objects, I appreciate the effort and skill that went into sewing it and I began to imagine its creator’s lived experiences. I wanted to celebrate the unknowable Her and create a monument open to visitation from the countless others who deserve recognition. 

KM: Relationships to craft in an expanded field are apparent throughout your work and practice. In your artist statement, you speak about the handmade as something that occupies a part of the maker long after the maker is gone. Are these visible and tactile histories important informants as you approach material and subject matter? How do you consider the notion of craft and the "handmade" as it relates to the understanding of your work?
 
EP: I am a glassmaker who moonlighted as an iron caster to make this work. As a glassmaker I am troublingly aware that so many of the objects I have made will vastly outlive me, occupying space on this overcrowded planet long after I've gone. The Dress was made at a time when I was questioning the markers of identity we leave behind and how long memories of us will be attached to the physical remnants of our lives. As someone who works with materials that decay on a timescale that is vast in comparison with a human life, I am aware of myself as a future anonymous maker; the labor of my hands will be left in my wake. Being selective about the objects I choose to make and doing my best to imbue them with my own practiced skill and craft lends me a certain sense of peace. In the case of The Dress I hope it shines some sort of light on the forgotten, honoring creators whose skilled hands I admire, but whose specific identity has been lost to time. 
 
KM: I really like this idea of Her Remnants Defy the Erasure of Time as bridging histories and memories, both yours and others, as well as lives left out of a dominant historical canon. Knowing that this work started at a different time and space and now resides in a new specific site and context, are there ways in which your perspective of the work has changed or shifted? Ways that you understand or see it differently?    
 
EP: The dress finding its home at the Wedding Cake House makes me reflect on the labor of the occupants. The story of the Tirocchi sisters is amazing, but I find myself being more curious about the women who worked for them. What did their lives look like when they went home at night? Their practiced skill can be seen in the garments they helped to produce but we can only know very little of who they were. I don’t only see the two sisters in the dress, I also see the women who labored here and whose skill was on display even if their identities were not.