Creatio Continua
A reliquary is a container designed to protect and display a sacred object. They are temporal composites, often accruing elements—and significance—over centuries. Vessels that mystify revelation through concealment, they inspire a sense of wonder.
I made a reliquary on the theme of creation in response to Ghiberti’s Gate of Paradise from the Baptistery of Florence.
In the opening panel of the work, creation can be understood in two profound senses: the biblical and the artistic. Ghiberti presents the story of Adam and Eve, from their creation to their fall and expulsion from the garden. Details of earth, water and sky hint at the other aspects of creation, but Ghiberti focuses on the human element—beautiful forms emerging from the plane, animated with the breath of life.
Reaching upward, Eve plucks a fruit, and through this act of free will ushers human consciousness into the world. As they leave the garden, Adam and Eve are searching beings charged with holding duality—their divine nature and their separate human consciousness.
At the same time, the artist mirrors God in the act of creating. One can imagine Ghiberti’s hands carving away excess material to reveal the figures in the panel just as God appears to pull Adam from the rock. Innovative in his representation of perspective, narrative, and human expression, Ghiberti’s achievement stands as a monument to the human endeavor.
Our creativity is a divine reflection, but only by great effort can we emulate nature’s artlessness. Creation is a balancing act between conscious effort and surrender.
Our shared future depends on our effort in concert with all of nature. Our sacred relationship to nature must be made visible and felt.
My reliquary—a tree rooted in history (Baptistery), reaching for the future of life on this planet (seed of Trifolium incarnatum)—seeks to make visible this link, relating our worldly impact to the balance between divine (tincture of ambergris) and human consciousness (tincture of fig leaf).
Creation is ever-emerging; it is constantly decaying and being renewed. The things that we want to transmit to the future must be deeply felt and made new each day—an infinite pattern, in art as in life!
