Nova and Soleil the Clownfish Necklace

You already know them. Everyone knows them. Those bold white stripes on that impossible orange, darting in and out of the swaying tentacles of a sea anemone somewhere warm and impossibly blue. They are perhaps the most recognized fish in the ocean. What most people do not know is that their actual lives are far stranger and more extraordinary than anything a movie could invent.

The Clownfish

Here is what the 2003 animated film got spectacularly wrong. All clownfish are born male. Every single one of them. In any given anemone colony the largest and most dominant fish transforms into a female, becoming the sole breeding adult and the matriarch of the whole group. Below her is the breeding male. Below him are smaller non-breeding males arranged in a strict size-based hierarchy, each one waiting patiently for their turn to move up.

And then something extraordinary happens if the female dies or disappears. The breeding male does not go looking for a new partner. He transforms. His testes shrink. His body grows larger. His hormones shift completely over the course of just a few weeks, estrogen rising where testosterone had been, ovaries developing where none existed before. He becomes her. He becomes the new female matriarch, the new Soleil where Nova once was, and the whole colony reorganizes itself around her.

This is called protandrous hermaphroditism and it is one of the most remarkable biological strategies in the ocean, a living demonstration that identity is not fixed, that transformation is possible at any age, and that a community can reorganize itself around whoever it needs most.

The relationship between clownfish and their sea anemone is equally extraordinary. Sea anemone tentacles are venomous enough to paralyze most small fish on contact. Clownfish are immune because of a specialized mucus coating that fools the anemone's stinging cells into treating the fish as a non-threat. Young clownfish are not born with this protection. They earn it slowly, bathing carefully in the tentacles over time until the coating builds up enough to keep them safe. In return the clownfish keep the anemone clean, drive away predators, and bring in nutrients. Neither one could thrive as well without the other. They have been doing this together for a very long time.

The Piece

Their names are Nova and Soleil, light and sun, because every clownfish pair contains within it the possibility of one becoming the other, brightness transforming into brightness in a different form.

Nova and Soleil swim together inside a circular sterling silver frame, their striped bodies deeply oxidized so the white bands read in vivid contrast against the dark silver of their scales, each fin and eye carved with careful detail. Seaweed and coral branches curl around them inside the frame, the whole composition a tiny cross section of reef life suspended in silver. Above the circular frame a turquoise and agate doublet stone hangs in a granulated bezel setting, its surface a swirl of ocean blue and soft pink and white that reads exactly like shallow tropical water seen from above, clouds and sea meeting at the surface. The whole pendant measures approximately 3 inches tall and hangs on an 18 inch sterling silver rope chain.

The Craftsmanship

• Pendant: approximately 3 inches tall
• Stone: turquoise and agate doublet, ocean blue and pink
• Material: recycled sterling silver throughout, oxidized
• Chain: 18 inch sterling silver rope chain
• Edition: one of a kind

One of a Kind

There is only one Nova and only one Soleil. This reef, this stone, this particular pair swimming together in this particular circle of silver: they exist once. When they find their person they will never be made again exactly like this.

A Note from Tamara

I made this piece because clownfish make people smile, which is reason enough. But I also made it because once you know the actual biology of what these little fish are capable of, the transformation, the patience, the partnership with the anemone that takes weeks to build and lasts a lifetime, you cannot look at them the same way again. They are not the fish from the movie. They are something considerably more interesting. I named them Nova and Soleil because light transforming into light felt like exactly the right way to describe what clownfish actually do. I hope whoever wears them carries a little of that transformative energy with them wherever they go.

Shipping

Your Nova and Soleil are finished, packaged safely, and will be on their way to you within 3 to 5 business days.