Little bronze frog figurines // Spring peepers hand-sculpted and cast in bronze in a limited edition

If you live on the eastern side of Canada or the U.S., you know the sound of spring peepers. These tiny frogs--only about an inch or 2-3 cm long at their biggest--perform a loud chorus each evening starting with the first thaw, and they keep going until late spring. While they prefer year-round ponds, they can also live in vernal pools. When I heard the peepers this spring, I felt a strange emotion--hope.

I've been thinking a lot about vernal pools recently. They are almong the humblest of wetlands, silty spots full of dead leaves. With rising sea levels, wetland areas will become more and more important for flood mitigation even as they are more and more threatened by changes in the water table, salinity, and pollution.

These spring peepers are actual size (1 inch or 2-3 cm). They were cast in bronze from my original sculpture, which I carved primarily with specialized handheld steel tools from a solid block of wax. I used some burrs and drills for the rough outlines, but most of the carving was done without power tools. The process is somewhat like Auguste Rodin's process for creating his bronze statues, although on a much different scale (and using different materials, since Rodin's models were done in clay rather than wax).

You can choose the basic color/patina of your frog and either the mid-peep frog or the crouching frog. Be aware that patination is a natural chemical process and that no two frogs will ultimately be alike.

When I exhibit at art shows, I like to scatter my frogs around the table for people to discover. They never fail to spark joy. I imagine these frogs scattered around your living space as well--perhaps one on a book on the bookshelf and one on the shelf below it, or arranged next to a candle on the mantel, or balanced on a lamp or the TV.

In Chinese folklore, frogs symbolize prosperity and fertility.