“Reliquaries for Everyday Life”

“Reliquaries for Everyday Life”  – 5 April to 30 April, 2011

See Flip Book of Show Reliquaries for Everyday Life

Photos with artist statement will follow after this review.

Andrea Wenckebach took a thoughtful and poignant look into the day-to-day and made meaningful wearable jewellery containers and repositories safeguarding precious memories, youth and family.

Relic is defined as a body part or other object belonging to a holy person, while a reliquary is a container used to hold holy objects or relics. These two words are generally associated with religious objects in their traditional form and they can only speak to a select group of people. What Andrea has done with this exhibition is to concentrate on the important people and experiences in our lives and showing reverence to these people while they are alive and well and to help the viewer connect with their own memories and objects.

The show comprised of 18 pieces all large neckpieces except for three smaller pieces: two brooches and a pair of earrings. Most were constructed in sterling silver, some containing gold and semi-precious stones but many contained non-precious materials, like historical objects as well as found objects. The neckpiece “Reliquary to Lost Memories” contained shells, sheet music, sand and amethyst that are directly attributed to Andrea’s past, but by inviting the viewer into the concept they could well imagine their own box of memories once forgotten now found and remembered. When talking about the piece to people I asked one woman if she ever found an old box filled with concert ticket stubs or old love letters and she laughed as she recounted just going through such a box a few days before.

One of the more humorous pieces that most connected with were the pair of earrings titled “Reliquary to the Unfinished Novel”. They were constructed from technical pencil parts, paper and a glass tube containing typewritten words. To quote Andrea’s statement, “The tools needed to write are extremely simple, an idea, a pen or pencil and some paper. The other tool that is not visible in this reliquary is the perseverance to see the task through.”

“Reliquary to Lost Time” was another crowd pleaser as everyone complains about losing time in line-ups or traffic. It was made from old, broken watch mechanisms that no longer could keep time. The watch backs were removed and displayed to the front showing all the mechanical parts; one even had an additional hand that could be pointed to fast or slow in order to control your time. As an extra bonus she removed all the minute, hour and second hands from the watches and created an additional container at the clasp to hold all the bits and pieces as a mode of stopping time from passing. The viewer is challenged to forget about regretting the “lost time” and live in the moment.

Although some of the pieces in the show were related to very real personal events in Andrea’s life, “Reliquary to a Failed Marriage” and “Reliquary to a Day Exploring” most people could put themselves into these pieces and experience in their own way, with their own past and feel the idea within. This exhibition showed us how events and people can influence our everyday life and should be venerated in a reliquary.

The following are images of Andrea’s work with her artist statements.

Reliquary to a Grandmother

When I was a little girl I loved visiting my grandmother. My grandmother had a huge, deep, stewing pot full of buttons. My sister and I would spend hours playing with the buttons and making up stories to go with the buttons. I thought that this was a unique experience but many people I’ve spoken to have told me stories about their grandmothers and pots or buckets full of buttons. I have discovered that buttons hold a special place in many people’s hearts because of the connection to their grandmothers. This piece connects buttons to grandmothers. The cabochon is backed by lacy ribbon, another object often related to grandmothers.

Materials: Sterling silver, Fine silver, Various buttons, Rock crystal, Lace ribbon

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Reliquary to Lost Memories

Sometimes when searching through old boxes or in areas one hasn’t looked in for a long time, one finds objects that instantly connect them to the past. These objects may be a ring, a picture or something like a pebble from a child, a shell from a long forgotten summer trip, a letter from a friend one has lost touch with. Reliquary to Lost Memories are things I found that helped me remember times and events. The memories attached to the items had been lost until I re-discovered the objects. The shell is from a trip to a beach I took as a child. The trilobite is from a trip I took with a friend to discover fossils. The piece of music is a song I used to sing with my sister, the letter is from a great-uncle’s writing, the amethyst is from my hometown of Thunder Bay and is connected with many memories.

