Frank Sheriff's long-legged bronze frogs may seem like twee "Wind In The Willows" characters at first glance, but the creatures — 38 of them, carrying "things to show to two infants" — tell a deeper story.

The cast-bronze tableau "is based upon a homemade fable about the lifelong search for life's meaning, a search that begins before we have memories," explains Sheriff, who is a sculpture instructor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

"My own search has led me to believe that truth reveals itself in unexpected ways at unexpected times from unexpected sources."

Sheriff used the lost-wax method — each amphibian (based on garden knickknacks he found in Tucson, Ariz.) was first made in wax, then burned out of a mold in a kiln. The artist then melted bronze (at about 2,000 degrees) and poured it into the empty molds. Sheriff hammered, filed and chiseled the castings, welding and soldering some of them together.

For Sheriff, the frogs and babies illustrate how "we learn to trust and learn to doubt, constantly deciphering truth from lies, good from bad."