Maxine’s Sailfish

This is a full-sized sail fish covered in glass rhinestones from tip to tail. Every single stone was hand placed. It’s 9 feet long and about 3.5 feet tall.

The taxidermy fish hung in my grandmother-in-law’s home on Perkins Lane in Seattle for over 50 years. It was caught by her husband, Dan, in Acapulco in 1950. There is a certificate with all of the details from the day it was caught. Quite faded now, the certificate is marked 194… followed by a blank space. Apparently, they had not updated their certificates yet so “1950” was typed into the blank space, which is unfortunately now very faded.

 Maxine lived to be 103, died in 2015, and the sailfish hung in our workshop for a few years. It always made my heart sink to see it in such a dusty, insignificant setting. This majestic creature, once glorious and thriving in a vast and wondrous ocean just… hung there, unnoticed and unappreciated. I felt deeply obligated to dust it off, breathe new life into it and show it to the world. It was truly gorgeous as it was, but I could not deny my intrinsic urge…

It took an entire year to complete. I spent (at least) a full month of that year staring at it, shaking my head, wondering what on earth I was doing.  I kept asking “Why would anyone do this?'“, but I couldn’t stop. I was guided by a vision.  It just had to be done.

As I look at it hanging now, I am happy I was so driven to see this project come to fruition. It fills me with such joy to see her shine as she was meant to do.

The sailfish as it hung on the wall of the basement tiki bar in Maxine’s and Dan’s house on Perkins Lane.

Maxine’s Sailfish is currently on display at the Tonsorium Cocktail Lounge in the Lodge at St Edward.