Jessica Lark's Blog

I am a writer, an artist, a philanthropist, a mother, a humanitarian, a lover, and a hopeless romantic. I am these things because I wouldn’t know how not to be. I have never been good at following the path and fitting the expectations set for me {even when I am the one setting them.}

A collection of images here will tell you more eloquently than I could. My non-profit: The Elysian Sanctuary, my family, and this project is the trinity of my existence.

In many ways the Reliquarian began when I was a child, I see the nuances of it, the birthplaces of its characters and creatures, the colors, and the conversations that showed up in prose and poetry and paintings of my youth. I am always becoming the woman that will write the next pieces of this ennealogy, I am always experiencing, seeking, and stumbling across the threads that will be woven into the story and its accompanying artistry.

The Reliquarian is a collective convergence of all my talents and ambitions as an artist, writer, creative and photographer, into a series of illustrated novel storybooks. Along the way other creative spirits have found their way into the project, collaborating with me on the props, costuming, set design, make-up, hair, jewelry, headdresses, and illustrations. A team has helped with shooting behind the scenes, footage of the shoots as they happen, along with tutorials on how the props and pieces are created, how the shoots are done, and how the images are retouched.

At heart, I’ve always been a storyteller. I’ve always been in love with the forgotten and nostalgic, and I’ve never been happy expressing myself in only one medium. The Reliquarian is my dreams that take place while both awake and asleep. It is the lessons I have learned, and the ones I have yet to learn. I write them for my grandmother… I write them for my children. I write them for myself, and I write them for you.

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An Illustrated Series of Novels about: var TxtRotate = function(el, toRotate, period) { this.toRotate = toRotate; this.el = el; this.loopNum = 0; this.period = parseInt(period, 10) || 2000; this.txt = ''; this.tick(); this.isDeleting = false;};TxtRotate.prototype.tick = function() { var i = this.loopNum % this.toRotate.length; var fullTxt = this.toRotate[i]; if (this.isDeleting) { this.txt = fullTxt.substring(0, this.txt.length - 1); } else { this.txt = fullTxt.substring(0, this.txt.length 1); } this.el.innerHTML = '<span class="wrap">' this.txt '</span>'; var that = this; var delta = 300 - Math.random() * 100; if (this.isDeleting) { delta /= 2; } if (!this.isDeleting && this.txt === fullTxt) { delta = this.period; this.isDeleting = true; } else if (this.isDeleting && this.txt === '') { this.isDeleting = false; this.loopNum ; delta = 500; } setTimeout(function() { that.tick(); }, delta);};window.onload = function() { var elements = document.getElementsByClassName('txt-rotate'); for (var i=0; i<elements.length; i ) { var toRotate = elements[i].getAttribute('data-rotate'); var period = elements[i].getAttribute('data-period'); if (toRotate) { new TxtRotate(elements[i], JSON.parse(toRotate), period); } } // INJECT CSS var css = document.createElement("style"); css.type = "text/css"; css.innerHTML = ".txt-rotate > .wrap { border-right: 0.08em solid #666 }"; document.body.appendChild(css);};

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It seems the Reliquarian has long been in winter. This is the 6th season of the Reliquarian, and it seems such a long time ago since Cadence wore her father’s coat, and trudged through the snow with a key in her hand. At the time there were no dryad like tree fairy creatures in my mind, they showed up years later. There was only the Dryad King. Later he became the father of many tribes.

I’ve always had an affinity for beautiful words, and foreign languages are like a dance for the tongue. Half the Reliquarian was written while walking within the wilds, listening to mother nature. She herself has a language all her own as easy and difficult to learn as any other.

Shinrin-yoku is a Japanese term that translates best as “Forest Bathing” as a means of replenishing ones own health, and restoring the spirit. The center photos below are from the forest paths I often walk with my mother and our dogs. The outer two are the property at Lark Manor here.

Our house is a very tiny old cottage, and much of me wants to live right here until my days are done. I bought it not for the house itself, but for the second building that provided an art studio for me, a theater/music room, and workshop for Michael, and mostly for the grounds that I can step into on any day and practice Shinrin-yoku. From the time I was very small my Grandfather said to buy the property, you can change the house.

My mother was always labeled a tree hugging hippie, and my childhood home was filled with plants that she cared for as attentively as others do their pets. What art is to me, plants are to her. She makes art through her gardens and home, and when I consider my mother’s more maternal energy and think of her in love, this is what I recall from my childhood that I felt envy of, and saw magic in.

We wound our children even with the best of intentions and greatest love in our hearts, because of the wounds we carry from our own childhoods. While we will ask for understanding of this from our own children, we rarely afford it to our parents. Having just ended my 36th year on this earth I am only now beginning to see my parents as the people they are rather than in the role they held as mother and father.

Whatever hardships, struggles, wounds, and fears I carry forward from any piece of my childhood; I think the tribe of tree nymphs in this story are the mythical portrayal of how I saw the spirit of my mother. Both nourishing, and force of nature. I see all mothers in that way, especially mother nature.

The species of dryad like creatures were born from an affection I have for blurring the lines between flora and fauna. A literal reconnecting to nature. In the Reliquarian in general, all beings are afflicted with the gift or burden of having their appearances represent their spirit. What they relate to, what they are in tune with manifests in their physical being. It’s the idea that people judge more based on appearances, and appearances are a fleeting, changing, deceptive thing at times.

How interesting it would be if we could perceive the soul instead of seeing the body, hearing the voice, feeling the flesh… If we understood how we are part of it all instead of separate from it all, how would that change our priorities, and interactions with everything, and everyone else?

I knew that I wanted to take away a bit of the humanism of the dryadic creatures. I didn’t quite want the hooves and fur of the satyrs, but that sleek feel of the shape. For me the tribe carries a lot of nuance to a herd of deer. I wanted some of their anatomy to reflect that in the shape, specifically with the backwards leg joints. I also wanted them to connect with what they come into contact with, so the idea was that the forest floor literally grows up their legs, and rather than heels and toes they root into the earth. They feel it. They are it.

Originally the character was only Ember, though I knew she was part of a tribe. Later I wanted to do one shot with a bunch of the creatures in a grassy field, like a herd of deer in the gloaming hours, but they would have been silhouetted, indistinct.

As we got nearer to the shoot and I found the models, the beings they would play began to take shape, and suddenly I found myself weeks before the shoot making all manners of headdresses and accessories.

The middle headdress at the top was actually one of the first props I made for the Reliquarian when I believed I was simply creating a collection of images and not a series of novels. I thought it was for the dryad king… There may even be a photograph of Uncle Awesome wearing it somewhere in the archives of the past blogs. It has sat on top of the bookshelf Michael built me in my studio… for 6 years.

I’ve been at this so long now that most people shake their heads at me, and more so at the others helping me on this project. To work obsessively with no pay off at your own passion and dream is one thing, to do it for someone else’s vision is far more unfathomable. Most people can’t find the courage and determination to chase their own dreams, especially when others determine them unrealistic, so the idea of chasing someone else’s dreams with them is deemed a different kind of insanity all together.

What good dream was ever realistic anyway?

Still as I move further, what others have seen me spend hours on and then not use, or what others have deemed failed attempts, I have always categorized as learning experiences, but I do find that even when something doesn’t work for what I intended it for, if I am patient, it’s purpose reveals itself.

The Latex was a huge learning curve for me, and as with all new things I immediately dove into something that was far too complex for an inexperienced novice. Some will note it as bravery, and not being afflicted with the fear of failure. Others roll their eyes at my audacity, and nearly consistent tendency of biting off more than I can chew.

While I have an almost maternal affection for the Reliquarian and am the mother of it’s conception, I also very deeply believe that as with all children it takes a village to raise it to what it is meant to be.

Different people come into the project at different times. Some are constants, some come in and go, some fall in love with it as I have and stay when neither I or nor they intended them to.

Beth Claire was someone that crossed my path because she came to a workshop I was having, before the Reliquarian was even seeded in my imagination. We’ve been friends since, and as with many of my “students” I feel I have learned as much from them, I am constantly inspired by their own lives and creativity.

Beth made the beautiful Dryad costume on the top left above, and she created the stunning imagery for it. When she had finished she asked if anyone else had use for it. Jennifer Tallerico beat me to it. She does insane underwater photography, and she promised me that if it survived drowning she would send it to me.

To be honest I had totally forgotten about it all together, until I received a message literally a month before the shoot that it had stayed intact and she was shipping it to me. So both these brilliant artists that often play on my side of the lens, impacted this shoot, which is second only to my excitement in them both agreeing to play characters in the book.

There is a different level of intimacy in shooting when both people understand what it is like on both sides of the lens and I think it will bring amazing energy into the future sessions. Of course, as the Reliquarian tends to do, their characters uniquely fit their skills and persona, and I know that this project comes alive because of the people with me through the process.

The other side of the coin has always been the details. {Details that sometimes aren’t even visible in the image.} I am obsessive about every nuance of each image. My hands touch each thing.

I’ve made most everything within the images, and it takes months, sometimes years of dedication to get to an end image that I hope will unlock the door into my mind and madness where these worlds and creatures reside.

{I was particularly proud of the nails and eyelashes in this shoot, and you don’t see a single one in the final image. Sometimes I think half the effort is for the effect on the day so that the magic is potent. It needs to be, in order to briefly for a few moments bring what exists in my imagination to life, and photograph it so that I can share these glimpses and pull you from this reality into my own.}

Pieces of the Reliquarian and those who would play the parts of it have existed for years. Some of the people involved in the project birthed characters that did not exist.

Actually none of the other dryad characters you will meet in the story existed before this shoot. There was mention of Ember, and the rest were faceless and indistinguishable. Members of her tribe, but not important enough for names and stories within the story. Extras, rather than secondary and tertiary characters.

The overlaps of threads that have woven together for this project are not lost on me. As I pull these pieces in for the blogs and documentaries, and as months and years go by in its creation I find new moments of serendipity. Sown like magical seeds awaiting their chance to crack open and fight through the cold darkness of reality and responsibility to share themselves in the light of conscious recognition.

The images above are from series of sessions I have done over the years for clients, and at workshops of mine. I have always had an affinity for the natural beauty of the female form in the expansiveness of nature. Creativity is from the feminine side of energy. We are what carries and births new life into the world, and Nature herself is the mother. The symmetry between nature and women in their shared energy is and always has been alluring to me.

The burning the bridge retreat is where I met Beth as an artist and photographer. Ashley {in the bottom right image above} was one of the models that came to play and was game for being on my grounds, nude, covered in mud, and having someone standing on my balcony misting a hose to make it look like rain. {How I get these girls to agree to some of the things I make them do is beyond me.} That was certainly part of the conception of the species for the book.

When we renovated the living room of my little cottage I brought my sister Megan in, for the dichotomy of her porcelain skin against the rough chaos of a century old house opened up to her bones. I had beautiful boudoir images from the shoot, but played with one and made her into a sort of dying tree, alone in an abandoned room… the individual images I create are often akin to rough sketches by an artist before approaching the canvas for the final painting.

Several years later Beth creates a headdress for her own mother nature shoot. Years after that the headdress makes its way to me, and Ashley chooses it as part of her costume, and those three threads braid together once more. {Incidentally she wore said headdress to the Art Store to get something on shoot day, and that footage is coming in the behind the scenes documentary. because it is hilarious.}

When I placed the call for this shoot it was something like “Need models for next Reliquarian shoot, must be comfortable with outdoor nudity, dirt, and body paint.”

There were of course my regular sirens, that enjoy the artistic ballad of collaborative creativity. The nostalgia of old friends I had not seen since high school, all of us now free from the constructs of adolescent egos and labels. It was the first time I worked with people I had never met on a personal project since my photography book. These women that have become sisters, brought their sisters and widened my artistic family.

I felt the absence of my actual sister. Megan has been my muse since we were teenagers. We spent a year voluntarily living in the abandoned attic of a mansion together, sleeping on the floor and making all kinds of weird art, listening to strange music, and fighting with squirrels even though we both had our own finished bedrooms downstairs. We survived Michael’s first deployment together in this way, and the bond we built during that year has, for me become something that will never break or sever, anymore than you could segregate metals once they’ve been melted together and forged.

When I began planning the shoot I wanted her desperately to be part of it. She, on the other side of the country, stationed with her husband and 3 boys. I was willing to fly her home, but we found out she was expecting, and then with 4 boys it was too difficult to plan. It had been 3 years since I had seen her, and I have missed her desperately. I always saw us raising our kids together.

She did make it home for a short visit with the family, but the timing was off, and the Reliquarian was honestly in hibernation with so much going on personally. It was a long winter. Two years between images…

2 years.

I struggle with that. It’s so difficult when the images are the end result and so much happens behind the curtain and offline between the images that no one can see how much is happening in the in-between.

