Artist Statement for "Oh, Wonder!" Votives for the Anthropocene

            We fabricate keepsakes for a variety of reasons: sometimes to invoke good fortune, other times to commemorate victory and personal prowess. Items with a social life – good luck charms, political badges, award ribbons – represent exciting moments of empathy, identity and exchange within our day-to-day sartorial expressions. To further investigate the invocation of luck, protection, and perfection, I explore these practices – badges, ex voto, statuary, trophies, medallions - through color, line, and form using vitreous enamels, the permanency of metal, and soft fabric.  Translating historical artifacts into a contemporary vernacular, I discover new meanings of the objects and traditions in question.