Grandmother
Grandmother is a celebration of the enduring legacy of matriarchs explored through the intimate lens of a grandchild’s memories.
In these works charm bracelets become a medium for storytelling, with each charm capturing the achievements, predilections, and trials of a grandmother - transforming a simple bracelet into a vessel for memory and meaning across generations.
The standardized nature of the charms is intentional, showing how individuality emerges not from the uniqueness but from the personal resonance that can be instilled in mass-produced objects of the components through the act of selection. The repetition of charms across the collection reminds us that even the most uniform materials can be curated into something wholly personal.
Each bracelet is a tribute to the complexity of maternal legacies - simultaneous ordinary and extraordinary, singular and shared.
What makes a Grandmother?
The collection is composed of twenty-six paper sculptures, each depicting a chain draped to form a letter of the alphabet and adorned with a series of charms that represent elements of a grandmother’s life - in this case of “E” a woman named Evelyn. While the charms are used and reused across the collection, they come together here to tell the unique story of Evelyn’s life as recounted by her grandchild.
Diploma
Graduating in 1941 as one of only two women in her medical school class, Evelyn specialized in pediatrics and was one of the first female doctors in the Canadian Province of Manitoba
Flower
Across the collection the flower denotes children, with the four petals here representing Evelyn’s four daughters. Tragically, two of these where lost to multiple sclerosis (MS), as shown by the butterfly - a symbol of MS awareness
Locket
Evelyn lost her husband Bruce to pancreatic cancer in 1970 and never re-married. Despite being pre-deceased by over thirty years, her wedding ring was the only jewelry she consistently wore.
Canoe Paddles
Unsatisfied by retirement, Evelyn began volunteering to provide medical care to indigenous children living on reserves in Northern Manitoba and became skilled a skilled canoeist through her travels to these remote communities
