A little more detail…
The Dimpsey time – The Hour Where Dog Meets Wolf
A Hairy Growler Canon Piece
There are moments the modern world has forgotten how to name.
Not because they disappeared…
but because they were never meant to be owned.
They arrive quietly.
Unannounced.
A soft dimming of the day.
A loosening of edges.
A slipping of certainty.
The old dialect held one surviving word for it:
Dimpsy.
Long before language divided the world into tame and wild…
there was only recognition.
It is said that in the dimpsy hour,
when the light forgets its allegiance,
the boundary between hearth and forest dissolves.
The dog remembers. The wolf softens.
And for a breath, just one
they stand not as opposites…
but as the same creature seen through different lives.
The Form
Cut from a pair of reclaimed silver shillings — once part of the human current of trade and exchange — this piece has been removed from that system entirely.
What once measured value
now carries meaning.
At its centre:
- A dog, seated, grounded, loyal to the known world
- A wolf, standing, alert, tuned to the unseen
- Between them: stillness — the rarest element of all
Encircling them:
- Bare woodland forms, reaching inward like witnesses
- A moon held in branches, marking the hour outside time
- Beneath: a path that leads nowhere… and everywhere
The Depth (The Hidden Layer)
Behind the visible scene lies a second forest.
Hand cut. Deliberately set back. Partially obscured. It is the unseen world, the depth beneath perception.
When worn, light moves through the front layer and catches the forest behind, creating shifting shadows.
The Making
Each piece is created slowly, at the bench, by hand.
- Saw-pierced using a fine blade through solid silver
- Built in two distinct layers, aligned and soldered by eye
- Darkened in the recesses, then brought back to light through careful polishing
No casting.
No duplication.
Only time, pressure, and the steady negotiation between tool and material.
Every line carries resistance. Every mark carries intent.
The Heirloom Effect
This is not a trend piece. It does not belong to a season. It belongs to a time horizon beyond the present.
The silver has already lived one life — passed through unknown hands, through years you will never witness.
Now it begins another.
Worn close to the body.
Gathering meaning.
Absorbing presence.
And one day…
Passed on again.
Collector’s Note
Within the Hairy Growler canon, certain pieces emerge not as designs, but as anchors.
This is one of them.
A piece that does not explain itself immediately.
That reveals more slowly, over time.
That asks something of the wearer.
What It Asks
Not who you are.
But what remains when certainty fades.
When the roles fall away.
When the noise quietens.
When you find yourself…
in that brief, honest space between worlds.
She began as money.
A small, passing thing in the hands of many.
Now she holds a moment that cannot be spent.
The hour beautifully described as “where dog meets wolf”.
Where the known meets the wild.
And where, if you stand still long enough…
you may recognise both looking back at you.
100% Handcrafted & Recycled in Cambridge, UK
Size : Approx 23 mm diameter
Heather Le Dantec (verified owner) –
Beautifully imagined and crafted. The layered effect from the two shillings creates a magical, liminal space echoing the imagery itself, and there’s a lively contrast of light and dark. They may be a dog and a wolf, but they look like my two departed house-wolves, planning some mischief together in the otherworld. Love, love, love.