Lauren Darrouzet
(She/Her, United States)
National Honor Society, Student Ambassadors, Theater, Art Club
Lauren Darrouzet
Gothic Dyke
Sterling silver, Acrylic, Glass, Sugru, Spinel, Cubic Zirconia
44” x 18” x 0.1”
2020
Photograph by Linette Kielinski
Pictured with the work of Andy Huang
“In the last semester of my senior year of high school, I was indefinitely suspended and banned from campus because of the contents of my LiveJournal page. Being closeted at an all-girls Catholic high school made it difficult to fit in. Rumors flew and as an angsty teenager I escaped into my LiveJournal – these were pre-Myspace, pre-Facebook days. A group of girls discovered it and deemed me a “gothic dyke”, which I eventually embraced. This rosary is a tribute to that girl. Where the crucifix would sit, I etched an image of the statue of Jesus that sat at the entrance of my high school into sterling silver. I laser engraved an “emo” self-portrait I took at 16 into pearlescent acrylic on the back of the Hail Holy Queen medallion. Cast sterling silver rose thorns and laser cut acrylic with red glass rose-shaped beads make up the four Our Father’s and the five decades of Hail Mary’s. On the back of the crucifix I engraved the Latin phrase “per aspera ad astra” or, “through adversity to the stars.” Though I struggled, the experience pushed me to take risks, challenge norms, and become the person I am today.”