Following two years of painful surgeries attempting to fix his leg, Leo Bonten decided to have his leg amputated.

My right leg has become ballast. What is now left in my leg is like wet wood. I cannot wait until they take it off.

It took a while, but eventually Bonten got the permission he needed from Erasmus MC to take ownership of his own leg, and have it turned into a lamp.

It’s hard to imagine the feeling of holding your own dismembered leg in your hand, but the look on Leo Bonten’s face pretty much sums up what that feeling must be — creepy as fuck.

My leg is just my property. People keep their kidney stones in a jar on the mantelpiece. Ashes of deceased persons are included in tattoos. I’m going to make a lamp of my leg.

Fortuitously, two weeks before his amputation surgery, Leo Bonten came across a book by IJssel Van Casteren about the author’s own “mad quest” to solve the mystery of a human leg found by fisherman in the IJssel River.

Van Casteren’s book about the unidentified leg led Leo Bonten to pathologist Frank van de Goot, who upon hearing of Bonten’s lamp project “enthusiastically” agreed to donate his services to help preserve the leg.

Bonten had some concern that the leg was so gray and the foot so white, but Pathologist Frank van de Goot assured Bonten that the colors would even out over time.

The cylindrical container also has the added bonus of making the amputated leg look larger than it really is.

Here’s the final pic of Leo Bonten’s amputated leg lamp, standing over 4 1/2 feet tall and packed with meaning by lamp designer Willem Schaperkotter.

At base, a cylinder behind bars, symbolizes Leo’s two years of being “imprisoned” by his injured leg. The cylinder is surmounted by a small empty space reflecting Bonten’s rehabilitation period. And at top, a metal-winged remote-controlled LED lamp represents Bonten’s new-found freedom.