Look for me under your boot-soles: a mechanical reliquary brooch
copper, silver, brass, lazertran, acetate, mica, found objects
private collection

My grandmother was an avid gardener, loved canning tomatoes and pickles and drank her tea terrifyingly, scaldingly hot. Having "lived through the depression", she was quite comfortable peering through an empty toilet roll tube to enhance her vision. There were always home made cookies at her house, and sweets. She had the most unique and hilarious sense of humor I've ever encountered, which often centered around her selective hearing, and family gatherings were spent laughing so hard that we could barely breath.  So much of who I am is because of her, and after she passed at age 99, I made this reliquary locket brooch to celebrate her extraordinary life. Turn the crank and grass blades move around as if growing...

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

"You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you."
                                                                 --Walt Whitman