Grace Gunning

 Play and mystery are main ingredients in your Reliquary Box made in Grace Gunning's studio.  The boxes evoke a time one has had as a child, lost in a world of ones own.  The rolling balls in the lid of each box have a mesmerizing dreamy effect like that of water.  Images range from interactive, to plaintive, to spiritual to downright odd.  Patinaed copper gives the boxes a solid warmth.

     After years of working primarily with glass, Grace Gunning found old 1890's metal forming machines and began to experiment with a very heavy gauge of copper, hoping to learn to form a box.  It took a year or so to teach herself the techniques that are all but lost in this very modern world.  In time the boxes, eached formed one at a time, became more than just boxes.  Although the word Reliquary means ' a receptacle for treasures ', Grace hopes she's created a treasure to hold your treasures.

     Growing up in Blacklick, Ohio in the late 50's and early 60's as a Quaker and moving to N.Y.C. as a teenager in the later 60's gave Grace the sense that life is whackier than we can even imagine.

     In her studio in upstate N.Y. , along the mighty Hudson River, past meets present.  Through the work of play and the play of work, and these marvelous old machines, Grace brings you her Reliquary Boxes.