Materials: Sterling silver, Steel cable, Sand, Shell, Amethyst, Paper, Trilobite fossil, Nickel silver casting grain, Resin

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Reliquary to Liberty

The Reliquary to Liberty contains an American coin. The coin had an official American crest complete with an Eagle on one side and on the other was an incredibly beautifully figure of Liberty complete with flowing robes and a bouquet of flowers in her arms. Such time and care was taken to produce Liberty that it is obvious the creator believed very strongly in the idea of Liberty, having brought her to life on the coin. In the last few years, however, liberty is under threat in the United States and in many other places of the world. Freedoms are curtailed in the name of safety and security. Rights are infringed upon in the quest for intel from supposed infidels. And liberty is fading from the minds of Americans and many other countries around the world, including Canada. I have cut the image of Liberty out of the coin in order to emphasize her. The blue, the stars and red pearls represent the colours and shapes of the American Flag. I chose the bold colours to frame Liberty in the hope that she is not forgotten.

Materials: American Fine Silver coin, Sterling silver, Pearls, Ribbon

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Reliquary to a Tantrum

This piece contains a shard of a small bowl I bought in Toronto’s China Town when I was a teenager.  It was a favorite bowl for a number of reasons.  I liked the rich blue contrasting with the white, I liked the patterning on the bowl of twigs, and leaves and buds and I liked the low broad shape of the bowl.  I used it mainly for sauces and it looked pretty on the table beneath a red mat.  One day my son, in a 2-year-old fit of rage over something completely irrelevant grabbed the closest thing to him and threw it on the ground.  That something was my bowl.  Instead of throwing the bowl out I decided to keep some of it as a memento.  It has now become a Reliquary to a Tantrum, as I will always be reminded of the tantrum my son had when he broke the bowl and the astonished look on his face when the bowl broke into many pieces.  I have paired the bowl with red sea bamboo beads to reflect the rage he felt when he grabbed the bowl.

Materials: Sterling silver, Pottery shard, Sea bamboo beads

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Reliquary to a Dying Tree

Because of the orientation of my house, when I open my front door I see a wave of fenced back yards across the street.  In the 40 or so backyards I can see from my front stoop not a single tree has been planted in these yards.  They are made up solely of wooden fencing and grass.  This year is the year of the Forest.  With trees being so important to our lives, to the creation of our homes, to the paper we use everyday and the books we read, the furniture we sit on, it is a wonder we don’t appreciate and admire trees more.  Trees provide shade, and the air we breathe.

With the continued destruction of our rainforests, and the lack of sustainable forestry practices around the world, trees are a precious commodity.  I have made this reliquary to reflect the beauty of trees and their importance in our lives.  The intertwining motif reflects how integral they are to our lives and the small maple bud in the clasp is a reminder of new growth and new possibility.

Materials: Sterling silver, Tourmalinated quartz, Pearl, Maple tree bud, Resin

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Reliquary to the Day Exploring

Recently my children and I went to the park.  Right beside the park we frequent is a small wooded area.  In this wooded area there are paths and large boulders along with trash, broken bottles and the flotsam that is generally found in a secluded area that many and various people visit.  We explored the area as we usually do and discovered many objects including those in the reliquary.  “Stay where I can see you!”  was my constant refrain when we were in the woods, even though, without leaves on the trees and bushes, the children were very easy to see.  I had a sudden pang of lament when we were exploring that my children would not have the kinds of opportunities to explore alone that I had when I was younger.

I remember spending hours with my sister wandering the woods close to our home.  We were left to our own devices for hours at a time, often not returning home until it started getting dark.  Parenting is done differently now and my children will probably rarely get the chance to explore on their own.  Reliquary to the Day Exploring is a reliquary to the wonder and excitement of how we explored as kids when we were young.

Materials: Sterling silver, Stone, Found object (brass?), Resin, Pebbles

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Reliquary to Lost Time

This reliquary is a literal and not so literal interpretation of “lost time”.  It is literal because the piece is made of old, broken watch mechanisms, which no longer keep time.  It is also a representation of the idea of lost time.  We are constantly bemoaning the fact that we lose time.  Whether that is waiting in line-ups when we could be doing something “productive” or when we complain that we have lost precious time when we can’t spend as much time as we would like with the people we love the most.  Perhaps we lose time doing jobs we don’t like doing or not achieving goals because we procrastinate time away….  The largest timepiece even has an adjustment on it in the form of an arrow that can point to fast or slow.  It currently points to slow – to slow time down, to give us the time to do what we want, when we want.

