In Remembrance

Today, I completed my piece for the Anti-War Medals exhibit at the Shaw Contemporary Jewelry Gallery in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

The Anti-War Medals exhibition was first shown in November 2003 at Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco as a response to the War in Iraq. The exhibition then toured during 2004 and 2005, adding new pieces in each country where the show appeared. The expanded exhibition with 200 artists from 16 countries returned to Velvet da Vinci in November 2005, as a response to the continuing war and occupation in Iraq.

The exhibition revived in October 2007 at Thomas Mann Gallery I/O in New Orleans, with some of the original pieces and many new ones, will continue to travel for as long as there is interest.

The next stop is Northeast Harbor, Maine at Shaw Jewelry, with an opening date of July 17, 2008.

I wanted to create something that recognizes the lives lost during times of war, most of which are deaths of innocent civilians, as well as honor those who lost their lives in the service. This is such a potent subject, it is difficult to create a piece to represent my feelings about war in general and the current conflict. I sat on this for a few months trying to find the best way to portray these feelings as a war medal.

I researched the total casualties since the beginning of the Iraq war... which unfortunately are increasing each day that the war goes on... these are the total deaths by country as of June 5, 2008.