![Tropaion](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1942a8_ee65bd535c07413d9c49b4efcb94dde8.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_176,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/1942a8_ee65bd535c07413d9c49b4efcb94dde8.jpg)
2015. Oil on Acrylic on Canvas. 68" x 58"
![Fourth place gymnastics trophy](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1942a8_3ef658fc9c1c498fa95586bd25ee7aa1.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_158,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/1942a8_3ef658fc9c1c498fa95586bd25ee7aa1.jpg)
Won in 1999, re-appropriated in 2015. Plastic, brass, marble. Approx. 11" tall.
Tropaion
I went back to upstate NY to visit my family in December 2014. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I rummaged around my room looking at things still there from high school and earlier. A bunch of gymnastics trophies were hidden away in my closet. I think I moved them out of sight once I quit gymnastics and became more interested in Harry Potter, drawing, Final Fantasy, computer programming. But gymnastics never really left my life. I still have sensation-dreams of flipping and stretching...and the anxiety and freedom that comes with it. I saw the repeated figurine on top of each trophy in that closet and suddenly wondered if I could recreate that pose in the body I am in now. Like a collision of eras. It'd be kind of funny, especially if I forgot to shave my bikini area, as is the subject of some of my recurring gymnastics dreams.
I like to display both the painting and trophy I pulled from that closet together. They are essentially mirror-images of one another.