The copper penguin-shaped cookie-cutter was given to me by friend Don Brewer several years ago. Although I’m well-known among my friends for my baking skills, I’m ultimately not a great fan of rolled-and-cut cookies which require a lot of time and patience. As a result, Mr. Penguin never got used for his original purpose. However, I did not put him away out of sight; he moved around my home, from shelf to shelf, most recently being relegated to the basement, where he was part of an ensemble decorating a countertop that was a miscellany of found objects, both utilitarian and non. When I first started looking through this museum-of-collected-objects that is my home for items that could fit into a 4″ x 4″ x 1″ space, the penguin virtually jumped off the shelf into my hand. Serendipitously, it fit at a quirky angle into the small test-box of cardboard that I had made to verify an item’s usability for this project. The amber jewel was an afterthought that brought the penguin alive, but forced me to bend the copper a bit to fit the flashing eye – another found item, from among a number of costume-jewelry amber-brooches that I relieved Dumpster Diver-genius Neil Benson of when he asked us as a group to please help him empty his friend Michael Tierson’s basement of the myriad found items he had been storing there, temporarily. But that’s another story…