'The Mermaid’s Garden'

The aqua painted ground was built first — the wall of water the rest of the piece would grow inside. Moss arrived next, settling the way sea vegetation settles on something old. Then the tiny salmon-pink crêpe myrtle florets, each one placed like something carried in on a current. Then gold beads, scattered through the whole composition the way light filters down from above.

This is a garden at the bottom of something. A garden that decided to be underwater, that found the aqua light agreeable, that let the small florets float rather than stand. The gold beads are the light. The moss is the memory of ground. The whole composition is suspended between growing and drifting, which is exactly where it wanted to be.

Everything here is alive and still at the same time — the way things are when the water is calm and deep.

This pendant is for the woman who has always felt more at home in the depths than on the surface.