This past summer Cadence went out to spend the summer with her favorite Aunt, and cousins, and I was grateful for the excuse of coming to get her as my own escape.

I was suffering a lot of feelings of depression and failure, not just in my artistic but my personal and professional life. Actually a lot of the key people in the Reliquarian seemed to be suffering the past year in particular. I found myself desperate for feminine energy and a place that wasn’t here.

I wither in the mundane and ordinary. I need to marvel at things. I need wide spaces where my imagination can stretch out and roam freely. Most often I need that space to be somewhere in nature where I can feel the connection to everything; the earth, and the sunlight and water and sky. Though I have a proclivity towards abandoned and forgotten places as well.

I also need the tribe. I am certainly a spirit that wants for the herd, the tribe, the flock, though I am now very selective of who is within the circle. I have been told more than once that I collect people as others collect things.

For the 11 years we have lived at Lark Manor it has served as sanctuary and solace for many in hours and years of need, it has always had open doors for needed company, and extra chairs to join us for good food. {I get that from my grandmother’s full Italian upbringing mixed with her loving caretaker nature.}

For nearly Cadence’s entire life Wednesdays were brunch dates with GG that turned into all day visits. One of those days ended with a fall down the stairs that ruptured all the ligaments and tendons in my ankle and landed me in an air cast for months. I almost didn’t get to go on my trip because they said I would need several months of physical therapy before I could even lace up my hiking shoes.

What I actually needed was Cadence. It constantly humbles me how much the child cares for the parent. Cadence has such a darling disposition. She is so smart, so kind, so attentive to detail, she’s fierce and formidable like her grandmother, yet empathetic and compassionate like her great grandmother, and every now and then shows the sense of wanderlust both in the physical and artistic realms that her mother has. The need to find herself in places she doesn’t yet know.

She was so caring and attentive to me, and while I was walking in an almost undetectable limp she was constantly checking to make sure I had my brace and wraps, water bottles, jacket, she insisted on carrying my camera gear, and slowed her pace to match mine without being told, and without making it obvious.

Spending time with her, my sister, and nephews was revitalizing for my feminine energy, and placed me squarely in the space of maternal; journeying with her through the rainforests and beaches that have been on my travel map forever was simply divine for my soul as an artist and a mother. It is something to look at the things that make me feel so little in the world, to look at the things worth marveling over, worth standing in awe of, and then to see Cadence in the midst of it and realize that I too have created something beautiful and necessary and magical in this world.

No one is more an artist than a mother. Nothing else will ever touch what nature creates, and I, much like the creatures in my story needed
Shinrin-yoku to restore and come back to center on this project, and my life in general.

I left for the rainforest the day after the shoot. It was as magical for me as Cambodia, and I realize that the world is my home. Not seeing it, not being part of it is as foreign and silly an idea to me as having a room in your own home that the door is locked to and that you never go in, even to find out what’s there. When I returned home I knew that the places I had been were stitched into the place my beautiful tree spirits resided, that as lovely as my grounds are here, they didn’t quite create the magic I needed them to reside in.

I began editing the Shinrin-Yoku image on August 15th, my grandmother’s 89th birthday. It took 54 hours over the past 5 months, of compositing and retouching to stitch the final image together.

I didn’t know that at the time of writing this I would be without my grandmother. That several months of that would be spent by her bedside in a hospital, and then bringing her home to live with me in her final weeks… to be honest I’m not yet ready to speak of it further than that.

What I can say is that this was the single most challenging image I have created in my life. It required years of gestation as the props and costuming were made, the storyline written, and the time for it to approach. It spanned 3069 miles from one coast of my country to another in order to bring the forest and its spirits together. It took the collaboration of 11 models, 2 makeup artists, 1 hair stylist, 1 body painter, weeks of preparation, hours upon hours of yard work, chasing the dying sunlight, climbing a mountain with still healing ligaments, 12 hours of flight time, 54 hours of retouching and quite a few days sinking into this blog and the images of the process to bring this image to you.

When I see that final image of my grandmother’s tea cup, set at my editing desk, I can feel nothing but gratitude for the gift it is to be a woman, and to have strong, beautiful, courageous women in this image and my life…

I consider how much feminine energy and love is sewn into every fiber and moment of this piece’s creation, the divine connection to the universe, to god, to ourselves is through the feminine. Through the creative. The nature of the feminine is that of love.

May you practice Shinrin-yoku as often as you need it, until you feel in alignment with that energy of creation.

 

Special thanks to:
Models: Kori, Danielle, Abby, Breonna, Ashley, Taylor, Allory, Siena, Remy, Leigh and Kelly

Hair Architect: Danielle

Makeup Artists: Sarah Jane, and Remy

Body Painter: Jaye

Landscaper/Set Safety/Videographer: Tommy

Patron Saints: Judy, Mark, Katie, Hannah, Sarah, Remy {Support us on Patreon at www.Patreon.com/JessicaLark}

Sponsors: Fundy Software for the Blog Image Layouts, and Triple Scoop Music for the Soundtracks for all behind the scenes documentaries.

Michael, Steven, Cadence: for all the nonsense you live with on a daily basis as I create this.

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I grew up hearing the adage that Art Imitates Life, and in mine it seems that my Life Imitates Art.  This has been especially true since beginning the Reliquarian, if you’ve read some of the other blogs I’ve spoken of the parallels, and how almost unnerving it is when something I write then shows up or happens in my real life.  Some of the parallels are more subtle, and perhaps it is a subconscious and intrinsic infusion into the artistry that I understand on a deeper level than I recognize on the surface.  If nothing else I have learned both in Artistry and Life nothing turns out the way I originally envision, but in the end, despite the struggle and frustration, when I let go of what I think it should be, it becomes what it is meant to be, and there is beauty in it that I couldn’t imagine at its inception.

Nostalgia is the third character to be introduced in the visual elements of the story, and this image is actually the last photographic illustration in book one.  It has been an interesting dance in this project being both artist and author, and creating them simultaneously.  It’s a bit like watching a close race or a good game where both opponents are fighting and stealing the lead back and forth.  Some of the characters have been visual representations in my mind and the story of them builds around the image, and others I write into the story and the inspiration for the images come from the writing.  This one came from the name, the idea of Nostalgia, which is something I have always been enamored with as a concept.  Nostos being Greek: Return Home, and Algos: Pain.  It’s a wistful longing to return home.  It feeds in also to the adage of “home is where the heart is.”   Nostalgia is wide spread to the longing for something that we want to return to, a moment, a memory, a place, a loved one.  All I knew of her was that I wanted her to be the visual embodiment of what Nostalgia would look were it fashioned into a humanoid type personification.

