The Wild Woman - Singing Over The Bones

Today I received a very exciting email from a woman who lives in Cwnbran South Wales, by the name of Mandy Squires. She had contacted me some time ago about using one of my paintings  The Wild Woman- Singing over the Bones for this poster advertising a workshop she was involved with in 2013. I did two versions of this painting, and she used both. These paintings are based on  Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book Women Who Run With The Wolves.
Mandy and her and her husband are SCUBA divers, and they have an amazing site, remarkable and beautiful underwater photography from all over the world. I wanted to share and these photos can be seen at this link below.

http://www.pixelreef.co.uk

Wild Woman/ La Loba

Since I sold a version of this painting last Saturday, I wanted to replace it, and who knows I might sell it again, or I just might keep it. I am much happier with this version. There is more detail but I am realizing  more and more the thing with egg tempera painting is layering several layers and a variety of mark making. It's been a while getting used to egg tempera as it has not long been my medium for  paint, but these little paintings are good studies for me. The surfaces are masonite. I would prefer wood, however these small panel pieces where given to me so I am making use of them.


As mentioned in my previous posts these paintings are based on the stories from, " Women That Run With The Wolves." I am reading and studying the stories as I go. Though I have read this book a number of times, this time it is different for me because of my painting the fairy tale stories and they have become more actualized and integrated in my psyche and in my life.


"We all begin as a bundle of bones lost somewhere in the desert, a dismantled skeleton that lies under the sand. It is our work to recover the parts. It is a painstaking process best done when the shadows are just right, for it takes much looking. La Loba indicates what we are to look for-the indestructible life force, the bones. 


The work of La Loba can be thought of as representing cuento milagro, miracle story. It shows us what can go right for the soul. It is a resurrection story about the underworld connection to Wild Woman. It promises that if we sing the song, we can call up the psychic remains of the wild soul and sing her into a vital shape again.


La Loba sings over the bones she has gathered. To sing means to use the soul-voice. It means to say on the breath of truth of one's power and one's need, to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing or in need of restoration. This is done by descending  into the deepest mood of great love and feeling, till one's desire for relationship with the wildish Self overflows, then to speak one's soul from that frame of mind. That is singing over the bones. " - Clarissa Pinnkola Estes

La Loba

My second egg tempera painting of La Loba/Wolf Woman the collector of bones.

"She collects and preserves especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with all manner of desert creatures: the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow. But her specialty is wolves.

She creeps and crawls and sifts through the mountains and the dry riverbeds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid before her, she sits by the fire and thinks about what song she will sing. And when she is sure, she stands over the criatura, raises her arms over it, and sings out. That is when the rib bones and leg bones of the wolf begin to flesh out and the creature becomes furred, La Loba sings some more, and more of the creature comes into being." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes