Not Everything We Make Is Merchandise

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I’ve been both surprised and touched by the response to my new workshop, Objects of Devotion: Creating Contemporary Reliquaries and Icons. Of course, I’m delighted that people have enrolled, but there seems to be something more behind the response—almost a sense of recognition.

As a teacher, there is nothing more satisfying than realizing that something you have created has given people permission to explore an idea they were already carrying within them.

This whole series of workshops has made me wonder whether we may be living through a renewed need for personal objects of devotion. I don’t necessarily mean religious objects, although they certainly can be. I’m thinking of handmade pieces where memory, gratitude, grief, nature, and hope can be given a physical form.

My friend Matt Toomey has expressed this idea beautifully with his wonderful contemporary reliquaries:

“These pieces are more than just decorative objects; they are personal invitations to experience a moment of stillness and meditation in the middle of life’s chaos. The boxes themselves are treated as cold wax and oil paintings, with rich, textured surfaces that evoke the beauty and complexity of the natural world. My goal with these reliquaries is to celebrate the sacred in simplicity, creating a visual and tactile experience that encourages reflection, rest, and reverence for the natural world.”

I encourage you to read his thoughts about reliquaries and nature.

“Each element within the reliquary is carefully chosen and crafted to evoke a sense of stillness and connection. The birds, for example, often symbolize freedom and the soul, while the nests evoke ideas of home, protection, and nurturing. The pods and weavings speak to the interconnectedness of life and the way nature weaves its elements together into a unified whole. These objects, while simple in form, carry layers of meaning that invite the viewer to look deeper and contemplate their own relationship with the natural world.”

You can see more of Matt’s reliquaries and read the entire essay here.

So much of what we see every day is fleeting. Images scroll past. News arrives, worries us, and is quickly replaced by more news. Things are purchased, used, and discarded. Even our artwork can get caught up in a cycle of producing, exhibiting, promoting, and selling.

A reliquary asks us to do something different. It asks us to slow down and think about what we want to keep.

A photograph, a handwritten note, a clay shard, a feather, a tiny book, or a fragment of an earlier artwork can become part of a very personal visual language. When we choose one of these things and give it a special place, we are saying, “This matters to me. I don’t want it to be lost.”

Making Art That Doesn’t Need to Be Sold

Artists are often encouraged to think about audience, exhibitions, marketability, and price. Those things are part of an artist’s life, but they aren’t the only reasons we make art.

Some objects have a different job.

There is a wonderful kind of freedom in making something that doesn’t have to explain itself to a gallery, a juror, or a potential buyer. It doesn’t have to fit into a familiar category. It can stay with its maker, hanging in a quiet corner or sitting on a shelf among other meaningful things.

The Private Function of Art

A work can be visually strong and still be deeply personal. It may include a photograph of someone we love, part of an earlier piece, or a small found object that would mean very little to anyone else.

We don’t have to translate every symbol for an audience. We don’t have to explain every choice. The object can simply hold what we have placed inside it.

Maybe that is part of the reason reliquaries have existed in so many forms across cultures and across centuries. They give us a place for the things whose value can’t be measured in ordinary ways.

Why This Work May Be Resonating

The response to these workshops has made me think that people may be looking for permission to make something intimate, symbolic, and not easily categorized. Here’s a personal talisman piece by Dottie Eberhart from the Tokens and Talismans workshop:

This talisman was created from a memory of sitting on a rock in a mountain stream journaling many years ago. The thought that came to me was stop trying to swim upstream and allow the water to carry you. It knows your destination.

We may also be looking for ways to make art that feels more contemplative and less commercial. Art can help us pay attention. It can help us discover meaning in things that might otherwise be overlooked or thrown away. It can give a physical home to something we have carried inside us for a long time.

The reception to these workshops has reminded me of something that is easy to forget: art does not always have to enter the marketplace to justify its existence. It does not always have to become inventory, content, or a product.

We might make something simply because a memory needs a safe place. We might make it out of gratitude. Or we might make an object simply because we need to have it near us.

Not everything we make is merchandise.

Some things are simply keepers of what matters.

Thanks for reading!

Lyn

Inside the Studio: Building the Relics Workshop

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So here’s the reason for this week’s post: if I tell you about this new workshop now, I’ll have no choice but to finish it by the end of next week. Public accountability can be a wonderful motivator. Do you ever give yourself those kinds of self-imposed deadlines?

