Fly nest

Every piece has a story. This one begins with a fly tornado.

A pile of organic waste left too long in the studio. A bin opened at the wrong moment. And then, a black cloud of flies, straight at my face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth. Disgusting. Immediate. Humbling.

The lesson came in two parts: do not let the organic trash pile up too high, and do not pack your enamel too high either. Pack it too deep and the silver cloisonné wires disappear into the pile, lost beneath the surface. Then came a deliberate choice: a layer of brown transparent enamel, fired over the top. Not to fix anything, but to lean in. Brown like rot, brown like what flies are drawn to, brown like the whole unglamorous truth of what a nest really is. Back into the kiln. Waiting for it to melt. Waiting a little too long. The piece burned. The kiln, as always, has the final word. (No flies were harmed in the making of this piece. I am not that spiteful. But it did feel very good to finally take out the trash.)

What struck me most, once the chaos settled, was the reminder: we do not live in a world apart from nature. We live inside it. Leave a corner unmanaged, and your home becomes a different ecosystem entirely, one that was always there, waiting. The flies were just doing what flies do. We are the ones who forgot.

Fly Nest is a handcrafted enamel miniature on copper, made using cloisonné and wet packing techniques and fired in the kiln at A. Fraction studio. An original, one-of-a-kind piece exploring the uninvited wildness of domestic life.