From Sea to Shining Sea

My concept speaks to the way we sacralize a "pure" form of nature. This "nature" may not exist in real life, but it fills our stories, glossy magazines, and suburban dreams. I chose the reliquary altar as the metaphor for my piece in order to access this reverence toward an ideal nature.

The idyllic sunrise sits in the central window of the altar, under the formal architectural archway. It calls to mind a new day, a bright dawn, a fresh start: purity. The two landscapes with bodies of water, framed in wood, sit on either side of the central icon (blue to complement the orange; water to complement the fire). The two side panels are lower than the central panel in order to create a positional hierarchy, in addition to the color and imagery hierarchy. The weight in each of the side images is diagonal from the outer top corner to the inner lower corner. In the central image, the weight of the silhouetted tree is centered at the bottom of the image. The horizons are aligned, with a slight taper in the distant mountains from right to left.

Beneath the icon triptych sit three "relics" from nature, representing the major categories of animals, plants, and insects. The relics sit on textural backgrounds to recognize our foundation of earth and rock. The overall colors of the relic nooks are the complement to the color of the icon images on the respective panels. The center relic joins the warm and cool colors into a single centerpiece. The cross-bars separating the icons from the relics are a bit warmer and redder in color than the wood that supports the exterior of the altar. While a closer match to the left and right relic backgrounds, it was suggested that the cross-bars could be made to match the exterior wood in order to create more structural unity.

The landscape pasture, complete with cows, supports the entire structure. It references the great expanses of pastureland in the middle of "idealized" America -- the "Breadbasket" and the "Heartland." (If I lived closer to expansive wheat fields, then I might have "amber waves of grain" supporting the altar.)