The funny thing is, I’m not having trouble creating the workshop. Quite the opposite.

I keep wandering off the path.

Every time I sit down to film the next lesson, I become so absorbed in making these little reliquaries that I disappear into another creative side trail. One idea leads to another, another box wants to become a shrine, another story asks to be told—and before I know it, I’ve spent the afternoon happily exploring instead of recording videos.

Playing around with “relics”

It happened with the first three workshops, too—The Keeper of Fragments, The Listening Vessel, and Tokens and Talismans.

Apparently, getting delightfully lost is just part of my process.

So here’s where this newest adventure is leading…

Relics of Meaning: Creating Contemporary Reliquaries and Icons

A small shrine for someone—or something—you never want to forget.

Some gifts arrive in the form of people. Others come as places, animals, (or birds!) mentors, memories, or moments of unexpected grace. In this workshop, we’ll create a small shrine of gratitude—a contemporary reliquary that honors something that has profoundly influenced who we have become.

This workshop was inspired directly by my recent series of Crow Reliquaries, currently on exhibit at the San Antonio Art League + Museum.

From the Crow Reliquary Series

One unexpected diversion has been color.

In the first two lessons, I talk about painting and texturing the surface of the reliquary canvas itself. I’m not primarily a painter, but I’ve become completely absorbed in mixing what I’m calling timeless colors—those quiet, weathered hues that don’t seem to belong to any particular decade or trend.

They’re created by letting complementary pigments soften and gray one another, and somehow the process takes me right back to my art school days. I’d forgotten how much I love simply mixing paint.

Naples yellow, Pthalo blue, Quin gold

But this workshop is really about more than color.

It’s about the things we choose to remember, honor, and carry forward. Sometimes that means creating something entirely new. Sometimes it means giving new life to something you’ve held onto for years—a treasured object, a fragment from an earlier piece, a photograph, a small keepsake, or an image that has become part of your own visual language.

Reliquary in progress . . .

I thought I’d give you a little sneak preview from one of today’s lessons. It’s about what I call the Icon Box—the small space at the heart of the reliquary.

VIDEO LINK

The name is intentionally simple. It’s the Icon Box—the place where the reliquary holds what matters most.

A small book in an Icon Box

The overall question is simple:

What belongs inside a reliquary?

There isn’t a single right answer.

It might hold a small encaustic collage you create today. It might cradle a collection of found objects that have quietly traveled through your life. It might become home to a vintage photograph of someone who still guides you, or a meaningful fragment rescued from an earlier artwork and given a new purpose.

The little box becomes a place of remembrance—a contemporary shrine for someone, somewhere, or something you never want to forget.

I’m hoping to have the workshop finished next week. (Now that I’ve told you that in public, I suppose I’d better get back into the studio instead of wandering off on yet another delightful tangent.)

I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

 

Saying Yes, Receiving More

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Last week, I wrote about discovering the work of Lorraine O’Grady through a Women’s Caucus for Art project and about the unexpected gifts that come from saying yes to creative communities.

This week, I find myself thinking about that idea of saying “yes” again.

This Saturday, I have the pleasure of volunteering with a community of Prayer Flag makers. This remarkable group already does such meaningful work, creating prayer flags that carry messages of hope, comfort, remembrance, and encouragement where they are needed.

“…birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.” – Black Elk

My role is a happy-teacher one. I have been invited to share some mixed-media ideas for incorporating paper, fabric, imagery, and words into their flags. But as so often happens, I suspect I will receive far more than I give.

When we step outside our own studios and offer our creativity in service to a larger community, we often return carrying something unexpected—new ideas, renewed hope, deeper connections, and a clearer understanding of why making things matters.

As I prepared for this workshop, I decided to record a short demonstration video (fusing paper and fabric with acrylic medium) for myself and anyone else who might be interested. And I thought perhaps you’d like to see it! (LINK BELOW) It may not be ready for prime time, but it’s a good example of how I plan a project by creating a prototype first.

The techniques in this project are intentionally open and adaptable. Perhaps they might inspire you to create a banner for your studio, a small offering for a friend, a memorial piece, or a visual expression of your own hopes for the world.

VIDEO LINK

Whether or not you ever make a prayer flag, you may discover ideas in this little video for combining paper, fabric, images, and words into your own meaningful creations.

Every artist has something worth expressing—a hope, a memory, a blessing, a gratitude, or a message meant for someone else. Sometimes a simple project can become a beautiful place to begin.

Lorraine O’Grady asked important questions about who is seen, who is heard, and what remains outside the frame. Community art projects ask similar questions in their own important way.

  • Who needs encouragement?
  • Who needs beauty?
  • How can our creativity become an act of connection?

Maybe this is another unexpected gift of saying “yes”.

We begin by offering our time, our skills, and our willingness to participate. And we end by remembering that art has always been about relationship—to history, to community, and to one another. Sometimes, in saying yes to a small project, we discover a larger world.

Thanks for reading! Now go make a banner to honor your brave creative self!

When Advocacy Becomes Inspiration

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I have discovered that some of the most meaningful artworks I make begin not with my own ideas, but with an invitation to serve. A call for a themed exhibition (like Celebration Circle’s Altar Show). A collaborative project. A request from an arts organization. These opportunities often seem like small commitments—one more piece to make, one more deadline to meet. Yet time and again, they have introduced me to new histories, new communities, and unexpected teachers.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a members’ project sponsored by the Women’s Caucus for Art. The concept was fascinating: artists were assigned, at random, one of the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award honorees and asked to create a “Zoom-style” portrait imagining that woman appearing on our computer screens today.

I was assigned Lorraine O’Grady. At first, I knew almost nothing about her. What a gift that turned out to be!

As I began reading her essays and studying her photographs, performances, curatorial projects, and activism, I found myself in conversation with an artist whose ideas feel astonishingly contemporary. O’Grady challenged exclusion in the art world and insisted upon the complexity and visibility of Black female subjectivity.

Again and again, she asked essential questions: Who is seen? Who is heard? What remains outside the frame?

The encaustic mixed-media “pop-art” portrait I eventually created (the size of a Zoom frame, 10.5” x 6”) became more than an image of Lorraine O’Grady. It became an act of listening.

The Women’s Caucus project asks us to imagine contacting the past through contemporary technology. What might these remarkable women tell us about the path ahead? What might we learn by looking more closely at their surroundings and their work?

Artists spend so much time alone in our studios that we can begin to believe our journeys are solitary ones. They are not.

This is one of the benefits of belonging to organizations and solidarity groups such as the Women’s Caucus for Art, Fiber Artists of San Antonio, GAGA, or other creative communities. We often join because we want to support advocacy, education, and collective action. We want our voices to be stronger together than they are alone.

But there is another gift. These organizations continually lead us beyond ourselves.

They introduce us to artists we might never have encountered, histories we were never taught, and communities of makers whose concerns resonate deeply with our own. They remind us that our work exists within a much larger lineage.


Photo by Kamil Kalkin

The Women’s Caucus project particularly reminded me of the remarkable legion of women artists whose names may not be widely known outside art circles, yet whose contributions have profoundly shaped culture and social change. Their stories deserve to be revisited, shared, and carried forward.

Maybe that is one of the reasons collaborative projects matter so much.

We agree to make a small artwork, and in return, we inherit an ancestor.

We offer our time and talents to a community, and in return we are reminded that we belong to something larger than ourselves—a vast, interwoven history of artists who have used creativity not only to make beautiful objects, but also to question, advocate, preserve memory, and imagine more generous futures.

Lorraine O’Grady’s Zoom portrait is now waits to travel to the exhibition in the Salmon Library Gallery at The University of Alabama. But the real gift is already here.

I know her work now. I have spent time with her ideas. I have listened to her questions.

Read the article about O’Grady in Harper’s Bazaar, written just after her death in 2024

I said yes to the WCA request because I wanted to support an organization I value. I did not expect to come away this inspired.

But perhaps that is one of the unexpected miracles of artistic advocacy: when we step outside our own studios to contribute to something larger, we often return carrying new stories, new influences, and new companions for the journey.

Sometimes, in saying yes to a small project, we discover a larger world. And sometimes, if we are fortunate, we discover a new teacher waiting there.

 

Finding Your Artistic Vocabulary

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Walking The Labyrinth, Lyn Belisle 2026

One of the questions I’m asked most often is, “How do you know what to make next?”

Most of my new work doesn’t begin with something completely new. It begins with something I already know.

This altar, Walking the Labyrinth, was created for the annual Celebration Circle Altar Exhibition at the San Antonio Art League + Museum. While the piece reflects the winding paths we all travel in life, it also reminded me that our artistic journeys are labyrinths of another kind. We circle back to familiar places, seeing them differently each time.

