Blood Bowl, 2023
Copper, fine silver, enamel, thread, menstrual pad
21.8 cm x 8.1 cm x 1.5cm

This piece depicts a Chinese Buddhist sutra known as the Blood Bowl Sutra. It describes a special section in hell where women are sentenced to suffer in a pit of blood because of their sin of menstruation and bleeding during childbirth, and therefore pollute the earth and water with their blood. Cloisonné wire depicts imagery of one of these women sentenced to the Blood Bowl, posed in a way where she looks over her shoulder towards the viewer. This work is intended as a wearable brooch and is sewn onto a sanitary pad stained with dyes. There is a stigma of publicly talking about or showing sanitary products outside of the bathroom, and I intend for a wearer to feel a semblance of embarrassment or reservation, to understand the kind of shame women have felt for centuries.