The crude idea we began with was that she needed to illuminate light.  She lives in a place called the Atheneum, that is a museum of sorts for lost and discarded things.  In the simplest of terms we might call her a hoarder, and in the realm of fictional characters she’d have gotten along fabulously with Miss Havisham, only it is life she is mourning the loss of rather than a lover.

My mother spent most of my childhood in a relationship with an Antique Dealer and Treasure Hunter, and our house was constantly described as creepy, a museum, and ‘interesting’.  My father and I have been estranged since I was 3, and several small bridges have all been built and burnt to bridge the gap, so this man has been my only subject of “dad” and while he never married my mother, and they ultimately parted ways, he still refers to, and introduces me as “My daughter of choice.”  His house now is an old farm, the chicken coop larger than most people’s garages, and the Barn towers over the property there, all full of oddities, trinkets, and treasures, some that only he sees the value in. The house is always dim, the lights are rarely on, even at night, to protect the patinas and paintings of rare artifacts that might be damaged by the light, and for as long as I can remember he carries a flash like as most carry their phone, or wallet, or keys, so that light is with him when it is needed.

They say we write what we know, and so much of the storyline of this character is rooted in memories of my past.  A thin walkway between rooms, flanked on all sides by minuscule and monumental things of varying importance, some lovely, and some grotesque.  The place I wrote was what I might have called home as a child on a more grandious scale, as Nostalgia has want to always do:  Turn what we remember into more than it was, anchoring our spirits towards past and keeping us from the future and more importantly: the present.

The initial concepts were to make the dress a gown of vintage and victorian lampshades.  To include photographs and frames upon it, and have her carry ‘the weight of the world’ literally upon her at all times.  It would be couture, but also serve purpose, as the common psychology of hoarders is “I need, or will need this.”  The Atheneum would remain dark at all times save candles dimly lighting the silhouettes and her gown which would carry its own light with it, illuminating only where she passed.

Once I latched onto this idea, the dress bodice became inspired by stained glass.  Particularly a Tiffany Lamp my grandmother always had on her serving hutch in the dining room.  Originally I thought blue, but once painted it didn’t seem illuminated and I moved towards yellows and golds.  (The Tutorial on how to do this is in the queue for those interested.)

When I get stuck {as I often do on this project} I often sit with the word I’m trying to convey and write as many connected words, synonyms and symbols as I can think of to play off of.  With Nostalgia one of the first and strongest was candles.  Perhaps because it denotes an earlier time, and older day.  I’m drawn to the warmth of fire, and the glow of it’s light, it romanticizes everything, and I have handwritten most of this book’s first draft by candlelight.  Returning again to my childhood my mother was not one for precision, and while others were building sand castles out of buckets and sculpting clean, smooth lines, mine taught her children “drip castles.”  Closer to the water’s edge, with the wet, muddy sand, dripping into uneven and erratic towers, and continuously washed away by the lapping waves.  At home she had a coffee table covered in years of candle wax.  A waterfall of color, cascading down until it became a mountain, and I was always mesmerized by it.

I too the inspiration from that and created the shoulder pads of the dress, so it would seem there were piles of candles close to her face, illuminating the words she read, the things she searched for, and ultimately, like all else, melting away into a nothingness, and replaced with the next layer upon it.

I will always, in some ways be a “poor kid.”  This method of thought was not only reinforced by humble beginnings and watching my single mom struggle to pull herself from the hole my parents dug together; but also by grandmother, who was a child in the midst of the great depression, and understood poverty and scarcity in a way no one from any generation beyond her can relate to.  This has not only attributed to the way money is handled in my personal life, but I also believe it greatly influenced and made possible the Reliquarian project thus far.

I am lucky to know many talented artists in the fantasy and fine art realms, but when I hear their budgets for shoots, I all but fall over from sticker shock.  I can’t imagine those price tags for the final image, so I instead imagine the ways around it.  I am a creative at heart and I think while some feel a sense of pride in being able to afford such luxuries I will always feel the same sense of accomplishment in the act of creating these pieces for fractions of cost.

The headdress was mostly items from the local dollar store, and remnants from other shoots.  I wanted it to have a bit of a catholism edge to it.  I remember my grandparents taking me to church and lighting candles in memory of those no longer with us, and I remember the statues and figures in the sculptures and stained glass murals that I always admired.  The headdress nodded to both, having the ability to light the candle, and having that more church statue feel in the color and texture.

In spending time in Cambodia last year it was common to see altars outside nearly every house.  They pray to buddha and light incense as offerings.  To nod to the other religion and culture that I have always identified strongly with we added incense which still gave a sort of “Holy Mother” feel to the headdress.  It created a sort of halo about her, and was accentuated with the dissected pieces of an oriental fan.  I wanted to create the idea that we are our own churches, we pray and meditate and connect with our gods at the altar of our own minds.  Anyone who seeks God in brick and stone, or thinks their rituals are where God is found is a fool, it is always within, our divine self is the connection between mortality and immortality, between creator and created.

With Nostalgia’s intricate bodice and headdress complete, focus shifted towards the set.  So much detail in this project is so minuscule in the grand landscape of the image.  If asked to describe the Reliquarian in 3 words I would simply say The Reliquarian is: ‘Art Within Art”  The images within the story, the wardrobe and sets within the image, the details within the details.  It is a mixture of all mediums of expression, and the intertwined consciousness of many minds that are significant in my world.

It seemed fitting to shoot the scene for the last book in the place that first inspired it.  It took nearly 3 days simply to clear enough room to have a line of sight for the camera.  It was dark, and dusty, and nostalgic as it should have been.  As the last image in the first book it had to be potent, and it had to represent the core of the project, which is the idea of Art within Art.  To take that further I made her literally art.  Not only in the elaborate costuming and ornate details of beading, wire work, and sculpture, but by placing her within a literal picture frame, one my husband Michael hand built for this piece.  Our child within the story is so captivated and distracted by all the things within the Atheneum that it is some time before she notices the frame is a doorway into another room of the building, and not a literal painting.

