Wisdom Ring
1989
Sterling silver, human wisdom tooth
🥇🏆 GOLD KEY WINNER 🏆🥇
1990 Scholastic Art Awards
Jewelry & Metalsmithing category
I made this piece in high school after having my wisdom teeth out, and submitted it as a joke to the Scholastic Art Awards along with two other pieces I thought would actually impress the judges. Well, while the two serious pieces failed to award, this ring wound up winning on the state level and subsequently winning a Gold Key at the national judging in New York. It then went on to sit on display with the other winning pieces in Chicago for a month. It wasn't until sixteen years later that the rest of me finally made it to Chicago, on the occasion of my cousin's wedding—I always found it amusing that my DNA had been to Chicago but that I hadn't!
I of course took the ring back with me when I went, as seen in the second photo in front of Chicago's famous Cloud Gate (aka The Bean). As an added bonus, that's my dad in the lower-left corner of the photo, and the cluster of three people in the mid-ground are my brother, my mother and my sister-in-law (L-R). Present but not visible is my niece (but you can see the shadow of her stroller).