Holy Order
Growing up in a religious household and attending Catholic schools for 12 years, I’m very accustomed to small flower-flanked shrines dedicated to religious figurines. Every classroom had one of these shrines honoring Jesus or Mary, or at the very least, a painted depiction displayed in a gold ornamental frame. Some of these shrines even provided cushioned kneelers for prayerful contemplation. There was an expectation that these items be shown a certain amount of reverence in their presence, which I now realize made me assume that the same reverence was adhered to by everyone outside my Catholic school walls.
In browsing thrift shops and antique stores in later years, I would often see religious figurines on fanciful doilies that reminded me of my childhood. Once I started noticing these figurines, I became very interested in the juxtaposition of these items in relation to secular items. I noted whether the vendor grouped all the religious items together, or if they threw them together haphazardly with any other items roughly the same size. I found it sometimes shocking, but then comical, to see just how odd or irreverent some of these groupings could be. Were the vendors oblivious, or was it some underlying statement as to how they viewed organized religion? Did they see the humor in how they placed these items, or was it just mindless shifting in organizing their areas?
Eventually, I started snapping photos with my phone when I came across a grouping that was particularly amusing. My rule for myself was that I could not touch the items of interest, including positioning them for a better composition. I could remove one or two items that blocked a clear view, but never staged a shot. The placement of these items was the interesting part that I wanted to capture.
I continue to add to this series every time I’m in a thrift shop. It makes it even more interesting that I’ve never met any of these vendors and can only speculate about their thought process, or lack thereof. I'm just an amused bystander documenting my finds.
