One for the books, and maybe a nautilus shaped lamp – a bronze octopus table

I love this bronze octopus table I found on The Steampunk Home. Love the rest of the site too, though most of it isn’t salty enough to qualify for mention here.

Looking at this takes me back too my childhood and listening to a recording of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, over and over and over again. And to diving in Puget Sound, and to numerous visits to the Seattle Aquarium, where it’s currently Octopus Week.

See lots more about this piece, including links to photos of the creation, at Deviant Art. Besides honoring a gorgeous creature, this is also an amazing piece of art. The artist would like to sell it to an aquarium.

My mom wouldn’t appreciate this piece, but I’m smitten. Anyone else think this is the coolest table ever?

The artist, Alex Friend (Thisisfake1234 at Deviant Art) says:

This is the finished bronze octopus, modeled off the blue ring octopus, my friend (Isaac Krauss) and I worked on. He came up with the concept and sculpted the body of the octopus and I came in to help with the wax work and welding. The glass tabletop sits level on top of the legs. Welding the legs to hold the glass tabletop was a very rewarding and challenging process. I’ve certainly improved my TIG welding skills a lot because of my work on this octopus. An interesting thing about this sculpture is that the eyes are hand blown glass. In all the table weighs about 500 lbs which means we have put about $5,000 into building it. We estimate that we put around 1500 man hours into this project. If you are curious the table is still for sale.

See more pictures of this table at Deviant Art.