A Box for the Owl

The Great Horned Owl now has a box of his own.  A main feature is the vintage porcelain pocket watch dial that I found on Etsy.com.  It's probably about 100 years old and a beautiful off-white color with roman numerals and an elegent "Elgin" inscription.  It has only one hand - the hour hand, I think - and no second hand.  All appropriate for an air of mystery.

The inscription around the bottom of the box says "WISDOM FOLLOWS\TIME WHICH\GROWING EVER OLDER\OMNIA REVELAT"   "Omnia revelat" means "teaches all things," or "reveals all."  The English was too long to fit in the space, hence the Latin.  "Time, growing ever older, teaches all things" is a quote from one of Aeschylus' plays which I learned in college and have never forgotten.  I wanted to use the original ancient Greek, but I couldn't find it.  I added "wisdom follows" to the beginning so that the quote would reference the owl as well as the watch face.

I so much enjoyed working with the symbolism for this piece and I think that is the allure of making these little boxes.

My intention is to line them with silk, but I haven't done that yet.

I used a lot of caning on the owl - for the wing and tail feathers and for the tiny feathers on the head, back, and shoulders.  This is probably an influence from my wonderful time at the Clayville retreat where so many people were working with that technique.  It's the first time I've used caning in this way and I think it was pretty successful for portraying the tiny color changes.