Septeber 2015
Sterling silver, jade

My father, a retired English professor and avid science fiction fan, has had an old H.G. Wells collection on his bookshelf for longer than I can remember. And for as long as the volume has been in my consciousness, I have looked at design on the cover and thought to myself that it looked like piece of jewelry that might have come out of the Danish Modern or Arts & Craft movements. It also looks like it could be a silhouette of a piece by my original abstract sculpture hero, Henry Moore. Since of course it wasn't actually jewelry or sculpture, I decided to change that and take this unknown graphic designer's 1952 cover art and turn it into a brooch myself. I named it based on the text on the spine of the book, which is what I see most often when I'm at my parents' place.

Making this piece was like scratching an itch, so embedded in my subconscious is the image and its lines. The figure is abstracted enough that it took me years to realize it could be a man, or at least a humanoid; and yet my wife sees a wooly mammoth and others have seen a bird or a dog's head. But I suppose that's part of what science fiction is about—exploring that which is alien and finding the familiar in it.

Pins & Brooches