Description
Inspiration for the Red-Eyed Tree Frog Necklace
This model of the tree frog, upon which this Tree Frog Necklace is based, is a bit of a star in my collection. It was my first model and so is really the reason that the rest of the collection exists. When travelling up to Lexi Dick’s studio for my first go at wax modelling, I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to model. Frogs and lilypads featured strongly in my long-term jewellery sketchbook – so, when Lexi asked what I would model, the answer was frog. In my mind, I meant common frog – but I completely fell in love with a photo of a Red-Eyed Tree Frog in a perfect jewellery pose.
After four hours of modelling, my beautiful frog was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen – and so my frog (pendant version) is called Quasimodo (see last photo!). Thankfully I persevered – for quite a long time – but out of it I got my Quasimodo… And my jewellery business. He is even in my logo.
But of course, I couldn’t possibly pair him up with a lilypad – I’m not sure if they would ever come across them in the wild. But the monstera deliciosa (cheese plant) was the ideal candidate. We had a huge one, when we were children, that grew all of the way across the dining room. A necklace placing the two together seemed like a perfect match and is still as popular as it was the day I designed it.