Sunmark Sundial Foundry — Sundial Maker Salamanders Reference Sheet

The story of Sunmark Sundial Foundry

A fictional story inspired by the artwork.

The Sunmark founders received their smallest order in a matchbox. Inside lay a paper circle marked with a single line. An elderly gardener wanted a sundial with exactly one hour on it. She declined to say which hour, but invited the six salamanders to spend an afternoon beside her greenhouse.

They arrived with a bronze blank, a triangular gnomon and enough pencils for a week. The gardener offered them stools. Bees visited the thyme. A gate clicked across the lane. The founders watched the shadow travel across the blank until a small hand pushed a red mitten through a gap in the hedge.

Grandmother and grandchild met there every afternoon when school let out. The child was too small to reach the latch, and the gardener’s hearing was too poor to catch a knock. In clear weather the greenhouse cast its first shadow over the thyme just as the mitten appeared. The salamanders marked that moment with a red line.

They mounted the dial low enough for both visitors to see. For cloudy afternoons they added a second instrument of their own design: a string through the hedge, tied to a bright scrap of cloth beside the greenhouse door. The first time it fluttered, six founders and one gardener hurried out to open the gate.

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