Cadence has been with me on this project since it’s inception 5 years ago… that’s nearly half her lifetime.  It has been fun and challenging to create it with her, and I often hope she looks back at these moments and memories with a sense of nostalgia and love for these moments, as I know I will.  Still as mothers and daughters do, we have bickered over different elements of the project, and one in particular has been her long beautiful hair that is so glorious in the initial images.  She begged me to cut it, something I distinctly remember doing myself, as a child.  When I was not victorious in my plea, I cut all of it in the midst of rebellion, and frustration about my life in those moments… in hindsight I was on a very detrimental and damaging path right then, unable to see past the hurt of the present moment, and the helplessness I felt in being a child and not in charge of my own life and direction.  My tangled curls were simply metaphoric for the hopeless web I found myself ensnared in.  In hindsight I can look back, now more than double that age, and see that some of the dismay was in relation to my perspective, and not entirely my circumstances, but that was something I couldn’t see at the time.  I’ve worked hard to give both our children a really good childhood, in some regards, I, like all parents have failed, but overall I have felt mostly successful.

This year was a difficult one for our family, especially the last few months, we have all been struggling with many circumstances beyond our control.  It is the first time I feel I truly failed in my ultimate purpose as a mother: To protect and safeguard the life and well being of my children, mentally, emotionally, physically.  Tragedy and hardship is a necessary trial we endure so that we might see the true nature of all those close to us, and this year certainly did just that.  Cadence begged to cut and donate her hair last time during her father’s deployment in Afghanistan, and I saw a bit of metamorphosis take place within her emotionally and manifest physically.  It was a healthy means of expressing what was within and what she was without.  Given the nature of the year’s struggles I saw her grappling with how to come to terms with it, and again it was time to let some versions of self go… for her and I both.

Danielle, my hair goddess and guru was the only one I’d entrust her locks, and sense of self worth with, and she reminded me that hair holds weight from all the time it grew to it’s current length, for many it’s a way of declaring freedom, of letting go, of allowing one’s self to shed the exoskeleton of a version of themselves they have outgrown.

For Cadence, some of this is simply youth, some of it is innocence she is willingly shedding, and some has been taken from her before it should have been by a world she will learn to be, often times unforgiving and apathetic.  Interestingly as life imitates art, and art imitates life the easiest solution in terms of the Reliquarian, was to make Cady’s journey part of the child’s journey within the story.  And so Unsung is distracted by all the lovely and strange forgotten things within the atheneum.  She plays dress up in the clothes she finds there, studies the oddities, and eventually finds herself in front of an antique mirror and a collection of shears and scissors.  What she sees and what she feels are out of syncopation, and so she chops her hair, severing it from her head in an attempt to sever the past struggles and sorrows that have been tethering her to past days, and keeping her from moving forward.

As I am always behind the camera in these moments, I often forget that I myself am a part of the story in its creation.  The nights before a shoot are often spent with another creative in the project, and always the final touches and nuances are placed only moments before the shutter fires.  The true gift has always been that amazing people not only become part of the project, but bring other amazing people into the Reliquarian.  Jaye, brought his wife’s incredible talents to Higher Learning and introduced his artistic and creative daughters to me.  Siena has been with me ever since.  Sarah Jane sent me to Danielle, who has not only done hair for the shoots, but created stunning transformations in real life, and brought her friend on set to help fill in the shooting space on the day.  Donna Maria was a student at a workshop that quickly identified as a kindred spirit and agreed to play the part of Nostalgia.   Remy played Deception’s character in Higher Learning and has also done makeup on half the sets for shoot days.

The day of is always full of snacks, and last minute panic attacks, and stress, and excitement, and good people, and I love every second of it… Of course looking back I am struck with the nostalgia of the memory which conveniently leaves out all the headaches and anxiety of the day.  Siena stayed up till about 3 am with me the night before melting wax, and then snagged this behind the scenes as we finally began to shoot the scene, and when I saw it, it reminded me of all the reasons I have invested so much of my life, my money, my time, myself into this project.  It is the embodiment and culmination of every creative fiber of my being, every nuance, and every inspiration all converge here, in the moment I push the shutter button, after months of prep and frustration, inspiration, and the journey between what I think it will be and what it becomes.  It’s the Severance.  It offers a final payment of purpose, it ends the literal chapter or in this case book, and allows me to move forward towards the next ones… though from time to time I shall revisit them with a sense of fondness and nostalgia…

The post Severance appeared first on The Reliquarian.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake Shoes - from "Higher Learning"

The Cake Shoes were one of the easier and more fun props/costumes to make.  It’s relatively inexpensive to do on your own, and honestly doesn’t require much art skill.  I’ve seen these sold by several companies for several hundred dollars, we did these for under $100 with all materials, and it could easily be amended in color and style to mimic your favorite flavor.

These Tutorials are meant to have everything you need.  Click on the images below and they’ll take you right to the Amazon link to buy anything you need and don’t have.  Below the item list are the instructions with photographs to follow along.  When we do the video tutorial, I’ll add that to the bottom and our YouTube Channel as well!  Happy Creating!

Materials Needed

Platform Heel Shoes: $19.99

Hot Glue Gun & Sticks: $9.60

Artist Palette Knife: $6.38

Assorted Artist Brushes: $13.95

Acrylic Heavy Body Titanium White: $10.74

Acrylic Heavy Body Vivid Lime Green: $8.26

Acrylic Heavy Body Burnt Sienna: $5.79

Acrylic Heavy Body Naples Yellow: $10.94

Acrylic Heavy Body Alizarin Crimson: $8.46

Total Cost: $94.11

Selecting the Shoes

It can not be a patent leather or other glossy type surface! You want a soft cloth texture to the shoe so that the color can seep in, and the paint has something to hold onto.

Shoes

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I couldn’t find the exact pair I used for the shoot now that it’s two years later.  Basically, you’re looking for a platform heel, these ones I choose for the glitter texture, and the chunky heel, for those of you who may not be thin heel kinda gals {or guys}  (you can click on the photo to go buy this exact pair.)  The pair I found had the glitter texture on the bottom platform only, and was closer in shape to the second ones next to this.

Shoes

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These ones were my second option, they have the right shape and style, minus the glitter texture, which you could add yourself to the bottom platform and heel if you like.  They’re a little thinner on the heel.  (You can click on the photo to purchase.)  Otherwise you can go to your favorite shoe store and buy a pair you love.  I recommend the platform sole, and that you keep the color in the beige to white color scheme.

Acrylic Paint: Liquidex Heavy Body.

