Religious trauma expressed as jewelry

Spending my entire life up to 19yrs old surrounded by the church was hard for me, especially being a queer/trans person. As an adult I now have the freedom to escape those spaces, but thoughts about what I experienced were still heavy in my mind- almost more so than before as I now have a safe space to unpack them.

For much of my life Christianity felt suffocating, violent, and controlling. As I gained access to more education in my adulthood, these feelings became even stronger. Seeing religion used both historically and in front of my own eyes to deny climate change, ostracize queer individuals, justify genocide of indigenous people, and on and on…. It only amplified those feelings.

I started making jewelry whenever things started to feel too heavy, and I included two of the necklaces I made in this post.

The first is a detailed crucifix hung on a chain between two large seamless rings. The shape is a reference to handcuffs, or a horse’s bit. Crosses are so crude that it feels like a statement on its own- a man tortured and dying on display as a show of “love” from a god who couldn’t forgive without vengeance. The two rings also create a trio with the pendant, referencing the holy trinity.

The second necklace has a large lily of the valley pendant, and is surrounded by small flowers, pearls, and three small crosses. This piece is inspired by a graveyard that was in the yard of my childhood home. It was unkempt and overgrown with lilies, with old forgotten gravestones hidden throughout. It gave me an eerie feeling, not because of the bodies buried there but the sense that it was closer to heaven than anywhere else. As if the dead had drawn God’s attention, and he might see me if I got too close.

#lgbt #religioustrauma #exchristian #safespace #lemon8challenge