We have a great many small treasures. Tim likes to arrange them in printers' type drawers to make shadow boxes. This is my favorite. Around a centerpiece of an annunciation angel are nearly fifty objects, natural and man-made.
Of the natural things, there is a small branch of coral and one of bryozoan, and a geode with a geopetal filling (a partial filling of the cavity of a geode that shows how the geode was oriented - mineral-bearing water filled the lower part of the cavity, depositing minerals only there). There is a polished oval of picture jasper, a sample core from a molybdenum mine in Colorado, a perfect pyrite crystal and a pyrite-crusted rock. There are calcite and fluoride crystals, and malachite and tiger eye, a polished half ammonite (see Fossil Seashells Nov. 2). Speaking of seashells, there are many shells throughout the display, including a sand dollar and some very tiny ones.
Crossing the line to man-made is a Chinese jade signature-seal with a leopard on top. Next to it is a brass sealing-wax seal. There is a clay figure of a boy we bought in Mexico at Christmas time - he is intended for use in the elaborate creche scenes we saw. There are two pottery birds from Turkey that Tim's mother gave us. They seemed very poor whistles until I discovered their secret years later - in a book on Armenia I learned that they are supposed to have a little bit of water inside. Then they warble melodiously like birds.
There is a bronze medallion showing Pablo Casals and a bass-playing jeweled cricket. There is a tiny ceramic sea turtle, just emerging from its leathery eggshell and a little shiny quail. There is a blown glass vase and a small golden bottle - one of my learning experiments in gold-leafing.
The fun thing about the shadow box is that it is beautiful from a distance, but rewards close examination.
No comments:
Post a Comment