The Horse

This is a hammered copper pin of a horse, very abstract.  It has a glaze that gives it multicolored speckles and keeps it from oxidizing.  I bought this while on a trip to visit friends in Tumacacori, Arizona, a small mission south of Tucson.  You may know that right near is the village of Tubac, something of an arts community.  My friends were friends with a young woman and her husband, both O'odham/Hispanic who lived and worked there.  The woman was a metalworker.  She made this pin, and let me buy it.  I think it was then that I began to realize that I really liked pins made in the likeness of animals.  A large fraction of my pins and brooches are animals, including mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, and sealife.

I like to wear this pin against a black background.  Here it is on a short black bomber-style jacket.

The Cameo

This is a cameo that I found in an antique store in Pt. Jefferson, NY.  This is a tourist town on the ferry line on Long Island Sound that joins Long Island with Connecticut.  The town is about as cute as you would expect.  The cameo is beautifully carved with a lighter color shell on the left and darker on the right.  It has crystals set in the filigree silver setting.

This cameo is a long-sought replacement of one that was given to me by my first husband before we were married.  Unfortunately, I lost that one in one of the many burglaries I suffered while living in Tucson.  (I'm sorry to say that the property crime rate in that city is very high.)  The original cameo was a bit fancier:  the woman was wearing a cameo herself with a tiny crystal in it.  Sigh.  But this one is lovely and I choose to imagine that it's the same one.

This brooch needs to be worn at the neck, either pinned to the top of the neckline or on a ribbon tied around the neck, in a truly old-fashioned style.  I used to wear it that way but now don't have the courage.  Here it is on a silk shirt (also very old, from Harold's.  I have a lot of clothes from Harold's and was distraught when it closed.  Now that Talbot's is also gone I don't know how I'm going to dress myself.)

The Dogwood Pin

This demure little pin is made of sterling silver and shaped to look like a dogwood flower.  I got it as part of my catalog mania (see previous posts).  I bought this soon after I moved to Long Island from Tucson.  The most amazing thing -- truly -- about the change was the number and variety and type of plants that grow in a moist, temperate climate in contrast to those that survive the ninth ring of Hell.  In our front yard were a walnut tree, various conifers, and a delicate little tree with perfect little four-petaled flowers in mid-spring.  A dogwood.  Ours had pink flowers.  I loved to go outside and look up through the branches so that the sunlight would shine through the petals, making them the most translucent and ethereal color.

Probably because I lived at least in the neighborhood of New England, I began to receive a catalog called The Vermont Country Store.  Well, you don't know that I was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont -- how could I resist?  The offerings were all stuff you'd need for your sugarwoods and your dairy barn, photographed in black and white, or only described in print.  But once, they offered for sale this little pin.  At a very reasonable price, of course.  Vermonters, and all.

Here is the pin on the lapel of a 40's-style house dress, just like my grandmere Maria Perron used to wear.

The Roadrunner

This is a tiny roadrunner made of pewter with a turquoise eye and little turquoise stones that mark its path.  It's the kind of cutesy thing found in any tourist-centered gift shop in Arizona.  It was a gift to me when I left Arizona to move to New York.  My best friend where I worked gave me this and a little handle-less cup inscribed Tucson along with the admonishment that I shouldn't forget her.

This pin is surprisingly difficult to wear.  First of all, it's so small that it disappears into most clothes.  And then, its cartoon-like design makes it appropriate for only casual wear.  One pretty much needs to get really close to figure out what all the bumps are about.

Here is the roadrunner pin on a little summer sweater.