Time itself is never really lost, it just passes.  And with each moment we regret that passage of time, we “lose” more time in fruitless regret.  This piece is a reminder to live in the moment and not regret that lost time.

Materials: Sterling silver, Recycled watches, Pearls

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Reliquary to the Skinny Self

Ask the average woman if she is happy with her body and inevitably the answer will be no.  Whether it’s the fat hips or floppy arms, the big nose or protruding tummy, there is always some complaint.  We are constantly bombarded by images in magazines and on TV and movie screens of perfect bodies, perfect women.  In recent years Columbia pictures reworked the image of the woman they present at the beginning of each movie.  She still stands holding a torch, draped in white, flowing robes, but this new version has lost approximately 50 pounds in order, the company insists, to “conform to modern standards of beauty”.  With such pressure from so many different areas of the media to be thin, and with the message that thin represents health and beauty, many women are constantly dieting and exercising, not with the goal of becoming healthier but with the goal of becoming thinner.

Some take this to the extreme.  Some will never be happy with their bodies or see themselves as thin.  This reliquary has two figures a thin, tall figure and a short, plump figure.  Between them is a mirror.  The mirror is always facing the short, plump figure, as some women will never see themselves as thin, or pretty.  The clasp a recycled watch case with a donut trapped inside it.  The ideas is that the donut is forbidden and weight “watchers” will always be there like big brother looking over your shoulder trying to see what you are eating.

Materials: Titanium, Sterling silver, 18K gold, Recycled watchcase

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Reliquary to Skeletons in My Closet

Everyone has a hidden or shocking secret that they keep about themselves or someone else.  This reliquary is for all those secrets that will probably never be revealed.  Would we be better people if we revealed our secrets?  Would we be better off?  Would we lose friends or family? Would more of us be in jail or deported?  Would our lives really change if we revealed all the skeletons in our closets?  In this reliquary, the squares represent the various closets and the copper covering represents the door to the closet, hanging crookedly and not really hiding the skeleton lurking in the closet.   Many secrets that we think are hidden are often revealed somehow in things we say and in aspects of our personalities.

Materials: Sterling silver, Copper, Bird bone, Resin

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Reliquary to a Vacation

A few years ago my ex and I travelled through eastern Canada for 3 weeks in the summer.  We visited Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and PEI.  It was a wonderful trip and opened my eyes to the many different cultures there are in Canada.  The culture of the “east” is very different from the culture of Quebec or Central Ontario or Western Canada.  We spent most of the trip camping and eating local food (which except for Quebec meant we ate seafood).  This pendant represents all the fond memories I had of the trip.  The pendant itself is reminiscent of a fish, the tendrils of its tail symbolizing the different roads we took to get to our destinations.  The moonstones are representative of the beauty of the sky in the unpopulated regions of the east.  The stars and moon were overwhelmingly beautiful.

On the back of the pendant, encased in resin are the relics.  Five tiny pearls representing each of the provinces we visited and the individual beauty of each.

Materials: Sterling silver, 18K gold, Moonstones, Resin, Seed Pearls

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Reliquary to the One that Got Away

There is, in everyone’s life, the one person we longed to be with or longed to be with, got and then lost somehow.  This reliquary is to that person.  The petals from the daisy being plucked off to the chant of “He loves me, he loves me not.” symbolize the loss of the person.  And the petal incased in resin represents how we hold that person dear in our minds and hearts.  We also tend to idealize the person, make he or she more than they are.  This also is symbolic of the simplicity of our thoughts, the way we believe that everything would be perfect if we could just have that person, that one that got away.

Materials: Sterling silver, Copper, Brass, Nickel Silver finding, Daisy petal, Resin

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Reliquary to the Key to Happiness

There is a pervading notion in society that happiness can be got through things.  These things can be many and varied, but rarely lead to happiness.  They may lead to stability and a sense of community or belonging but happiness must come from within, from liking oneself, from doing things one enjoys.  Many people think that the keys to happiness are a house, money (or a good job) and children.  This reliquary incorporates all three of those things.  Two of the tubes have baby ultrasounds in them and one a $20.00 bill.

