Brooch, 2020.
Each side is 1.75” x 1.75”.
Sterling silver, vitreous enamel, steel, raw sapphire, N95 mask material, social media post, iphone photo, found photo; etched, torch fired, hand fabricated.
This 2-piece brooch is meant to reflect our divided views about the pandemic and consider our behavior through a lens of how history will judge us for it.
On the right, I inscribed an actual Facebook post but presented it in handwriting as if written 100 years ago. It reads:
“I do not believe asymptomatic spread is real. I am not wearing a mask. If you disagree, don’t clutter my feed with your opinion because I give zero shits.”
The ground of the post is deteriorating to create a sense of it being unearthed in the future – and, to imply the very foundation of society eroding. Below the post rests a raw sapphire “submit” button. On the back, a “profile photo” – but the man is clearly from a bygone era.
On the left, a windowsill frames the outdoors. A slat reveals the fibrous material of an N95 mask, mounted and displayed in the same way as the precious sapphire; this calls into focus the sudden shift of what was valuable when N95 masks cost more per gram than precious gems.
I inserted “walls” between the two halves of the piece, showing at once the isolation of the pandemic, and the growing division among one another – yet, the two are inextricably connected by a chain, a situation we cannot ignore nor escape in a time of viral spread.
I developed several collections of work that reflected my personal experiences throughout the pandemic including Holding Light, Requiem, and Charity collections (2020), We Were All Ghosts (2021), and In This Late Hour (2021 release) collections.
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