Over the years I have inherited little bits and bobs from various members of my family.  Nothing of any inherent value but mainly the scattered twinkling broken bits from the bottom of jewellery and sewing boxes.  I packed the tiny talismans away in my studio for a long time unsure how to breathe life back into them but feeling that they were too precious to throw away.

 

I made the first set of bugs for myself after a long meandering daydream about entomology and lepidoptery…about beauty and life and memory.  I thought making my own boxed frame of iridescent creatures would be a perfect way to honour the trinkets I had been given and the people they had come from.   But there was some bits left…so I made more bugs…then there were fewer bits so I bought some beaded jewellery from a second-hand shop and someone else’s story was added to the mix…then another…and another.

 

Now I don’t know whose story I am making my little bugs from but that doesn’t matter anymore.  All these people’s lives mixing together, the places the beads have been, the celebrations they have seen, tiny fragments of memories stitched together to makes something more precious than its parts.

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