Heart Armor & Heart Shields Collection
Heart Armor body and architectural adornment is a talisman to gather strength and will to overcome adversity. Each piece is a wish, a hope, a prayer. I have created over one hundred architectural sized Heart Armors and Heart Shields and countless dozens of body adornments in the last quarter century.
Enduring and evolving over the decades, this concept emerged from studying a dry milkweed pod in the aftermath of 911 while trying to cope with my brother’s death from colon cancer. This pod once shielded its seeds as they matured, then blew away leaving just the husk as symbol of the protective vigil of its life force and also a kind of faith in nature that its cycle would continue in the next generation of seeds like my brother does with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; with my sister, our closest family since we could not have children of our own. The first two life sized pod forms sculpted in sterling silver inverted and joined forming the two halves of a heart as a new friend lamented the love of his life walking out on him. I said," You need some Heart Armor and I'm going to build it for you."
The first Heart Armor appeared as a series of sterling and copper brooches and earrings that could offer wearers a "touchstone" of strength during hard times. So many are in need of some talisman to garner their will to survive, like seeds stored in a granary offer hope of a future crop. It’s exciting to explore the theme in scale that ranges from one half inch to eight feet!
These first sculptures of both large and small scale were formed as the elders at Taos Pueblo entered a drumming cycle calling for rain to replenish the river through their home that had gone dry for the first time in the memory of The People. During this time they assembled the youth to clean the beaver damns from the headwaters which originated at The Sacred Blue Lake on their ancestral land. After four days of fasting and working, it rained. In 5 days, water began to reappear in the stream that nourished the pueblo. Several of these first heart Armor emerged with the pulse-like drumming of thanks to Creator for hearing their plea and giving them sustenance. I lived and worked within one and a half miles of Taos Pueblo then and link the sound of pulse, drum and hammer. I always hear this drumming when working on these pieces, even here in my Maryland studio years later creating the newest members of this series.
A less three dimensional version of this series is called Heart Shields. They also range in dimension from about 2”-4’ and may be worn pr hung inside or outside to protect your home.
The metal is distressed by hammering, oxidation, reticulation granulation or texturing: telling the story of battle with the elements, as inspiration for each individual to pull from their inner most resources and stand unvanquished and indomitable during times of personal crisis. This art is about any individual anywhere who has faced tragedy and gotten on with their life, or needs to.