The wooden eggs in Walking the Labyrinth first appeared years ago in my early Encanto altars. At the time, I simply loved their quiet presence. Later I realized they had become symbols of possibility, mystery, and the things we carry before they’re ready to emerge.

The crows arrived later, but have persisted in my recent Crow Reliquaries.

The Crows brought with them ideas of witness, memory, and the threshold between worlds. Now it has found its way into the altar about the Labyrinth, quietly keeping watch over the traveler.

The serene faces…the arches…the vessels…the circles and spirals…each has surfaced again and again over the years. I don’t consciously decide to include them. They simply belong.

I think every artist develops this kind of visual vocabulary.

Writers have favorite words. Musicians return to familiar chords. Artists collect forms, symbols, colors, and materials that continue speaking to them long after a single project is finished.

Those recurring elements become more than design choices. They become archetypes—objects that carry meaning beyond themselves. They tell us what we’re trying to understand, what we’re returning to, and perhaps even what we’re devoted to.

One of the most revealing exercises is to look back through several years of your own work. What keeps reappearing? Birds? Circles? Windows? Maps? Hands? Fragments? Certain colors? Certain materials?

Those repetitions aren’t failures of imagination. They’re clues. They’re the visual language you’ve been quietly teaching yourself to speak.

I love the connection this has to my ongoing Objects of Devotion series because it suggests something I’ve come to believe: our symbols choose us as much as we choose them. We don’t manufacture an authentic artistic voice overnight. We discover it by noticing what insists on returning.

That’s a comforting (and important) thought for artists who sometimes worry they’re “doing the same thing again.” Perhaps the work isn’t repeating itself at all. Perhaps it’s deepening the conversation.

And perhaps those recurring forms—the crow, the egg, the vessel, the spiral, the face—are our own Objects of Devotion, patiently waiting for us to recognize what they’ve been trying to teach us all along.

~~Lyn

PS: Here’s the statement for the Celebration Circle Exhibition about Walking The Labyrinth – I want to think more about this winding path and find words in my personal creative vocabulary to see where these thoughts take me:

Walking the Labyrinth

Lyn Belisle, 2026
Earthenware, encaustic on wood, found objects

The labyrinth is one of humanity’s oldest symbols of pilgrimage. Unlike a maze, it offers a single path—one that winds inward before leading outward again. It reminds us that life’s journey is rarely direct. We circle through uncertainty, joy, grief, wonder, and renewal, gradually finding our way to the quiet center of ourselves. And then, transformed by what we have discovered, we begin the journey home.

This altar honors that timeless rhythm: birth, exploration, wisdom, and return. The crow, eggs, spiral, and watchful face are companions along the way, each representing mystery, transformation, memory, and new beginnings. Together they suggest that every stage of the journey holds its own sacred gifts.

Inscribed across the altar is a simple blessing that accompanies every traveler:

Go in peace.
Travel in safety.
Walk with courage.
Return with joy.

Whether we are setting out on a new adventure, navigating the labyrinth of daily life, or completing the final journey that returns us to the mystery from which we came, may these words remind us that every path—however winding—is worthy of trust.

Good Enough Is a Devotion

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This week I had grand plans. I imagined sitting down with a cup of coffee (or a Diet Dr. Pepper) and writing one of those thoughtful blog posts that wanders through ideas before gently arriving somewhere meaningful. But another project had other plans for me.

I was determined to finish Tokens and Talismans before the end of the month, and every spare hour found its way into filming, editing, photographing, writing lessons, and making tiny objects filled with meaning.

So this isn’t the fancy blog post I imagined. And maybe that’s exactly the point!

One of the hardest lessons for artists is accepting that we don’t have to do everything perfectly all the time. We spend so much energy trying to make the work just right that we sometimes forget to be kind to the person making it.

I’ve come to believe that one of the most important Objects of Devotion we can create or care for is ourselves — not in a grand or self-important way, but in small ways.

Giving ourselves permission to stop for the day, or to leave something “good enough.” To make something just because it brings us joy. To trust that not every painting, collage, vessel, or talisman has to carry the weight of the world. Whew!!

The funny thing is that when we stop demanding perfection, our work often becomes more honest. We’ve talked about this before. The work becomes more personal. More alive. Perhaps that’s why this new workshop has become so dear to me.

