Exploring A Theme: Reliquary
Does naming an object sacred make it so?
I belong to an amazing group of eight women artists, and we are starting a new exhibition project around the theme of “Reliquary.”
A cardboard box was flattened to collage the inside before reassembly into a cube.
After creating a mind-map of what that word means to me, and landing on Sacred Legacy, my first 3D sketch of how I might approach this topic is ready. This is not a finished work to be exhibited, it’s a way of finding out what intrigues me, what questions I have, and what I may want to challenge about this concept.
Inside is a letter my grandfather wrote to my parents resembling a lock of hair.
Experimentation with materials and methods yields more than an object to reflect on. The actions of cutting, assembling, painting and drawing are meditative and generative. As I draw and write and stitch, thoughts and questions emerge. I record these ideas in a notebook, threading them together while making. Only by working with my hands—feeling the lines, loops and edges—do I capture and comprehend what the work is expressing.