbara NHM! Just your friendly neighbourhood marsupial trash queen! 💕 #taxidermy #illustration
August 25, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Enjoying these opossum interpretations at Santa Barbara NHM! Just your friendly neighbourhood marsupial trash queen! 💕 #taxidermy #illustration
A little bit of Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977) Leafe, shell and Jacks 1957 #surrealist #womenartist #witchy #americanart
August 25, 2025 at 5:16 AM
A little bit of Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977) Leafe, shell and Jacks 1957 #surrealist #womenartist #witchy #americanart
Some wonderful Indigenous knowledge of Polar Bear ecology being recorded circa 1818. TW: he calls Inuit people 'Indians' - a problematic 'catch-all' term. Working on @acadnatsci.bsky.social 's collection. #indigenousknowledge #inuit #polarbear #bears #ecology #lifecycle
August 19, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Some wonderful Indigenous knowledge of Polar Bear ecology being recorded circa 1818. TW: he calls Inuit people 'Indians' - a problematic 'catch-all' term. Working on @acadnatsci.bsky.social 's collection. #indigenousknowledge #inuit #polarbear #bears #ecology #lifecycle
Quilt making to combine my obsessions with American decorative arts & the #kaleidoscope - invented by Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster (British pat. no. 4136) in 1817 with hopes it would be used for “exhibiting & creating beautiful Forms & Patterns of great use in all the ornamental Arts” 🏴 🇺🇸
August 5, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Quilt making to combine my obsessions with American decorative arts & the #kaleidoscope - invented by Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster (British pat. no. 4136) in 1817 with hopes it would be used for “exhibiting & creating beautiful Forms & Patterns of great use in all the ornamental Arts” 🏴 🇺🇸
Museum of off-brand ice-cream vans 🍦
August 5, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Museum of off-brand ice-cream vans 🍦
This onion article was an absolute skewer! 😬😅🫠
August 5, 2025 at 4:53 AM
This onion article was an absolute skewer! 😬😅🫠
Just completed the Canadian Conservation Institutes course Preservation Housekeeping for Heritage Sites and Small Museums! Great refresher and I learned it’s long overdue time to get the Los Angeles air pollution, grit and dust off my books at home 🙈 Can you spot the odd one out? #oneofthesethings
August 4, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Just completed the Canadian Conservation Institutes course Preservation Housekeeping for Heritage Sites and Small Museums! Great refresher and I learned it’s long overdue time to get the Los Angeles air pollution, grit and dust off my books at home 🙈 Can you spot the odd one out? #oneofthesethings
August 4, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Happy Summerween! Showing some appreciation for these hand-made slugs at Bristol Museum - made by multifaceted curator Rhian Rowson. See the ghost slug (the big white/purple one) Selenochlamys ysbryda 👻👻 All beautiful, slimey wee pals! #gastropoda #slug #ghost
July 31, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Happy Summerween! Showing some appreciation for these hand-made slugs at Bristol Museum - made by multifaceted curator Rhian Rowson. See the ghost slug (the big white/purple one) Selenochlamys ysbryda 👻👻 All beautiful, slimey wee pals! #gastropoda #slug #ghost
This little cutie inside a glass on my table top - Colonus hesperus - 🥹 #arachnid #spiders #jumpingspider #inaturalist
July 30, 2025 at 6:30 PM
This little cutie inside a glass on my table top - Colonus hesperus - 🥹 #arachnid #spiders #jumpingspider #inaturalist
Brushing up on my folk horror curriculum with this fantastic practical effect apparition in Whistle and I’ll Come to You, 1968, based on the ghost story by M.R. James, named after Burns poem Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad #folkhorror #bedsheets #shudder
July 28, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Brushing up on my folk horror curriculum with this fantastic practical effect apparition in Whistle and I’ll Come to You, 1968, based on the ghost story by M.R. James, named after Burns poem Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad #folkhorror #bedsheets #shudder
