Forgé

Wrought is the first is the Skein series. Each woman in cabinet cards that found me at a small second hand shop about a year ago was photographed at the same New York City studio — confirmed by the imprint on the cabinet card. The brooch is the one constant. So, I decided to dive into the archives and find a mourning brooch (The Met Open Access) to anchor the series. Each panel is built from the visual grammar of the cabinet card — the formal pose, the face is clear, the body and dress receding into flatness. I preserved that hierarchy deliberately, but really wanted to play with transparencies and generations. Layered above the torn, resolved fragments is a transparent print of the original cabinet card, hovering and ghosted — because memory is never a clean transmission. What survives is partial. Then, there is that single piece of mourning jewelry that outlived all three women who wore it.