Here is an example of a picture without a thousand words from January 2013. As I was going through my album looking for Throwback posts, this almost didn’t make the cut because I didn’t leave myself enough information.

At the time of the photo I was still experimenting with metal clay. My sister is an ancient historian and I suspected this was a project for her, so I pinged her for confirmation. She provided the name “fibulae” and an interesting article about their findings and use.

I can tell from my photo that I had a museum photo as reference, and I made a model with less expensive polymer clay, that looks more swan-like than my reference photo. The middle polished bronze clay fibulae I obviously spent more time on, but I’m not sure if I fired the clay with the wire in place or epoxied it in later (I’m already not using ancient foraging techniques, since I’m working with modern metal clay.) The last fibulae on the right is what raises the most questions. Did I not polish it? It is the same shape and style as the bright bronze, so I’m sure it is my work (my replication skills are not finely honed, especially then.) Did I try to antique it by adding patina, or is this how it came out of the kiln? Did I make this before or after the bright bronze fibulae? I have a feeling that I fired it with the wire in place and either the firing or the antiquing weakened the metal, causing the breakage. Did I do it on purpose? So many questions.

Here is a picture of the back, which answers the question of how the pin fastens.