My work is an exploration of ritual, order, nature, and its relation to familial inheritance and tradition. It touches on themes of the sacred feminine, and pushes the concept of invented order into the realms of obsessiveness and repetition. "Reliquary" is aligned with these concepts, but as an added element to my work, I incorporate the presence of Sylvia Gray, the proprietor of the thrift store which now houses Elsewhere, both through object and habit. Sylvia's own obsessiveness as evidenced through the massive environment of Elsewhere trickles through my work and runs alongside my personal artistic vocabulary of food and kitchen references, alchemical illustrations, insects, magic and divination, and inexplicable multiple encounters with dead birds. The piece is split between the storefront window, containing the almost museum-like behind-glass display of personal ritual, whereas the upstairs serves as the repository for all notions and subconscious influences which filter into the structure of ritual. Ultimately, the idea of "reliquary" bequeaths the status of "relic" or "sacred object" unto the materials used in the piece, sacred both in their meaning for me and my message, and sacred historically as part of the biography of Sylvia Gray.

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