Artist: Maru Almeida

Materials: steel, 14k gold, stainless steel

Dimensions: 3"x 2.25"x .25”

Beneficiary: Northwest Immigrant Rights Project - There are complex issues that bring people from Mexico and other countries into the USA. Nevertheless, once in this country, they will face a different kind of hardship and many injustices. Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, is an organization advocating and helping in a wide range of issues affecting immigrants and helping keep families together. It would be my honor donating proceeds to this organization, thank you Danaca for this opportunity!

Artist Statement: While constructing this piece, cutting, bending and drawing lines in metal, I slowly reconstruct my identity. Cutting an old steel baking sheet that belonged to my grandmother, I imagine the moments, the time, the recipes that I may have, my home country, my mother at the dinner table as a child; these are all part of a past, my past, my present. Yet just black lines, the ones I have to print each time I return into this country, the fingerprints that group me as an alien and I uncomfortably give while holding my son’s hand. It is a self portrait with many lines and some highlighted with a bit of gold from my childhood name bracelet.