Moon over ?

A local wood dealer got a shipment of West coast woods recently that included some chunks of Arbutus that had obviously spent a considerable length of time drifting around the Pacific Ocean. This is one of them. As soon as it was stood on end, I saw what I wanted to do with it. I only cleaned up the wood with a soft brass brush to get the dirt and sand out of the cracks. Then I sprayed it with two rattle cans of artist's fixitif (matt) which preserves the incredible weathering without changing the color or texture in any way. The turning was the ball -- a piece of Big Leaf Maple burl that I fixed in place with a metal rod. The base is a piece of feathered Walnut crotch wood. The ball, in real life, seems almost surreal and shimmers with a sort of gold lumenesence which does not show in the photo. After the turning was done, I bleached the ball almost white. But I have found that bleached wood eventually goes an eggshell brown. So, I pickled it (a thin white paint meant for enhancing grain in oak floors), After that came a coat of Deft. Then I tried something new I had been experimenting with. After the first coat of Deft was dry, I added a second coat, then immediately sprinkled on some Jacquard PearlEx pigment powder, in this case, Sparkle Gold. I rubbed and rubbed, and the sprinkles of gold gradually spread over the ball into a soft even shimmer. Some say it looks like a moon in the forest. My son thinks it is otherworldly and called it "Moon over Galactica". My interpretation was very political. Make it personal by making of it what you want. It is 28 inches high and 19 inches wide.