He left, and paid his way by selling matches from his father…
After fleeing pogroms and poverty in Lithuania, my great grandpa, still a teenager, funded his migration across Europe to Belfast, by selling matches.
Three generations later and my matches are made of silver wire. Melted, carved, soldered and functionless.
Once a match is finished I might ‘burn’ it: heating it, blackening it in sulphur and sculpting it further.
Some of these burned matches are portraits. One, for instance, is modelled on a real match that my father struck and let burn out. I took one of the already sculpted silver matches and worked it further, attempting to replicate what the fire had done to my dad’s match. The silver snapped where it shouldn’t have, and this becomes part of the process — my broken portraits of family members.
This project began from a place of hopelessness, a moment where I could see no way forward carrying everything that has been handed down to me. Week after week, carving functionless matches out of precious metal I began to work through the many things we call ‘inheritance’.
This exploration touches on societal themes that interest me, around money. I’ve explored those in a workshop which I have detailed in a separate post.
Thanks to my teachers Anna Butwell at the Metal Atelier and Fritz and Lars at the Gold Coop.