Find yourself someone who selectively breeds a carnation to honor their ancestors journey 🥲 Asexual Clone Mutation by Bruce and Normal Yotemono @gettymuseum #queerlove #botany #love #carnation
July 28, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Find yourself someone who selectively breeds a carnation to honor their ancestors journey 🥲 Asexual Clone Mutation by Bruce and Normal Yotemono @gettymuseum #queerlove #botany #love #carnation
Cried like a baby at this gut wrenching photograph. Too much to explain via a post but something about seeing ourselves and our culture (good and bad) through animal lenses gets me right in the guts. Untitled (Buffalo)
By the brilliant David Wojnarowicz @gettymuseum.bsky.social
By the brilliant David Wojnarowicz @gettymuseum.bsky.social
July 28, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Cried like a baby at this gut wrenching photograph. Too much to explain via a post but something about seeing ourselves and our culture (good and bad) through animal lenses gets me right in the guts. Untitled (Buffalo)
By the brilliant David Wojnarowicz @gettymuseum.bsky.social
By the brilliant David Wojnarowicz @gettymuseum.bsky.social
Crying away @gettymuseum.bsky.social. I want to live in a world where this can happen ❤️🩹 brilliant work by Tourmaline. #queerlove #dreaming #abundance #tenfold
July 28, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Crying away @gettymuseum.bsky.social. I want to live in a world where this can happen ❤️🩹 brilliant work by Tourmaline. #queerlove #dreaming #abundance #tenfold
The Spanish dance in question! Just love those huge frilly knickers! 📸 photo Altonaer Nachrichter 1902 @EphThompsonProject archive
July 26, 2025 at 6:46 PM
The Spanish dance in question! Just love those huge frilly knickers! 📸 photo Altonaer Nachrichter 1902 @EphThompsonProject archive
One for you @amberdruce.bsky.social Eph Thompson and wife Jessie playing our home town of Bristol, UK at the (now demolished) Empire Theater, Old Market St! If you ever find pics of elephants in the streets of Bristol circa 1902 send them my way! 🥰💕
July 26, 2025 at 6:46 PM
One for you @amberdruce.bsky.social Eph Thompson and wife Jessie playing our home town of Bristol, UK at the (now demolished) Empire Theater, Old Market St! If you ever find pics of elephants in the streets of Bristol circa 1902 send them my way! 🥰💕
And for Eph Thompson’s luxe era, who else could portray him but Colman Domingo - apart from the obvious superficial aspects - buckets of style, a world class mustache, and at 6ft 2in is the same height as Thompson, Coleman also has roots in Philly and performed at Make A Circus in San Francisco 💕
July 26, 2025 at 6:02 PM
And for Eph Thompson’s luxe era, who else could portray him but Colman Domingo - apart from the obvious superficial aspects - buckets of style, a world class mustache, and at 6ft 2in is the same height as Thompson, Coleman also has roots in Philly and performed at Make A Circus in San Francisco 💕
For Eph Thompson’s heyday era I’m dreaming of Ncuti Gatwa. Gatwa has the elegance, flexibility and balance required for walking the slack line and the showmanship for presenting the elephants! 📸 Gatwa in 2024, 📸 Thompson circa early 1890s #circushistory #blackhistory #circusart #
July 26, 2025 at 5:53 PM
For Eph Thompson’s heyday era I’m dreaming of Ncuti Gatwa. Gatwa has the elegance, flexibility and balance required for walking the slack line and the showmanship for presenting the elephants! 📸 Gatwa in 2024, 📸 Thompson circa early 1890s #circushistory #blackhistory #circusart #
Fantasy casting for Eph Thompson’s Boxing era has got to be Michael B Jordan. These images are over 100 years apart - I’m exploring how signifiers for ‘manliness’ have changed, or remained steadfast, over the years 📚 #boxing #circushistory #blackhistory
July 26, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Fantasy casting for Eph Thompson’s Boxing era has got to be Michael B Jordan. These images are over 100 years apart - I’m exploring how signifiers for ‘manliness’ have changed, or remained steadfast, over the years 📚 #boxing #circushistory #blackhistory