In Mourning

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It's pretty easy to see what my current obsessions are by looking at the critters I make.  I've been really drawn to old mourning jewelry and funerary artifacts lately. I recently bought an old (I don't know the exact age, but I think it's fairly old) silver-plated plaque that was made to adorn a child's casket.

It's a sad artifact for sure, but I also think it is very sweet. There's no way to really know if it was ever used, as there's just as good a chance it was leftover stock from the manufacturer. But families would keep these plaques (often personalized with engraved names and dates) as mementos after the burial. People didn't have stacks of photos or home videos to remember loved ones by, so simpler things were kept instead - locks of hair, a single (expensive) photograph, clothing items or ephemera from the funeral.  Funerary custom is an amazing and interesting topic, because every culture has its own canon of tradition, practice, and belief.


Now, of course we all know the Victorian English were over-the-top about any customary thing, and mourning a death was no exception. Mandatory social rules and strict dress codes most certainly applied, and right after a death (especially of one's husband or child), solid black dress was expected, often up to a year after the fact.

Taking out all the history-seen-through-modern-eyes fantasy aspects of this, there's something pretty amazing aesthetically about layers upon layers of black. Black isn't just *black*, there's dull, shiny, dusty, faded, silken, velvet - any texture or fabric is going to be different than the one next to it, adding into this amazing layered effect.

I'm a huge fan of layered monochrome in any color, but the neutrals really do it for me.

Oh yeah, this guy's name is "Epitaph", and he's for the "New Dimensions" show which opens May 12, 2011 at Bold Hype Gallery in NYC!