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There’s a lot of options when it comes to paints and brushes.  (You can click the photo to buy the right kind, don’t forget to select your colors!  They’re listed above.)  I personally like the Liquidex Brand of paints which aside from online purchase, you can get at places like DickBlick, AC Moore, and Hobby Lobby.  The Heavy Body allows for a thicker paint that gives the more icing feel we’re after.  (Feel free to stray from the mint chocolate chip… maybe you’re more of a chocolate cherry kind of gal, or a Lemon Merengue.)

Acrylic Artist Brushes

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You’ll want an angled flat brush, a pointed small detail brush, and a general flat brush at minimum.  If you are like me and work through brushes quickly, the photo goes to a set of 72 brushes in those sizes so you can replace them, (Just click the photo to head to Amazon).  Otherwise you can buy them in a smaller set HERE.   Like everything else you can buy a quality brush that will last you a good while or throw away brushes.  It depends on how diligent you are with caring for and cleaning them, which will better serve you.  Nothing worse than dropping $20-35 on a single brush, and ruining it because you left it on the palette instead of cleaning it that night.

Things I Had On Hand That You Might Not

There are a few other things that I have had in my studio for years and use on every project, those are included and linked below in case you're just getting started on your artistic journey.

Artist Brush Washer & Holder

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I have had mine since high school, it’s simple and it works.  It holds all your brushes suspended above the water to dry, or in the water, where they can rinse, but the bristles don’t get ruined from sitting flat against the bottom.  A lot of times I’m working with multiple brushes and this little $10 item was an awesome investment.

Clear Acrylic Artist Palette

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Not that you could tell anymore, but years ago when I first got mine, I was still in middle school and it was completely clear.  I remember thinking it was glass, and this was the Artist’s version of Cinderella’s glass slippers.  I loved it, and cleaned it meticulously… now it has nearly 2 decades of paint on it, and has itself become a work of art.  But this is the size and type I’d get if I needed to replace it.

Watercolor Pencils

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I learn a lot by making mistakes and experimenting.  I used artist sketch pencils in creating the original shoes, and the graphite showed through the paint on the heel.  In hindsight I’d highly recommend, and in the future myself will be utilizing watercolor pencils, that way any color that did show would be similar to the paint color, and it’ll dissolve naturally with the water on the brush.  I love this set for the quality and the box case.

Artist Palette Knife

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A palette knife can be key for texture… this set particularly (click the image to go to the item on Amazon) is nice for the cake shoes because it offers a lot of interesting textures that could replicate different icing styles.  If you’re looking for a more minimal investment and only the necessity, then this is my recommendation for a single knife Here.

Hot Glue Gun

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This one is essential for The Reliquarian… I would say Hot Glue is a constant, every prop, every wardrobe piece, and everyone who has worked on the project has the burns to prove it.  What’s worse it’s glue… it’s sticky, that’s kind of it’s purpose.  So when it burns it keeps burning because you can’t get away from it.  It’s no joke, I’ve gotten some nasty 2nd degree burns so proceed with caution.  That said, click the image above and drop it in your cart if you don’t have one.  I like this one for the separate nozzles and high/low temp settings.  You can get them for less than $5.00 but you get what you pay for.

Glue Sticks

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I buy these things by the CASE.  We use them for everything… however if the idea of 430 gluesticks seems like overkill you can click the photo above for a more manageable count of 3o.  If you are buying the glue gun I recommend you’re looking for 7/16th diameter gluesticks… Im not saying I’ve ever bought the wrong ones before but…. I’ve bought the wrong ones before.

Creating The Shoes

With your pencil, you want to draw a cross lattice pattern on the heel.  Then divide the platform in half, it doesn’t need to be perfectly measured, or straight, it’s just a guide.  In hindsight I wouldn’t use sketch pencils, I’d use the water color pencils in a close color match so I don’t have any bleed through or mixture with the paint.

Along the top of your heel where your foot slides in you’ll draw a drippy pattern for the icing.  It’s a rough sketch, and a guide line.

Taking a hot glue gun and trace over the lines you sketched out.  You’ll also follow the outline of the icing you drew around the top of the shoe.

Taking a flat brush you’ll brush on a coat of the naples yellow to both the heel and the platform.

This is super easy, even if you aren’t an artist naturally.  Shading sells everything.  You begin with the Alizarin Crimson at the top of the platform.  Mixing it with the Naples Yellow you’ll blend it down so it has a shaded look.  At the halfway point you’ll do it again, beginning with the Crimson on top, the Naples on the bottom, and blending it into each other.

Shading is what really sells.  Once the hot glue dries, take the Burnt Sienna and your smallest pointed brush.  in the same fashion of shading, you’ll run lines of dark brown under the hot glue lines.  Then blend with the naples yellow.  A blend of the naples and siena becomes the mixture for on top of the hot glue.

After the red velvet cake paint dries on the platform you can take some of the Burnt Sienna and create a line across the two layers.  Add to the illusion by having it drip, I layer the paint pretty thick so it has not only the shape but the texture, it protrudes out from the platform.

With your palette knife mix some of the Vivid Lime Green with some of the Titanium White and a touch of the Naples Yellow.  There’s no specific measurements, its really just about blending it until it has the color you want.  Use the wide brush to first brush a layer onto each shoe in it’s entirety.  A little water helps it seep in and saturate the fabric, but will also make the color more translucent.  Once your done with the base coat, get your palette knife and to a second coat, using  the knife just as you would adding icing to a cake.  You want the texture! It helps complete the illusion.

Taking your flat angled brush dip it in the Burnt Sienna and add small “chips” which are basically rectangle blocks here and there for the chocolate chips in the icing.

The final step is the icing around the top of the shoe.  The hot glue creates a somewhat glossy surface so theres two ways you can go.  With a wetter bristle you can create a more translucent gel kind of topping.  The Alizarin Crimson would work nicely here.  It takes a bit to get used to it and not leave streak marks from the brush strokes, the key is to do it with a light hand.

If you like that fruity gel icing look this is where you stop.  All done!

I ended up going with chocolate, because I knew the shot had a lot of information in it and I wanted people to see the details of the shoes.  If you want a more thick and solid icing look you would simply give it a second coat after the first has dried.  The first coat gives the second something to grip to and should make it easy to fill in the rest of the way.

Final Thoughts

The images above go directly to amazon, so you can price out what you need. We do affiliate link them all, so if you end up buying supplies from our links you donate a few cents of each purchase back to more Reliquarianing, and more tutorials. Please share photos with us of your creations! We’d love to see what you come up with!

If I link to a larger or bulk quantity on the photo it’s because we use that product often and it needs to be replaced frequently.  I’ll also link to the minimum necessary for this specific project in the text below the image for convenience.

