This piece is called Mermaid's Purse. It's a black box, 8 x 9 inches, with clear acrylic and a rectangular magnifying lens attached to the front. Hanging within it is an antique silver chain-mail purse and five dancing female figures 31 mm tall called Dolossies.
Each of these silver darlings has one foot caught in the mesh. (Silver darlings is what some people in the East of England call the herrings that swim round here.) The purse was given to me by a very old friend of our family many years ago, so I am sorry to see it go, but I'm pretty sure she'll approve of this use of it.
The Dolossies can be purchased from my Etsy shop.
Twelvemo Shop
Some of them have a ring in their hand so they can be worn as Jewelry, and they are lovely hanging on a slinky snake chain, either singly or as a small group.
Now that I've taken off the commission and paid for half my daughter's 16th birthday bike (she knows she's getting it) there's not quite so much left but it's still more than I had when I came home from work this evening, so I'm happy.
Thanks Luke Emery for inviting me to show.
This photo in the exhibition was printed so that the Bone Idol Twelvemo figure in it is human size. (I've wanted to do that for years.) Someone asked me where I got the snake and when I described the tale of finding the it on holiday in France, they laughed. They'd thought it was a really large snake, not a tiny one a few inches long!
One more thing! The guy that bought the Mermaid's Purse, came round bearing a gift of some beautiful pieces of real fine snakeskin leather, dating from the 1930s. What a very nice little extra!
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