Tokens and Talismans is all about creating small objects that hold memory, intention, hope, gratitude, protection, or simply delight. They’re humble little pieces—made from found objects, handmade clay elements, paper, thread, fiber, and whatever treasures have been waiting in your studio for the right moment.

They’re reminders that meaning doesn’t come from perfection — it comes from attention, from choosing, and from caring.

So instead of polishing this blog post for another day or two, I’m sending it along just as it is and inviting you to see what I’ve been working on.

I hope you’ll join me for Tokens and Talismans: Personal Objects of Meaning and Small Devotional Collections. I think it may be one of the most joyful workshops in the Objects of Devotion series so far.

And if this week’s post feels a little less polished than usual, perhaps that’s my newest devotional practice. 

More About Choosing: The Dreaming Witness

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Making art is largely a matter of making choices.

Last week, when I wrote about the Lifedance series—three small encaustic collage studies—I promised to share some thoughts about making choices in more three-dimensional work. This Crow Reliquary, one of a group of four, seemed like a good example.

Some choices are conscious, but many emerge from a mysterious mixture of accumulated experience, personal taste, visual memory, and happy accidents. I rarely begin with a fixed plan. Instead, I gather fragments—rusted metal, bits of wood, shells, old photographs, clay forms, found objects—and let them wait patiently until they reveal their purpose.

Perhaps that’s why I collect so many things—and maybe you do, too. A studio full of possibilities makes the act of choosing less about invention and more about recognition. Eventually, one piece simply feels right.

The four new Crow Reliquaries taught me that lesson again. All four reached that awkward late stage when they seemed to need “something” to become complete.

Before arriving at its final form, I tried several different solutions for this piece, The Dreaming Witness. Looking at those alternatives now, I realize that every discarded choice helped lead me to the one that stayed.

By this stage, I had already made some major decisions—a deeply textured surface on a stretched canvas, an altar-like top, and a crow shrine box attached to the center. A band of printed mulberry paper ran across the bottom. It could have been called “finished,” but somehow it wasn’t complete.

So I thought it might be fun to take a little photo tour of what I tried—and what I finally chose.

First, I experimented with a few small charms and tokens attached to the shrine box. They looked more like decorations than meaningful additions, but the idea of small treasures stayed with me.

Next, I pulled a rusted tin nautilus shell from my metal pile. It was close—the shape worked beautifully—but somehow it didn’t connect with the themes of watching and dreaming, nor with the rough beads and clay face above.

Then came a piece of driftwood laid along the bottom of the reliquary box. Again, the shape felt right: rustic, weathered, and quietly beautiful. But it lacked a story of its own. Even so, it gave me an “Aha!” moment. If that shape worked, what else might have the same proportions?

And then I found a small wooden box that had been waiting patiently in the studio for years.

It turned out to be the answer. Its shape echoed the shrine box above, and, as a bonus, it offered a place to hold small objects that connected visually with the rough beads and clay face.

Attaching and engineering is always a part of any assemblage decision. I punched three holes with an awl through the back of the box and through the canvas.

I attached three metal brads through the holes and spread the clasps out on the back of the canvas, but before i did that, I added some E6000 adhesive to the back of the little box for stability.

After attaching it securely, I added tiny clay birds and another rough bead. Final touches included a metal plaque, a few straight twigs, and a sheet of mica that gives the bird a slightly dreamlike presence.

Crow Reliquary: The Dreaming Witness

Looking back at the photographs, I realize that none of the earlier attempts were mistakes. They were stepping stones. Every rejected choice quietly pointed toward the one that belonged.

That’s one of the things I love about making art. So much of the process is simply paying attention and trusting that the work will eventually reveal what it needs.

I’m curious—if you had been standing beside me in the studio, would you have chosen one of the earlier versions instead? Which solution speaks to you most? There are no wrong answers, and I think it’s fun to imagine the many directions a piece might take.

I’d also love to hear about the choices you make in your own creative work. Do you sketch out a plan and follow it faithfully, or do you, like me, collect possibilities and wait for the right one to announce itself? Have you ever changed course at the last minute and discovered that the “almost” version was simply leading you toward the one that truly belonged?

After all, perhaps making art isn’t so much about making perfect choices as it is about recognizing them when they appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choices, Choices

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about ideas—questions of permanence, memory, meaning, and even the Japanese concept of mono no aware.

