MY WORK EMERGES AS I BREATHE MYSELF THROUGH THE REALMS OF THE MYSTERY.
The Mystery is too vast to be interpreted yet through stillness it emerges gently as a message that unfolds into a tangible material language. The language is coded into objects, text, installations, performance, ritual, and ceremony. My making is prayer through form as a way to thread the seen and the unseen.
Her Eternal Ceremonial Knives is a response to a multidimensional howl in my heart. Many of us are hearing the call of Gaia, of Creation; to return to balance with the web of life thru knowing the relationships of spirit and form. Mystical ceremonial practices of earth, plant, sound, prayer, interspecies communication, silence are a human birthright. If there was ever a need for a reactivating of the Ancestral Ancient Wisdom embodied in our bones and blood, it is now.
I bow to the precious Wisdom Carriers and Wisdom Teachings that have not been forgotten. I hear the call that there are Indigenous practices that navigate the mystery stored in all of our bones. You have the wisdom of your wise ancestors; who knew the ways of plants, sky, star, animal, soil, the physical and spiritual relationships. These ancestors whose DNA is passed to you, are longing to be with you and in this evolutionary journey with Gaia.
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ABOUT THE MATERIALS
All the materials I work with in my practice of talisman making are invited and engaged with as sentient beings. What do I mean by that? In my world, all things have an intelligence, a spirit, and an essence that can be conversed with.
The bronze, silver, and gold I recognize as the blood veins of Gaia. All the metals I work with are recycled. They have a history. This adds a fascinating layer of presence into the field.
The bronze in our world has been recycled by industries into multiple forms since the Bronze Age. Your bronze piece may have been on a battlefield as a helmet, sword, or breastplate.
Silver has followed a wild journey of rising and falling value. Many wars have been financed through the trade of silver. And though she has built nations, she has often been the Cinderella of the precious metal world. As of 2026, her value has just multiplied and she has re-entered the economy as a precious metal.
When I first cast the New Moon Blade in silver and held the 4 ounces in my palm, she transmitted the power of recognizing one’s worth regardless of what the world sees.
Gold. She, too, is recycled. Although she has her place in the precious metal realm, she also is radiant, magical, and a conduit to solar and stellar light. Gold is not native to Gaia. So every bit of gold arrived here from the stars.
About the bronze
Ancient Bronze vs. Solar Bright Bronze vs. White Bronze
I love bronze because it has such a high percentage of copper. Copper is a highly conductive element for energetic and magical work.
The Ancient Bronze is an alloy of 99% copper and has a warmer glow, but it will tarnish more quickly. Some people like the tarnish and see it as a marking of time. The tarnish does invite more of a relationship – a person must tend to its glow.
Solar Bright Bronze is 92% copper and will tarnish more slowly. It has a brighter yet warm glow. It will require less tending.
White Bronze has a pale, luminous glow, closer to silver in appearance but with the quiet warmth of copper beneath it. It will develop a subtle patina over time, though more slowly than Ancient Bronze. Its surface can remain bright with relatively little tending, while still revealing the marks of touch, use, and time. White Bronze offers a quieter relationship with aging that’s less about tending to its glow and more about allowing its character to emerge.
Deer Skin
Some of my pendants hang on braided deer skin laces. My connection to the deer is strong. The logo for Her Eternal Ceremonial Knives has buck antlers. The deer is a generous, precious ally for humanity’s survival. Whenever I braid and weave with the skin of the deer, her presence is sung in with gratitude. May you feel her beauty.
BIO
Caroline Seckinger is a conceptual and performance artist with a working repertoire of printmaking, drawing, sculpture in metal, fibers, animal skins, bones, feathers, plants, stones, wax; film, and digital media. Seckinger counters this diversification of modalities with a honing of her content, focusing her inquiry fairly specifically on a phenomenon in contemporary social and esoteric discourses. The result is a diverse and ambitious body of (art) work that is increasingly conceptual, intellectual, spiritual and political, and yet unrelentingly lyrical and aesthetic.
Seckinger uses low-tech and ancient skills that are the traditional domain of women’s work (carding, spinning, stitching, knitting, knotting, weaving) and the 6000+ year old art of lost-wax bronze casting and applying these to the most basic human tasks such as making clothing, tools, shelters, nets, containers and vessels. The often repetitive nature of these working practices permeates both the content and the form of the work, much of which is based on serial presentations and narrative expositions. When she ventures into they foundry work of bronze casting she explores the techniques of embedding the mystical into the material. Her high-tech and modern skills as a film-maker and digital graphic artist have been to bear on the same set of materials and themes, viewers are invited to consider the relationships between the domestic and public realm, high and lowcraft, “his and her” work, the known and unknown, the form and formless.
Seckinger uses meditative and ceremonial practices within her making to deepen her conversation with the dimensions of all things.
Seckinger is a graduate of University of Santa Cruz (BFA) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA). She has worked as a community organizer, international activist, investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, spiritual activist and meditation leader; all which have informed her practice as an artist as a social/spiritual lens. She is the recipient of numerous film awards and artist grants.