Wolves
My guardian wolf.
I sculpted this piece back in 2001, somewhat in reaction to the 9/11 debacle and somewhat as a cerebus against the turmoil of my own little life’s dramas. She’s protected my tender spirit through a lot since then.
Wolves have always entranced me. Wild, fierce, beautiful, savage, loyal beasts. I often imagined them roaming the forests I grew up in, though in all my fifteen years there, I only caught one breathtaking glimpse.
We were driving the endless stretches of Highway One, which seems to meander aimlessly all over Maine. It was one of those amazing, sunny, snowy ANW days where the drifts hurt you with their brilliant whiteness and the ice-coated trees bedazzle your eyes, every gnarled limb and leafless twig transformed into a shimmering fairyland fantasy of coruscating crystal.
The wolf stood at the mouth of a small woodland meadow, perhaps fifty feet away. It was over in an instant, though we craned our necks to see longer and begged the adults to stop the car. I don’t clearly remember what they said, probably that it was too icey, or the animal was gone and it was probably just a coyote anyway… But I’ll never forget the wolf.
My first ceramic sculpture ever, in high school, was a commemoration of that moment:
