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Past Work ~ The Story of Reliqueries
All of the work in this gallery is in private collections. It is demonstrative of Gibson’s use of natural materials and the evolution of her creative expression. The work dates back to the mid-1990s and includes pieces from her Earth Reliquary series and her Earth Altar series, as well as a temple bell housing commissioned by the Mount Holyoke College Department of Religion (South Hadley, MA).
Traditional religious reliquaries, containers for sacred religious objects, inspired the gourd sculptures. Here they are Earth Reliquaries, holding relics of the fragile natural world – animal bones, shells, poppy heads. The materials for this series include bottleneck gourds, driftwood, bamboo, stones, and bone.
Elaborate altars and roadside shrines in Mexico and Greece inspired the Earth Altar series, and while those shrines honor saints and persons who have died, Gibson’s Earth Altars honor places on the planet that are holy ground for her. The materials for this series include saplings, bamboo, hickory bark, and long leaf pine.
