When I was growing up, I went to a one-room school that had little in the way of extras. Sometimes the teacher would allow us to go to the small chest of narrow drawers that housed various bugs with their cocoons and, in the case of silkworms, their silk. Recently I found a stickpin holding part of the lining of a velvet smoking jacket in place. The top of the stickpin—a Bakelite fly from the ‘30’s— could have been a resident of the drawers, and was the basis for this piece. I made a mold of the fly and then pressed polymer clay into the mold and made many flies. I made them in different colors, set some as rings, others as stick pins and brooches and one as a memorial pin. The box to house the pieces of jewelry was a natural progression of this process. The box contains many recurring images from my work: the grill, the porthole, the shape of the box itself, and hinges which take on an insect life. The enamel plique a jour window in the back panel is a nod to my enameling background; the metal hasp is part of my ongoing interest in locks. The copper roof with its rivets and the box itself with aged paint complete the archaeological specimen look I was hoping to convey.