See something else in the Reliquarian you want a tutorial on? Just let us know in the comments and we’ll add it to the list! You can support the project further by going to www.Patreon.com/JessicaLark. Follow the project on social media at www.facebook.com/TheReliquarian, or www.Instagram.com/TheReliquarian

So now you have some Sweet Shoes! (see what I did there?!)  and they were… wait for it… ‘A Piece of Cake’ to create! (Ok, I’m done with the cake puns now)

The post Tutorial: Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake Shoes appeared first on The Reliquarian.

Since I was a child I was enamored with antique keys, skeleton keys, old house keys.  I’ve seen projects and thoughts, ideas, and inspirations from childhood weave their way into the reliquarian from so many directions.  I believe there are certain interests and predispositions we have, that manifest in us in our childhood.  As this journey has continued I am unsure if everything about my life and creative visions has been bringing me to this point, or if it is the sum of my experiences and endeavors.  Years of exploration of artistry, and self, seeping into the culmination of all my talent, experience, and expression.  Artists are infamous for being tortured souls, and in many ways I suppose that is what makes the art… we use it to connect, through joy and suffering, but the source is the same… Love.  The Reliquarian has so many subtle messages and mantras, but like roots traveling back to the tree, the heart of it is that all things come from the source of love… the shadow and the light.  We like to ignore that part; the shadow.  We’re only hurt by what we care for… if we don’t care we don’t hurt.  We suffer loss, and heartache, frustration, loneliness, and fear… things I’ve known intimately from a very young age.  I got lost in the shadow for a lot of my childhood and young adult years, and I forgot shadows are cast by obstacles that stand between you and the light.  Nothing more… Shadows do not denote the absence of light, but the presence of it.  That was a really hard lesson for me, and one that I rejected, because like most people, holding to our obstacles, our shadows in the path, excuses of from having to make the effort.  From showing up.  From taking ownership of our journey.

Patience is a virtue… one that I am still mastering, and it does not come naturally to me.  I’m learning both more and less of it with age.  Some things just take time… as I age I learn to wait.  Not for the answers, not for the right moment, but for the emotions to pass.  {Artists are notorious for being emotional as well.}  Once, Michael told me “People don’t love like you do, you feel things deeper than others}  I, to this day don’t know if it was a criticism or a compliment.  He also teases that others sing praises for my devotion to the cause {whatever cause it may be} but they confuse persistence with stubbornness.  That too was a moment of realization for me:  Everything is two sides of the same coin.

Every trait and quality has both the potential for good and for bad.  It is both an ally and a foe, situationally influenced.  My emotional side, my passion in particular is both the best and the worst thing about me.  It has helped me create my greatest art pieces, it has seen me through and given me courage to continue walking when my strength failed me.  I have loved fiercely, and overcome things that would break most people, through sheer will power at times… but it has caused a lot of heartache, a lot of suffocation within my own emotions, a lot of wallowing, and tethering myself to the past, which has pulled me from the present.

If I glance behind me now, I find gratitude for my struggles and hardships in youth.  It has taught me to know the value of a good person, to not take for granted the love and support of a good person, to be a good person.  To teach my children to be good, and kind to others, especially when they are hurting and struggling, which is when we often are least lovable.

My daughter sees my husband write little hearts on paper towels, and feed me when I’m immersed in a project, and she mimics by leaving me pretzel sticks and coffee on my writing desk in the morning.  Even my students and apprentices send thoughtful gifts to encourage creativity and writing, and I hope what I give them is of equal value.  My little boy learns how to be a man by watching his father, and I have no concern that he will learn to be a good one by following in those footsteps.  After the Butterfly Book shoot, I can’t see butterflies without feeling dad’s presence, so when this little black and blue butterfly landed on me, that too was perceived as a gift of love.  Love is the source.

I myself am more a bumble bee than a butterfly.  If you don’t know me {and even if you do} a lot of time, what seems like disoriented chaotic flitting to and fro is really an obsessive love for all projects, I can’t choose between the flowers.  I have always appreciated dichotomy.  Even the sound of the word appeals to my writer, but also comes into play in much of my artistry.  Lacey dresses against rough backgrounds, humanity within nature.  I appreciate duality, visually and in life.  Warm apple pie, and ice cream, salty and sweet.  The allure of the nostalgic in the present.  I think a lot of who I am exists in duality and dichotomy as well. My mind operates in a very entrepreneurial state of project starting, and loves the artistry and passionate emotion of being a photographer, painter, sculptor.  I am both the visual artist, and the writer.  The lover, and the independent wanderlust afflicted spirit.  Siena once said to me that I arrange everything in my life like little still-lifes to be painted, and I don’t know if I do this because I see in pictures, or if I see in pictures because I do this.

I was feeling incredibly down about the lack of progress with the Reliquarian.  If you’ve been following since the beginning, or have wandered back through past posts then you know this has been literally years of work… and to only have 12 images complete at this point is incredibly disheartening for a girl who is still learning the virtue of patience.

Being the emotional person I am, I tend to make decisions from a place of heart, so when I received the call that Kellie McGinn had passed away unexpectedly, leaving her parents with a studio business to deal with that they were now responsible for legally and financially it tugged on my heart strings.  Photo Express Inc. had been started by her father and his brothers in the 80s, primarily as a film development company, then shifted towards portraiture.  Eventually Kellie took over it as the second generation, and her daughter Page, who spent as much time in her studio as my kids have in mine stood as a likely candidate for the 3rd generation.  Page was 9 when Kellie passed unexpectedly, her and I were only a few months apart in age.  To add even more strife to their family sorrow, her mother Judie, who had helped manage all the books was battling stage 4 cancer.  Out of nowhere a friend of hers called me and asked me if I would buy out the company from her parents and take it over so they could retire.

It wasn’t more than a few weeks after I had cleared more things from my way to make room for the Reliquarian that I received the call.  Life has been pulling me many different directions, and Michael had been talking only the day before about his options as he nears the end of his 20 years of service… he considered banking on the name I had built and taking over the photography studio, building a high volume, service based company where I had been rooted in the artistry and taken a very low volume at a much higher price tag.  We pacted to undertake the challenge together.  I liked the idea that the McGinns who had built this family business over nearly 30 years would have something to show for the efforts they had given for a third, to half of the years they were gifted in life.  Hopefully it would grant them some peace and hope towards the future, that their legacy continue onward.

