Head, Heart, Hands

In the case of Erika Wanenmacher's bell jar, … we are invited to see the artist herself, in miniature, with tree branches growing out of her hands, heart, and head. The encapsulation of the artist is, arguably, beneficial rather than oppressive, and the entwining of tree and person speaks to the interdependence of humankind and the natural world. The confident stance of the subject suggests a comfort within her diminutive environment. Significantly, the branches of emanating from the figure also resemble lightning or visible energy. The artist's lifelong study of the occult is apparent in this self-representation that is charged, so to speak, with otherworldly symbolism. In this way, Wanenmacher uses the bell jar not as a tool of scientific knowledge but as a means of manifesting the inexplicable.

… [T]he human figure contained in Wanenmacher's glass case brings to mind a reliquary, which characteristically contains some partial remains of a saint or other sacred object to be revered and fetishized. In this case, perhaps, the entity to be venerated is the artist as a contemporary seer, an individual responsible for requiring of us a gaze that is critical and questioning. Indeed the title of Wanenmacher's sculpture  Head, Heart, Hands, places artists in a position of great adulation by referencing an oft-cited quotation by St. Francis of Assisi: "He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."