Those ideas matter to me. They help me understand why I make things.But eventually, every artist arrives at the same place: The studio — and the work.(Remember that country song, A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action? 🙂

Right now, I’m preparing for a small exhibition in the Members Gallery at the San Antonio Art League & Museum. That means spending hours surrounded by scraps of paper, bits of wood, old photographs, thread, wax, and all the other materials that somehow find their way into my collages and assemblages.

It’s satisfying work. It’s also surprisingly difficult work.

For me, the challenge is rarely technical. The challenge is making decisions.

A piece may sit on the table while I sort through dozens of scraps of paper looking for the right one. Sometimes I spend thirty minutes searching for a half-inch fragment that feels exactly right. Other times I’ll rearrange an assemblage element over and over before finally committing to its placement.

Elizabeth’s Crow

Experience has taught me that there is a difference between a piece that is merely interesting and a piece that belongs. When I find the one that belongs, the work becomes quieter. It stops arguing with me.

To an outsider, this might not look like work at all. Many people wouldn’t call this “work,” but if you’ve been there, you know what I mean. If you’ve ever made something—whether it’s a painting, a poem, a quilt, a garden, or a piece of music—you know that decisions are the work. Every choice closes one door and opens another.

One thing that helps with decision-making is working in a small series. If you decide on a connecting thread—several similar figures, a collection of windows, a recurring symbol, or a particular color palette—you can limit your choices from the beginning. You might make each piece the same size and use many of the same materials.

For example, I’ve just completed a series of three small 5″ x 7″ encaustic collages called Lifedance. The size was already determined. The figures were already chosen. The palette is related across all three pieces. Those decisions are made before I ever begin searching for the perfect collage scrap or deciding where an image should be placed.

The challenge then becomes a more interesting one: how do I create three pieces that clearly belong together without making them duplicates of one another? What can change, and what should remain consistent? Instead of facing an overwhelming number of possibilities, I’m working within a smaller set of choices.

Lifedance #1

Lifedance #2

Lifedance #3

These three small Lifedance collages are modest works. They were created for a small exhibit, and I doubt they will change the course of art history. But while I was making them, I realized they had become a useful reminder of how much of life is shaped by choices.

Each collage is the result of dozens of decisions: which image to use, which papers belong together, what to leave out, what to emphasize, when to stop. None of those choices seems especially significant on its own, yet together they create something that did not exist before.

As I worked on the series, it occurred to me that we spend much of our lives in a similar process. Most days are not defined by dramatic turning points. Instead, they are shaped by a succession of small decisions—what to pursue, what to postpone, what to keep, what to discard, where to place our attention, and when to let something be finished.

In that sense, these little dancers feel like a metaphor for everyday life. The collages work as a series because they share a common thread, but each one has its own character because of the individual choices made along the way.

Perhaps that is true of our lives as well. We are connected by common themes and shared experiences, yet our paths are shaped by the countless small decisions that belong only to us.

Art doesn’t move forward in grand gestures very often. More often it advances one small decision at a time –sort of like life, right?

Next time I’ll show you some choices I am struggling with to finish a series of four Crow Reliquaries. And you know that decisions are the hard work! Never forget, though, that there is always more than one right answer.

 

What is “Mono no Aware”?

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In my last post, I wrote about the question artists are often asked:

“Is it archival?”

Since then, I’ve been thinking about a Japanese phrase that offers another way of looking at value and permanence.

The phrase is mono no aware (moh-noh noh ah-WAH-reh).

It is often translated as “the pathos of things,” but that translation feels a little formal to me. I prefer to think of it as an awareness that everything changes—and a tenderness toward that fact.

At first, I thought mono no aware was simply about fleeting moments: a cherry blossom that blooms for only a few days, a sunset that fades before we are ready, or a song that ends too soon.

Those examples certainly fit. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that mono no aware isn’t only about being present for a fleeting moment. It’s also about honoring the fleeting moments that have already passed.

A faded photograph. A handwritten recipe card. A child’s drawing. A worn quilt. A shard of pottery. An old letter tucked inside a book.

None of these things are fleeting in themselves. In fact, they may have survived for decades. Yet they move us because they carry the memory of something that was fleeting—a conversation, a childhood, a relationship, a season of life that can never be repeated.

The object becomes a vessel for memory. And perhaps that is where art enters the conversation.

