Reliquary: Charm

I thought I might blog about some of the pieces in the Reliquary Series, and explain my process a bit.

The first stage of these pieces is the found object, or relic. It might be something I found, was given, or something from my past.

This piece was built around a charm given to me by a friend's daughter. She found it, and it was dirty, and while trying to clean it off, she left it to rust in the kitchen sink. She was disappointed and was going to throw it away, so I asked if I could have it.

This is a girl consumed by thoughts of love and finding a boyfriend. I thought, if this charm carried a magical power, it would have something to do with that -- perhaps a way to tell if your lover were true.

It hung from the chain and swung like a pendulum. I imagined if you suspended the charm over your lover's breast, it would hang still -- without moving, constant -- if your lover's heart were true, but rotate or swing if not.(Remember the pencil test? You hung a pencil over your wrist to see what gender your babies would be. If it twirled, you would have girls. If it swung in a straight line, you would have boys.)

I sketched what I thought would be a workable house for this "relic," thinking of a cloth or fabric the charm might be suspended within, for use, but also veiled and protected:



The end result formed something less cloth-like and more of a bell shape, which is strangely appropriate, and also reminds me a of a lady's old-fashioned, full skirt from another era. In fact, it reminds me of picture of Cinderella's dress from a book I had as a child.

Interesting...