Bats have always lived at the threshold. Creatures of dusk and darkness, of caves and belfries, of the space between the world we see and the one we only sense. In gothic art and folklore they are familiars, omens, symbols of the night that refuses to be tamed. When I work with a preserved bat — whether a full specimen or a delicate skeleton — I am working with all of that history at once. The creature carries it. My job is to build a frame worthy of it.
I make every piece by hand, alone. Each composition is assembled from scratch — the frame, the velvet, the ornament, the specimen at the centre. No two pieces are the same. What follows is a look at how I work with bats, and what I make with them.
Bats in Gothic Art & Dark Symbolism
The bat has been a symbol of the gothic imagination for centuries. In medieval bestiaries it was a creature of ambiguity — neither bird nor beast, belonging fully to neither world. In Victorian mourning culture it appeared on gravestones and memorial cards, a quiet emblem of the soul departing at dusk. In occult tradition it is associated with transformation, with the liminal, with the kind of knowledge that only comes in darkness.
I am drawn to all of this. When I place a bat behind glass — in a velvet-lined frame, in a glass dome, in a hand-built coffin — I am not making something morbid. I am making something that acknowledges what the bat has always been: a creature of extraordinary beauty, misunderstood, existing at the edges of the world we think we know.
Preserved Bat Specimens
A full preserved bat behind glass is one of the most striking things I make. The wing membranes hold a translucency that is almost impossible to describe — fine-veined, delicate as old paper, catching light in a way that feels alive. Spread in a frame against deep velvet, surrounded by dried flowers, bones, hand-cast ornament, a bat becomes something that rewards long looking. The closer you get, the more there is to see.
I work with different formats depending on the piece and the specimen. Some bats belong in ornamental frames — aged gold, baroque detail, deep velvet in navy or crimson or black. Others belong in hand-built wooden coffins, where the shape of the frame echoes the creature inside it. Others still belong under glass, enclosed in their own atmosphere, surrounded by ritual detail worked into the base.
In a baroque gilded reliquary, a bat becomes something almost ecclesiastical — a dark saint behind glass, worthy of veneration. The aged gold, the red velvet, the ornamental frame: all of it conspires to elevate the specimen into something that feels genuinely sacred. These are not decorations. They are objects with presence.
The simpler formats are no less considered. A bat on black velvet in a deep frame with crescent moon elements and a Latin nameplate — clean, precise, quietly powerful. Sometimes restraint is the right choice. The specimen speaks for itself.
The wooden coffin format is one I build entirely from scratch — the frame itself is handmade, shaped and finished by hand before the specimen is placed inside. The coffin shape is not decorative. It is a statement about what this object is: a resting place, a reliquary, a piece of the night given permanent form.
Bat Skeletons
A bat skeleton is a different kind of beauty entirely. Where a full specimen carries the memory of the living creature — its fur, its wings, its particular stillness — a skeleton is pure structure. The architecture of flight, reduced to bone. Bat skulls are precise and intricate, their bones impossibly light. Articulated and displayed, they become something that feels almost abstract: a diagram of something that should not be able to fly, and yet did.
I love working with bat skeletons under glass. Suspended inside a cloche, surrounded by occult detail — a sigil pendant, a red glass eye, a Latin inscription — a bat skeleton becomes something between a scientific specimen and a ritual object. The glass dome creates a world unto itself: complete, enclosed, existing outside of ordinary time.
Bat skulls in particular have a quality I find endlessly compelling. Small enough to hold in your palm, precise enough to reward a magnifying glass, strange enough to stop a conversation. I work with real bat skulls in several pieces — mounted with hand-cast wings, set on crushed velvet, framed with sculpted ornament and wax roses. The skull is the point. Everything around it is built to honour it.
The Night Sovereign takes the bat skull in a different direction entirely — hand-cast, painted, mounted with gold wings and a gold chain on black velvet in an ornate frame. It is not a specimen. It is an icon. Something between a reliquary and a piece of jewellery scaled up to the wall.
Memento Noctis
I am drawn to bats for the same reason I am drawn to all the creatures I work with: they exist at the edges. Misunderstood, overlooked, feared without reason. Preserved behind glass, they become something that demands a second look — and then a third. Their strangeness becomes beauty. Their fragility becomes permanence.
Every piece I make is assembled by hand, alone, one at a time. If you are drawn to the night, to the uncanny, to objects that carry a genuine sense of the other — you are in the right place.