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MICHELLE BELTO
SAN ANTONIO

When I look back at my almost fifty years of creative work, I am not
surprised to learn that what attracts me most is what lies between things.
I am interested in discovering how time and memory, for example,
can share a space, or how an ending holds within it the seed of a new
beginning. I come from a perspective that spirit, or the spiritual, is as real
as our physical world.

I create complex surfaces that speak to eras of time where remembered
experiences are viewed as scars and remains, traces of the original
thought. Quotidian Reliquary references medieval church niches
containing relics of saints, men and women venerated for their
exemplary and holy lives. I gathered personal mementos of the “saints”
in my life and buried these small objects in specially created niches in
a dimensional support of cast paper pulp. Traditionally, these niches
were covered with wax mastiffs consisting of beeswax, frankincense and
marble dust. I used similar ingredients melted and torched as a way to
add color and provide a protective finish. Having spent many years in a
religious community, I am drawn to the image of a beehive as a social
structure.

Sweet Sisterhood captures my remembered experience of that time of
enclosure where I learned the values of silence, communal living and
daily service. The simplicity of that life set the stage for later choosing
my primary art mediums of paper and wax. In my current body of work,
I am seeking insight into how the small acts of our everyday life can be
used to widen and deepen our spirituality.

Everyday Sacraments, Ordinary Prayers is a series of paintings
and sculptures that will be exhibited in 2024. For those interested in
following the process of the development of this content and seeing the
work as it progresses, follow my Blog, Breadcrumbs. You can find it on
my website: www.michellebelto.com

Sweet Sisterhood
2011

wax, resin, oil on artist made cast paper
24 x 30 x 1.25”
10 lbs Framed
$1250