Andrew Henderson is a Maritime artist who lives in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Many of the objects he paints have a connection to the past—often his personal past.

The Mason jar he is so fond of portraying was a container often found on the kitchen table in his family home outside Fredericton, NB. The jar was usually filled with jam, but Henderson finds it a convenient place to preserve other things as well. The Mason jars he paints are filled with various bits of personal flotsam and jetsam.

Objects made of glass continue to fascinate Henderson, who loves how this fragile material can be shaped and molded into vessels that promote beauty. According to Henderson, “Glass a material that can reveal or distort. Light can pass right through it, or be reflected back at us. It is simply enchanting.”

For Henderson, items such as the ferry between Prince Edward Island and the Mainland, the wobbly wooden chairs that graced his family kitchen, and the Mason jars that held a variety of special preserves are the items that maintain a connection to his personal timeline and often act as a starting point for the creation of his artwork.

“Art is an attempt to return a portion of the joy that the world presents to us. We are all creatures of time and of our own personal histories. The objects in my work reflect the world in which I grew up, and the landscape in which I find myself today. As artists we are in many ways in the business of preservation. The images we create preserve what we see and how we feel at a particular time. Many of my images deal with preserves: The images follow the idea that some things or ideas are worth maintaining into the future, and are valuable to us.”