This piece is a playful exploration into creating an inauthentic ancient artifact: a household shrine. The mundane materials (a cracked bowling ball - blue in color, engraved with the name "Mary" - and a faded pink plastic ashtray from a Las Vegas casino) are items found in any home (well … in my home anyway).
By mimicking colors, textures and symbols of religious paintings from the Italian Renaissance, I transformed these objects into an icon illustrating the Virgin Mary experiencing a very human concern the morning after her visitation from the Angel of God announcing her upcoming motherhood.
Disrespect is not my intention (I did omit Mary's original thought bubble exclaiming “Oh God, I'm going to get as big as a bowling ball!”). Rather, I was intrigued to incorporate the most modest of personal items with the most basic of human frailties (doubt) to result in a (very fake) object of private religious veneration.