I agreed to build and run the company for the next few years until Michael’s service time was complete, and then Michael could choose to take it over and allow me to focus on the Reliquarian.  {I have now resigned to the fact that this project will be the culmination of years to come, that water cuts through rock with persistence and time… and patience is a virtue.}  As I scavenged and found furniture, set up framing options, and we put in new floors and cabinets I was overwhelmed and unsure of what I was doing.  I still am, if we’re being honest.  I remind myself there are many roads that travel towards the destination.

As I sat alone in the studio late one evening by myself, I went to turn off the light, and found my shoes lying next to the drill.  Dichotomy.  A visual mantra that I was not sacrificing artistry for entrepreneurism.  I am both.  This was another path, but it was still capable of leading towards and not away from the destination.

I, of all things am a project starter.  I am enamored with beginnings, and challenges.  I have poor follow through, not because I am bored, but because I am so excited about the possibilities, the untraveled paths.  My wanderlust spirit is easily allured by the unfamiliar, and the beauty that comes with the exploration of new places, and the lessons they have to offer.  It would seem this is a year of exploration.  I opened the doors with the possibility of new genres, new people, new experiences.  I hired new artist to offer them a beginning towards their dreams, a collective vision.  Still, though I knew it would require months of my undivided attention, I made it a point to surround myself in the new Turning Page Studio with the Reliquarian so that I might remember the destination, and make sure to remain pointed towards that ultimate North.

I have a great love as an entrepreneur, an artist and writer, and the third corner of this trinity is rooted in education.  I have been lucky to be offered opportunity to speak at some of the largest photography conventions and expos in the world.  I have built many wonderful relationships with companies whose practices and products I admire, and align myself with.  I now call many of those whom I so admired, friend, and colleague.  I aspire to remain humble, and being amidst them certainly keeps me thus.  It reminds me to hold to the mantra that a good teacher is first a good student, and in their company I have so much to learn.

I believe their different genres, their unique artistic perspectives has taught me to see differently, and it certainly has influenced the Reliquarian.  Shooting with Alan Shapiro gave me all the flower images for Forlorn in the Forest of Essence, but it changed the way I look at and notice little things, and the Reliquarian has very much been about the little things since the beginning.  It is a sort of massive landscape of macro elements.  The new love specifically of flowers influenced the next incarnation of the key as well.  Art Imitates Life, Imitates Art.  The Reliquarian itself seems to grow and blossom at it’s own pace and season.  My husband buys me flowers for holidays, but planted ones we can plant in the garden, so at the end of our lives, in the home we raised our children in, I might look and see a lifetime of love from him, rather than a few moments or days of cut flowers on a table.  Looking at the purple tulips that opened so beautifully this year, the notion of stamens made of keys emerged.

Most of this is a learning process for me.  I hold closely to the story of Edison creating the lightbulb, and how he supposedly mused “I didn’t fail 1000 times, I simply learned 1000 ways not to make a light bulb.”  There have been plenty of failures in the Reliquarian thus far… story line issues, timelines that don’t match up, confusion in plot and character and settings.  Lots of mistakes and failed attempts at different art pieces… beautiful images that I still, years later love, but that won’t be in the final story, but received their own post just the same in The First Failures.  I’ve noticed, now that I’ve been at this for more than three years, that the failures and frustrations of the moment end up saving so much time, and aiding in the navigation through creative waters as we make other props and costuming.  The first key flower illustrated the concept, but the petals were thick and clunky, I bought colored clay but solid colored petals added to unrealistic feel and there was a disconnect between what I saw in my mind and what I created… the woe of every artist perfecting their craft.

It took some time and play with colors but eventually we created these beautiful petals that had texture and shape and color to them that were more lifelike, while still holding the whimsy and fantasy I want the Reliquarian to embody.  I envisioned the first key as growing, spreading vines across her and into the earth, drawing the energy and healing her.

The challenge has been that in a world of amazing technological development everything exists is CGI and photoshop, and I have been deeply rooted in the attachment of these things physically manifesting… though I admit my quaint cottage studio seems to grow smaller as it fills with the props and pieces from this series.  I hold great hope for an amazing art gallery show and book release in the future, perhaps the near future where one might appreciate all these visual nuances in their own glory as well as within the imagery.

A lot of our work becomes play.  At times we are all childlike in this process, amused in texture and color, and experimentation.  In this case we needed the greens to fade to blues in the forestry she would be in.  This image done later, actually falls before Unsung in the Bleeding Wood.  Our need for blue, led to an evening of creating our own Holi Powder, and dying Mackenzie’s hands in the process.

The beautiful juxtaposition of this project is that the writing inspires the art, inspires the writing.  Often times I have the silhouette of ideas and themes, that I am fleshing out in words and prose, and as I write, the image itself materializes into forms and colors.  In turn when the set is done, the photographs captured, and I am in the editing room I find the writer strolls around the image and learns other pieces of the story.  Uncovering them from the depths they are buried within.  The Bleeding Wood holds red trees and tones within it, a lifeblood in the forest.  In this element of the scene the forest turns blue as it heals her.  Pulling the life energy from the wood.  Like blood swimming to and from the heart, oxygen offering the blood life to carry, and gift elsewhere.  It wasn’t until I saw the blue in contrast to the red that the parallel to actual blood appeared for me.  There they sat side by side, the healing of the forest, and the warrior child within the wood, invigorated and encouraged by the energy of the world coursing within her.

And so the next image: A Second Succession is born.  Named for the process started by a catastrophic event, a forest fire, a harvesting, a hurricane; that reduces an already established ecosystem to a smaller population of species, and a new rebirth that occurs after.  So the key roots within the forest, draws the life energy of it in, and heals a gravely wounded child.  At the sacrifice of the forest, and her original being, a second birth occurs and like all things, she grows into something new, her losses and woundings the price of such transcendence… A lesson that has come only with time, and has required patience to learn.  Perhaps more than anyone else I write this book and create this imagery for myself.  To help understand the lessons life is trying to teach me, and to make my way through my emotional bias towards the truth of the places within me I encounter.  I am still learning who I am, and I find pieces of myself within the pages of this project.  In the midst of all the images thus far, this might have been one of the most simple in terms of setup and creation… however it has also become one of if not the favorite image I’ve created in the series.  There is something organic, and holistic about this one that really speaks to me.  It echoes a growing sense of responsibility I feel in making decisions which benefit the earth and its creatures.  In continued pursuit of that quest, all sales from prints within the Reliquarian series will now benefit humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors that are close to my heart.  The first of which will be a new school house in Cambodia… but more on that in the next post.

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