Yours to Mine: A Memorial is a 8.5”x7.5”x4” redwood sculpture. This work is part of the cross-cultural tradition of saving artifacts from one’s life to remember them in death. It contains a copy of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest which was given to me by a friend from his personal library, the last physical gift he would give me before he died in 2023. Yours to Mine: A Memorial serves as a memorializing box, to protect, conceal, and commemorate both the object inside and the one who gave it to me.
To memorialize a loved one is an incredibly private act. By enclosing the gift in layers of wood wall, it becomes an even more private practice of remembrance. Closed, it is a wooden monolith; singular, simple, concealing the contents. The face with a split and wooden sutures creates a window that shows the viewer there is something within. The outer box lifts off to reveal the interior compartment and the book inside. Yours to Mine: A Memorial highlights the intimacy of grief and the urge to cling to physical objects left behind by the deceased.