Many of the things I create are assembled from fragments: old papers, bits of cloth, found objects, rusted treasures, broken pieces that have already lived another life. I’ve often wondered why I am so drawn to these materials. Perhaps it is because they already carry evidence of time.

A shard is not simply a broken object; it is a reminder that something once existed in another form. A worn piece of cloth speaks of the hands that touched it. A rusted object quietly marks the passage of years. Even a simple vessel suggests stories that were held, shared, and carried forward.

These objects become meaningful not because they have escaped change, but because they reveal it.

As I’ve been developing my Objects of Devotion series, I’ve realized that many of these pieces function in exactly this way. They are not meant to preserve a particular moment forever. Rather, they honor the traces left behind by moments that mattered.

A Listening Vessel may hold memories of conversations spoken and unspoken. A Guardian may embody someone who protected us, guided us, or encouraged us along the way. A shard may become a reminder of resilience, transformation, or healing.

Lyn Belisle, 2026

The object itself becomes less important than the human experience it carries.

That realization helped me understand something important about the question of whether art is archival.

The archival question asks, “How long will the object survive?”

Mono no aware asks, “What human experience does the object carry?”

Both questions have value.

As artists, we want our work to be well made. We want it to endure as long as reasonably possible. There is honor in craftsmanship and care. But permanence is not the only measure of worth.

A conversation may last only a few minutes. A song only a few moments. A friendship a season. A life a handful of decades. Yet their influence can remain with us forever.

Perhaps the deepest purpose of art is not to defeat time but to bear witness to it. Art holds memory. It honors connection. It reminds us that what is fragile is often precious.

The Japanese seem to understand something that many of us spend years learning: the awareness that things do not last forever does not diminish their beauty. It deepens it.

The photograph matters because the moment is gone.The shard matters because it remains.The artwork matters because it helps us remember.

And maybe the feeling at the heart of mono no aware is not sadness at all. Maybe it is gratitude—the silent gratitude that comes from recognizing that something beautiful passed through our lives and left a trace behind.

Thanks for reading
— Lyn

More on Mono No Aware:

https://www.toki.tokyo/blogt/mono-no-aware-aesthetics-of-a-fleeting-word

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/untranslatable-words-mono_b_9292490

Is It Archival?

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I just returned from Colorado where I saw some wonderful art, like these ephemeral, powerful fiber art garments by Wendy Mike at the Auric Gallery that floated like magical gossamer armor.

While I was walking, fascinated, through this amazing exhibition, I heard someone ask the gallery owner, “Is It Archival?” It’s one of the most common questions artists hear.

The question usually arises when someone learns that a piece contains unconventional materials: a scrap of paper from an old book, a rusty object, a found photograph, a fragment of cloth, a piece of cardboard rescued from the recycling bin, or silk stiffened with polymer..

Will it last? It’s a reasonable question. Museums ask it. Conservators ask it. Collectors ask it. Artists ask it of themselves. And yet I sometimes wonder if we are asking the wrong question.

What if the more important question is: Did it touch your heart?

We live in a culture that sometimes places enormous value on permanence. We buy acid-free boxes, UV-protective glass, archival inks, conservation-grade adhesives, and museum-quality papers. We are encouraged to think in decades and centuries.

But human experience rarely works that way. A flower is not archival. A sand mandala is not archival. A handwritten note tucked into a pocket is not archival. A child’s drawing on the refrigerator is not archival. Yet each of these can hold tremendous meaning.

As artists, we certainly want our work to be well made. We want it to endure as long as reasonably possible. There is nothing wrong with using materials that honor longevity and craftsmanship. But sometimes the pursuit of permanence overshadows the purpose of making.

Many of the objects I create are what I think of as objects of devotion. They are vessels, figures, fragments, and assemblages built from humble materials—paper, wax, cloth, clay, rusted treasures, and found remnants of other lives. They are not always intended to survive for hundreds of years.

Their purpose is not immortality. Their purpose is connection.

They remind us of a memory, a longing, a story, a mystery. They give shape to something that was previously invisible. They create a moment of attention in a distracted world.

Perhaps that is enough. After all, how long does something need to last to be valuable? A conversation may last only a few minutes. A sunset disappears in moments. A piece of music fades as soon as the final note is played. Yet their impact can stay with us for a lifetime.

Maybe the true archive is not the object itself but the imprint it leaves behind. The joy of making. The comfort of holding. The spark of recognition. The memory carried forward.

Archival materials matter. But perhaps meaning matters more.