Black Walnut Pin

While living in VA transitional housing, I found a cache of black walnut shells. They were under a tree close to a food pantry in the same complex. I remembered where that tree was. After about 7 months of communal living, my caseworker found a wheelchair-accessible apartment. Lucky thing too because although I have prosthetic legs, I was in transitional housing after falling through a deck. I am still at least one operation away from being able to walk again.

I depended on that food pantry for the first food in my new apartment. While waiting for my monthly food gift, I visited that tree. The idea of collaborating with the squirrels, I gathered a bag of split and half-eaten black walnuts. I shaped them further with hand tools, dried them in the oven, and quasi-stabilized by soaking them in boiled linseed oil and beeswax. 

Pin back style is push / lapel pin style.