Full Moon Cocoon

I'm sensitive to the things people tell me, and this piece speaks to the power of that. On a lighter note, There's a lot that can be said about Yellow Submarines, and 18 karat
eggs, the work of Carl Faberge, Russian Imperialism, Manifest Destiny, Chairman Mao, and the Man in the Moon. There's a lot that has been written concerning the Moon, lunacy, romance, and wonderful journeys.
If you can take his word as a gentleman, Baron Munchausen travelled to the Moon and enjoyed the hospitality of both it's crowned heads. Over one hundred years before Neil Armstong planted an American flag on Lunar soil, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a lovely story regarding 'The Unparalleled Adventures of Hans Pfall', a tale concerning the ingenuity of travelling to lunar destinations by way of hot air balloon. The renowned physicist, Dr Hayden, has assured me that If you ignore friction, it is possible to skip a fast moving automobile off of the horizon and drive to the Moon. Lunar mythology pre-dates civilization, and by the light of the moon we mark time, hunt, and make love... And so I carved this stone, 'the Full Moon Cocoon'.

This magical egg was made in 18 karat gold, the body of the work is yellow gold, with white gold accent porthole cover. My friend Karen Morrow made this egg, complete with hinges. The egg acts as nest and frame to this carving, which I've made, in the hard stone known as jasper. I produced this carving by my hand using diamonds and water, it represents the chrysalis from which the full moon emerges.

photo credit: Peter Lattimer
-Copy Cats are Dirty Rats

A Book Review...In Scrimshaw

Scrimshaw is an ancient art, an artist who makes scrimshaw is called a scrimshander. A scrimshaw is made by "scrimming" a design into bone or ivory, and then staining the scrim with pigment. In this way, neolithic artists decorated their bone implements, and jewelry.

Scrimshaw is most celebrated, by the contemporary world, as an archaic craft of sailors and whalers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scrimshaw was produced by sea faring men, to decorate ivory trade goods. Scrimshaw is widely collected in the United States of America, where it is claimed as the first "American" art form. Nowadays, whaling is largely obsolete and, scrimshaw has become something of a lost art.


I made this scrimshaw in whale ivory, which I'd acquired
at a pow wow . This piece records my review of
' Treasure Island ' by Robert Louis Stevenson...one of my favorite sea faring stories.

photo credit: Peter Lattimer
-Copy Cats are Dirty Rats