This trio of earrings was created for the show Metamorphosis, held at the Multnomah Arts Center in February 2020, and was inspired by Richard Redgrave’s 1846 painting Throwing off Her Weeds. Considered vulgar when it was first exhibited, the painting depicts a young widow preparing to change out of her black mourning dress and rejoin the world. A sprig of orange blossom on the table hints at a new marriage, though the suitor coming through the door was painted out by the artist.

The first pair of earrings wears the black of full mourning, and the stylized flower is a traditional forget-me-not. The second pair is in the gray and lilac of half-mourning, its flower a cheerful crocus. The third pair has cast off mourning entirely and is ready for remarriage, displaying its orange blossom. As the jewelry emerges from its show of grief it also advances through time, the style changing from that of the mid nineteenth century to that of the early twentieth.