"Dragonfly Moon" was my second venture into working with pigskin leather. (The first, "Upstream" is now in a private collection and sadly there are no existing images of it.) Dragonfly Moon was a labor of love - dragonflies being very precious to me, as well as being my personal totem animal.

Dragonflies are symbols of the afterlife and/or the human soul in several cultures; Japanese, and to the Hopi Indians who tell the story of, "The Boy Who Made Dragonfly". My personal experience with these amazing creatures has included coaxing one into my hand where it stayed for quite a long time as I held it up to my face so close I could see its faceted eyes. It was a very moving experience, as if a deep communion were taking place between our two souls in a way words cannot adequately convey. In the context of their symbolism in death and the afterlife, they also have an ancestral tie to me as my English name on my mother's side of the family several hundred years ago was, "Coffin" - back in a time when your name often denoted the vocation your family was in.

The body of the bag is hand-dyed, blue pigskin leather - a soft, easy to work with leather that is my favorite medium to work in for purses, pouches and amulet bags. The beadwork took exactly one month of on and off work. The crescent moon is outlined in faux copper beads. I didn't want them tarnishing, as cleaning them would risk staining and damaging the leather body of the bag. The chain has since been replaced with a beautiful, more elaborate chain in copper that is detachable for easy cleaning.