La Loba

Myths of triumphant forest goddesses fascinate. Artemis, Devana, Morrigan, Brigid, Skeleton Woman, Baba Yaga.....and La Loba.



What do all these sage women have in common? The ability to honor our natural cycles of growth and decay, synthesizing and sculpting the disparate bones of life. In La Loba's case she sings them back to re-birth the wolf. Life-blood at it's finest. Flow replaces vacancy and the cycles of life... repeat.

“La Loba” in folklore is the “Bone Collector”. The more bones she collects, the more alive the animal becomes. La Loba is one of many powerful spirits Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Ph.D discusses in her book "Women Who Run With the Wolves".  When I first read about La Loba, chills rushed and my eyes watered. There is a Bone Collector goddess?!! Ahhh...heroes. This book continues to inspire my journey through life. The true sculptors are my own dogs who deliciously etch and wear each bone. Molds are made and my own sculpting begins.

 

 Life is blending, fading, then bursting open again...



La Loba 2013 Casted Glass - Sherri Gamble

"You can dent the soul and bend it. You can hurt it and scar it. You can leave marks of illness upon it, and scorch marks of fear. But it does not die, for it is protected by La Loba in the underworld. She is both the finder and incubator of bones. Bones are heavy enough to hurt with, sharp enough to cut through flesh, and when old and if strung, tinkle like glass.

The bones of the living are alive and creatural in themselves, they constantly renew themselves. A living bone has a curiously soft "skin" to it. It appears to have certain powers to regenerate itself. Even dry as a bone, it becomes home for small living creatures. Today the old one inside you is collecting bones. What is she re-making?" 

 Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Ph.D, Women Who Run with the Wolves

Below Our Feet....

Yesterday gifted me with the feeling of Christmas Eve. A warm Tuesday night of art-making and I patiently grinned. Method was a hymn as I planned color schemes and packing my molds for my next glass casting.

My control releases as the the kiln ramps to 1575 degrees. Saturday will be THE day. What will become? While my next forms are molten, I ponder the simularities between my two biggest creative passions: cast glass and earth plaster finishes.

These materials and processes resonate a quick, forceful intensity. You are lost in that brief moment when nothing else matters except what is in your hands. You must GO..don't ponder. "Catch that edge before I set!" says Lime. "You have 2 minutes till I become brittle!" shouts Gypsum. Your instincts sharpen to a fine .01 tip.

My sense of materiality is rooted in textured, stratified earthen layers. Plaster speaks through shiny hand-troweled veneers or heavy hand-built forms. Marble, clay, lime, gypsum, cement, terracotta, silica, all bring different qualities and purposes. Knowing the languege of each can help us transform spaces and evoke the spirit. It's amazing that we can find this creative abundance in the earth below our feet.

”The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.” -- Picasso.


I invite you to visit www.sageartemis.etsy.com to view more of my kiln-cast glass work!