Mervin the Alchemist, 8”H
Raccoon in Japanese lore is a creature of wine and a trickster. The Alchemist is Protector of fruit bearing trees and shrubs and medicinal plants. His insignia is Transformation. The gentleman's cane is fashioned from a piece of driftwood.
Alchemy is an ancient philosophy of shape-shifting concerning both physical matter and metaphysical elements, to strive for perfection and eternal life. It is considered a proto-science that evolves into modern science and medicine. Alchemy became a brief reality in particle physics, where, in May 2025, the Hadron collider at CERN confirmed that lead atoms were converted into gold by an "imperfect" collision of lead ions which converted 208Pb into a gold isotope, 203Au.