Even at a place like the book beat known for showcasing art that's a bit out of the ordinary.

This piece by Lawton artist Mike sass stands out.

The Scorpion is about three feet around, so it's larger than most things in here right now.

And there's something else.

Perhaps you can tell.

Look closely.

Now.

You're not seeing a sculpture sculpted from clay or wood or a rock or anything else like that.

The scorpion and everything else Mike Sas sculpts is made from bones.

His workshop is stacked floor to ceiling with bones.

Bones he's found bones people have brought to him.

Bones he's harvested.

And when Mike Sass he has a bone to pick, he knows right where to go.

You know, I've got a rancher south of town who, he has cow bones, and he hunts coyotes.

They do a lot of damage to his property.

So I have full access to all that.

And he is a great guy for letting me do it and supplying me with everything I need to.

Hopefully just to bust down.

And make no bones about it, Mike Sass Can create some amazing things with Mother Nature's leftovers.

I just love color.

I want my stuff not only to to stand out when you look at it, but if you just glance at it, I want it to just grab you and pull you to it.

It certainly does that.

This man was driving by Mike's house and couldn't resist stopping to take a closer look.

What I want for it.

That's all hers.

You did it!

You.

Man.

And that's the reaction I get in person from people.

But actually, if I send people photographs, I've had, you know, luckily, I draw your attention.

But as far as it just hasn't, pictures hadn't been able to push me into mainstream art world yet.

And I you really have to see it in person because it will captivate you in person.

I call it stristed at art because it's straight and twisted at the same moment.

That's basically how I see it.

It is eye catching to say the least, but sometimes people aren't quite sure what to think about it.

Just as much positive.

I've had a lot of negative feedback from what I do to.

People's reactions.

It could go either way because I've been called demonic and, and I've been called a prodigy.

Well, those are pretty far apart, you know, and I'm just I'm just trying to.

Oklahoma, boy.

Trying to make good.

He's been to art shows from Austin to New York City.

And so far, the star of each one has been this creation that took almost a year to finish what I started out with.

I took a shark jaw, and I broke it right here in the center and folded it back and screwed to this fork.

Buck skull and I fabricated the nose out of fish bones, shards of fish bone, shards of coyote bones.

These are all fish ribs here.

The actual horns that are attached to the deer skull.

I close this side mostly in, and I left this side mostly open.

So you can actually see the framework of how I did it.

It's cow leg bones.

And here, the top of coyote skulls.

It contains seven steer skulls, one deer skull.

Nine coyote skulls, and the back feet are three coyote skulls with different layers coming out of the nasal cavities.

So you get the idea.

It's a pretty bony creature, and you have to wonder, where did Mike get the inspiration for such things?

I'm a huge, huge Frank Frazetta fan, and my brother, you know, my older brother used to freehand Frazetta drawings and stuff.

And man, I just captivated by Frank Frazetta work and I and I never knew how much I was captivated until I started sculpting.

And this stuff just started coming out of me like this.

Start from one spark of the imagination to a whole garage full of stuff made of bones.

How to put all these different pieces together so they formed something else was a mystery at first, until Mike remembered his own dislocated hip.

I'm actually screwed together.

I have three stainless steel pins in my hip screwed together, and so when I picked up those pieces and could see the face the first, my first thought is, how could I hold us together?

Well, I could screw together.

I'm screwed together.

And that's the start of it all.

He uses putty to fill in any holes in the bone, and then usually he has to use several coats of paint because the bones a lot of them are real course.

And they'll soak up paint like crazy.

A coating or two of liquid glass provides the sparkle and some extra strength for the finished piece.

It is complicated and time consuming work, but it has become a passion for Mike.

Man.

When you love something like this, like I love it and it's the only thing that you want to do the rest of your life.

16 hours out here can go by like that.

I can get wrapped up in a piece and spend 16 18 hours a day working on it for a long time.

And it's just I think it's just the neatest thing.

What can I come up with next?

What indeed, it would seem Mike's creativity is limited only by an unlimited imagination.