M E M E N T O PENDANT

M E M E N T O

A Pendant
A Polished and tarnished brass torchiere. G10 socket with flood lamp 120v Designed and handmade byJasonKoharik

Evoked by a Prize.

Trophy. I enjoy this concept.
I have so many around my studio. —Trophies. 
Keepsakes. Someone else’s  laurels, once bestowed and coveted, now relics. Names and dates are engraved in them.
Most of them so old they are from a time when there was only a 1st place trophy. 
Only one person would receive a trophy; the winner. 
They feel special to me, so I collect them. 
I recover them from garage sale boxes and flea market finds. 
I fill them with flowers and libations. I sip wine and whiskey from them while reading their now faded impressions. 
I think about the trophies from my own life, that my name once graced.  A boy who ran and swam. With full disclosure, this boy was carried by friends, his ride or dies, young men who were faster. A team.
I once received a silver cup for winning a billiard tournament. I remember it being the most important thing to me at that time. A marble plinth. A silver vessel engraved with a typical gestural figure—a man leant  over the edge of a table, his head down, cue drawn.
Engraved with my name, a date, and “1st Place”.
Along with it I was given a coupon for “Free Table Time”. “Insult”, said that mildly arrogant teenager.
I never paid for a table time anyway. That’s what being a winner was for, and in those days, I only won. 
I have no idea where that Trophy is today. Did I pack it in a box and stuff it into the hatch of my lightening blue 1993 Ford Probe GT with a Bjork CD stuck in the disc player? Destination California. 
Perhaps I left it with a friend along side my  Epiphone sunburst Les Paul knock off… Fuck. 
Conceivably, right this very moment it is being unearthed and found amongst some mismatched dinnerware on the shelves of some saintly Thrift Store. Or, better still, a man somewhere across the world, who is not dissimilar from myself, is drinking an old fashioned from its girth. Curiously typing my worn out name into some search engine. A question on his bittered tongue— 
“Does winning even matter?”
#yes 

Price $3550

Size 8” diameter Drop is custom