Nautilus Magnificat

This one is meant to slow your breathing. Nautilus Magnificat is the still point — the calm sitting in the middle of a sea that isn't calm at all. I wanted a piece you could look at at the end of a long day and feel your shoulders come down an inch.

The shell is opened so you can see the whole spiral at once, chamber after chamber, each one built a little larger than the last and each one sealed off behind the animal as it moved forward. The light comes across it slowly. Nothing in the picture is in a hurry.

That's why I think it's worth living with. It doesn't shout on day one and then go quiet on you. It's the sort of thing you keep noticing — the turn of the spiral, the small shifts in the light — and it stays companionable for years.

It's the first of three. I've been using the nautilus as a stand-in for the human condition, and each piece takes a different part of it: Magnificat — The Glory is the meditative one, the calm. Miles Militis — The Warrior is the hard truth that it's eat or be eaten out there, and that you either hold your ground or get run over. Progenies — The Family is three shells together — the male, the female, the offspring — and it's about union, bonding, and what we give up for each other. This is where the series begins, at the quiet end.