What Will Your Reliquary Hold?
This crow reliquary began with an image, a small handmade object, and a sense of mystery.
Layer by layer, these elements came together to create a vessel for memory and meaning.
Your reliquary will tell a different story. It might honor someone you love, preserve a treasured memory, celebrate a guiding symbol, or give new life to a fragment of your own artwork.
There is no single formula—and no two reliquaries will ever be alike. I’ll show you the process; you’ll decide what belongs inside.
Create a Small Shrine for What Matters Most
Throughout history, people have created reliquaries and icons to honor what they hold sacred—beloved people, treasured memories, guiding symbols, and stories they never want to forget.
In this self-paced workshop, you’ll create your own contemporary reliquary: a richly layered work of art combining a textured surface with a small icon box. Inside, you might place a photograph, an original collage, a tiny handmade object, a fragment of meaningful artwork, or a collection of personal tokens.
I’ll guide you step by step as you:
- Build a beautifully aged and textured ground
- Create and finish your icon box
- Choose imagery and objects with personal meaning
- Bring the separate elements together into one cohesive piece
- Add thoughtful details that deepen its story
No religious interpretation is required. Your reliquary may honor a person, a place, an idea, a creature, a moment, or simply something that has shaped your life.
This is more than an art project. It is a place to gather memory, gratitude, and meaning—and give them visible form.
Personal Remembrances
Memories grew from the desire to preserve something tender and personal. Its layered images and timeworn materials suggest how memory works—not as a complete story, but as glimpses and fragments. The reliquary offers those fragments a protected place where they can be remembered and honored.
Honoring the Birds and Animals
Crow Spirit began with the crow image, which seemed to carry a sense of mystery, watchfulness, and ancient knowing. As the surrounding textures and objects were added, the piece became a small place of honor for intuition—and for the unseen guides that accompany us.
Relics and Icons
Shard and Bone brings together fragments that suggest age, survival, and transformation. The broken shard and the bone-like forms feel like remnants of an untold story. By placing them together, they become something newly sacred—a reminder that what is broken can still hold meaning.
Lessons
- Commitment and Connections - The Crow Reliquary 1 (18:45)
- Commitment and Connections: The Crow Reliquary 2 (15:10)
- Commitment and Connections: The Shard and Bone Reliquary 1 (10:46)
- Commitment and Connection - The Shard and Bone Reliquary 2 (21:07)
- Commitment and Connection - The Memory Reliquary (21:39)
About Your Teacher, Lyn Belisle
I’m Lyn Belisle, a mixed-media artist, educator, and lifelong gatherer of meaningful objects, old stories, and intriguing fragments. My work often explores vessels, guardians, relics, and the quiet power of objects that seem to carry a history of their own.
For many years, I’ve taught workshops that encourage artists to trust their intuition, experiment with unfamiliar materials, and discover the stories waiting within their work. My approach is supportive and open-ended: I’ll demonstrate the techniques and share possibilities, but I’ll never tell you what your art should mean or how it should look.
Objects of Devotion: Creating Contemporary Reliquaries and Icons is the fourth workshop in the Objects of Devotion series—and perhaps the most personal. It brings together many of the ideas at the heart of my own practice: memory, gratitude, mystery, and the human desire to give visible form to what we cherish.
I hope this workshop helps you create something that could belong to no one but you.
Other Objects of Devotion Workshops
