This is the Cyclopean Giraluna. It's 18 inches tall, the tallest clay piece I've made. The giraluna is one of the plants described in
Parallel Botany, Leo Lionni's alternate universe botany textbook
, one of my earliest inspirations for clay art. I've made many of them over the past nine years. This one doesn't have much in common with the giraluna as described in the book which have seeds which serve no purpose at all since the parallel plants do not reproduce, and not an ever vigilant eye.
I just realized as taking these photos that the top part of the giraluna
is also The Elder Sign, a symbol used in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
(although the image of the eye in a five-pointed star itself is an invention of August Derleth).
Leo Lionni also wrote beautiful and psychedelic children's books such as
Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse.
