Quiet Luxury

On one visit home, I took a pair of worn out socks from my dad’s drawer, as I had forgotten my own. After wearing them for a month, I had made them nearly unwearable with how much the holes had grown. I decided I would either have to retire them or mend them, but  felt too attached to the composition that resulted from our collective milage. In looking for a way to memorialize this, I turned to metal, specifically silver for its preciousness, to represent and exchange sentimental value for material value. This makes the socks unwearable - their preservation interferes with usefulness. I am particularly interested in the bastardization of functional objects into art objects. In “freeing” them of their obligations to us, we strip them of purpose. What does it mean that we value tools of daily life more when they are on display, than when they are actually in use? How much waste could be avoided if we treated our possessions and the work they do for us as precious objects, putting as much effort back into to keep them in use for as long as possible. This piece is perhaps a satirical attempt at this. While they might serve me in other ways, this pair of socks will never make it back to me or my father for their fundamental purpose.

2025. Sterling silver, Dad’s old socks, thread