Materials: House key, Sterling silver, Fine Silver, Steel Cable, Glass tubing, Ultrasounds, 20 dollar bill

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Reliquary to Childhood

Recently my one son dressed himself in the morning and put on a yellow shirt, green pants and blue hoodie.  When I told him he didn’t match he told me he liked the colours and didn’t want to change.  My youngest son presented to me a present he had made of scribbled, crumpled paper.  He held it out to me proudly and was excited to give it to me.  These two events have solidified in my mind the difference between adults and children.  Young children don’t always care if things are torn, if things don’t match, if things aren’t perfect.  They go with what feels right to them and like whatever it is they manage to produce, waving it proudly for all to see.

Somewhere in our youth, that begins to change and we start “conforming” to society’s likes, to society’s appreciation for perfection and we start seeing flaws in our abilities, in our characters that somehow, magically weren’t there before we conformed.  This reliquary holds that “before” stage when things are more random, colourful, melted, wrinkled and scribbled.

Materials: Sterling silver, Fine silver, Plastic lacing, Resin, Paper, Marbles

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Reliquary to Summer

If there were a way to bottle summer, the lazy, hot afternoons, the lush green of the grass and bright colours of flowers, the buzzing of insects and calling of birds, I would do it.

This reliquary is that attempt to bottle summer, to conserve some of the warmth and lushness of summer.  Unfortunately, bottled summer does not compare in any way to the real thing and what happens is we end up getting a fake, sterile summer that has very little to do with the real thing but may bring us a bit of warmth in the middle of winter.

Materials: Sterling silver, Fine silver, Shibuichi, Steel Cable, Glass Tubing, Various dried flowers

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Reliquary to a Failed Marriage

This reliquary symbolizes the web of connections we form in our relationships and especially in our marriages.  People who are married with children will always be connected in some way, shape or form whether the marriage itself survives or not.

The web is the interconnectedness of the people – or web we are caught in.  Beneath the watch crystal is a container with stones representing the individuals caught in the web of marriage and family.

Materials: Sterling silver, Fine silver, Recycled watch crystal, Citrine, Blue Topaz, Sapphires

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Reliquary to a Healthy Heart

This reliquary represents the fragility of life and the heart that keeps us alive.  The front of the reliquary shows a rose quartz stone with a healthy heart in the corner.  The heart is just a paper, lacquered on to the front of the stone.  Any wear, or abrasion, any misuse of the piece will result in damage to the paper heart.  The rose quartz is the rosy aspect we all like to have and sometimes show despite having a damaged heart.  This damage is not always visible to the outsider.

On the underside of the pendant is a black, heart shaped stone encased in resin.  This symbolizes the damaged heart and our tendency not to take care of ourselves.  While many of us still look healthy, we harbour the damage that we do to our bodies due to lack of exercise, unhealthy lifestyle and unhealthy eating.

Materials: Sterling silver, Steel cable, Rose quartz, Garnets, Paper, Stone, Resin

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Reliquary to the Unfinished Novel

Reliquary to the Unfinished Novel is a very literal reliquary to the many people who have novels that they have started but never finished lying in some desk drawer somewhere.  The tools needed to write are extremely simple, an idea, a pen or pencil and some paper.  The other tool that is not visible in this reliquary is perseverance to see the task through.  Many, many begin novels.  The question is why is it so easy to begin a novel and so difficult to finish one?

Materials: Sterling silver, Glass tube, Paper, Mechanical Pencil parts

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Reliquary to Home

Every other reliquary in this show contains something that is to be cherished – a shard of pottery, a petal, a coin. This reliquary does not contain anything, as the whole piece is the reliquary.  Home represents so many things to so many people that it would be impossible to put one or two things in this reliquary to represent it.  When I think of home I think of the one where my grandparents lived, where I was woken to the sweet, lyrical sounds of my cousin practicing violin, and the smell of baking early in the morning.  I think of the dappled sunlight filtering through the grape vines hanging on an overhead trellis in the back garden and the smell of fresh lemons and kumquats growing by the terrace.  That and the people who lived there were home to me.

Materials: Sterling silver, Pearl, Rock crystal